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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secrets of a Savoyard, by Henry A. Lytton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: The Secrets of a Savoyard
+
+Author: Henry A. Lytton
+
+Release Date: April 6, 2012 [EBook #39392]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Moti Ben-Ari, Charlene Taylor and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Author as "Jack Point"]
+
+
+
+
+    THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    BY
+    HENRY A. LYTTON
+
+
+    JARROLDS
+    PUBLISHERS (LONDON) LTD
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE.
+    THE UPHOLDER
+    OF
+    A GREAT TRADITION
+
+
+
+
+    "THE GONDOLIERS."
+
+(After assisting at the first night of the new Gilbert-and-Sullivan
+revival.)
+
+
+    You may boast of your Georgian birds of song
+    And say that never was stuff so strong,
+    That its note of genius simply mocks
+    At yester-century's feeble crocks,
+    And floods the Musical Comedy stage
+    With the dazzling art of a peerless age.
+    But for delicate grace and dainty wit,
+    For words and melody closely knit,
+    Your best purveyors of mirth and joy
+    Were never in sight of the old Savoy;
+    They never began to compete, poor dears,
+    With Gilbert-and-Sullivan's _Gondoliers_.
+
+    For me, as an out-of-date Victorian,
+    Prehistoric and dinosaurian,
+    I hardly feel that I dare reflect
+    On the art of the day with disrespect;
+    But if anyone asks me, "Who'll survive--
+    The living dead, or the dead alive?
+    Which of the two will be last to go--
+    The Gondoliers or the latest show?"
+    I wouldn't give much for the latter's chance;
+    That is the view that I advance,
+    Trusting the public to bear me out
+      (The good from the bad they're quick to sever);
+    "Of this I nurse no manner of doubt,
+    No probable, possible shadow of doubt,
+      No possible doubt whatever."--O. S.
+
+_(Reprinted by kind permission of the proprietors of "Punch," and of Sir
+Owen Seaman._)
+
+
+
+
+    Contents.
+
+
+                                                 PAGE.
+           FOREWORD. BY MR. RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE      8
+           HENRY A. LYTTON: AN APPRECIATION          9
+
+    CHAPTER.
+        I. YOUTH AND ROMANCE                        13
+       II. VAGABONDAGE OF THE COMMONWEALTH          25
+      III. CLIMBING THE LADDER                      38
+       IV. LEADERS OF THE SAVOY                     53
+        V. ADVENTURES IN TWO HEMISPHERES            69
+       VI. PARTS I HAVE PLAYED                      81
+      VII. FRIENDS ON AND OFF THE STAGE             94
+    VIII. HOBBIES OF A SAVOYARD                    110
+      IX. GILBERT AND SULLIVAN                     121
+
+    THE STORIES OF THE OPERAS                      136
+    A SAVOYARD BIBLIOGRAPHY                        185
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD.
+
+
+_There have been many who have made great reputations in the Gilbert and
+Sullivan characters and have established themselves as favourites with
+the public who love and follow the operas, and when the roll comes to be
+written down finally, if ever it is, Henry Lytton undoubtedly will be
+assigned a foremost place. He has played a wide variety of the parts,
+and the scope and versatility of his work is unique. It is unlikely that
+his record as a Gilbert and Sullivan artiste will ever be surpassed._
+
+[Illustration: (Signature of) Rupert D'Oyly Carte]
+
+
+
+
+HENRY A. LYTTON.
+BY
+AN ADMIRER OF HIS ART.
+
+
+Sincerely indeed do I offer my good wishes to my old friend, Henry A.
+Lytton, on his giving to the world this most interesting book, "The
+Secrets of a Savoyard."
+
+Lytton represents a distinct type on our musical comedy stage. No other
+artiste, I think, has quite that gift of wit which makes one not merely
+a happier, but a better, man for coming under its spell. Its touch is so
+true and refined and delightful. Somehow we see in him the mirror of
+ourselves, our whimsicalities, and our little conceits, and could ever a
+man captivate us so deliciously with the ironies of life or yet chide us
+so well with a sigh?
+
+Certainly it was fortunate both to him and to us that circumstances, in
+the romantic manner this book itself describes, first turned his early
+steps towards Gilbert and Sullivan, and thus opened a career that was to
+make him one of the greatest, as he is now the last, of the Savoyards.
+Like the natural humorist he is, he could be and has been a success in
+ordinary musical comedy rôles, but it is in these wonderful operas that
+he was bound to find just his right sphere. Lytton in Gilbert and
+Sullivan is the "true embodiment of everything that is excellent." He
+was made for these parts, just as they might have been made for him, and
+no man could have carried into the outer world more of the wholesome
+charm of the characters he depicts on the stage. He himself tells us on
+these pages how his own outlook on life has been coloured by his long
+association with these beautiful plays.
+
+So closely, indeed, is he identified in the public mind with the wistful
+figure of _Jack Point_, or the highly susceptible _Lord Chancellor_, or
+the agile _Ko-Ko_ that the thousands of Gilbert and Sullivan worshippers
+who crowd the theatres know all too little of the man behind the motley,
+the real Henry A. Lytton. For that reason I want to speak less about the
+great actor whom the multitude knows and more about the manner of man
+that he is to those, relatively few in numbers, whose privilege it is to
+own his personal friendship.
+
+Lytton's outstanding quality is his modesty. No "star" could have been
+less spoilt by the flatteries of success or by those wonderful
+receptions he receives night after night. Something of the eager,
+impetuous boy still lingers in the heart of him, and he loves the
+society of kindred souls who have some good story to tell and then cap
+it with a better one. But all the while he lives for the operas. Even
+now, after playing in them for twenty-five years, he is constantly
+asking himself whether this bit of action, this inflection of the voice,
+this minor detail of make-up, is right. Can it be improved in keeping
+with the spirit of genuine artistry? So severe a self-critic is he that
+he will take nothing for granted nor allow his work to become slipshod
+because of its very familiarity. If ever there was an enthusiast--and
+there is much in this book to show that he is as great an enthusiast in
+private life as he is while in front of the footlights--it is Harry
+Lytton.
+
+The great enthusiasm of his life is Gilbert and Sullivan. Nobody who
+reads these reminiscences will have any doubt about that, for it shows
+itself on every page, and it is such an infectious enthusiasm that even
+we who love the operas already find ourselves loving them more, and
+agreeing with Lytton that they must not be tampered with and brought
+"up-to-date." From Sir William Gilbert's own lips he heard just what
+the playwright wanted in every detail, and both by his own acting and
+by his help to younger colleagues on the stage he has worthily and
+faithfully upheld the traditions of the Savoy. I have been told more
+than once by members of the company how, when they have felt
+disheartened for some reason or other, he would come along with some
+cheery word, some little bit of advice and encouragement that would make
+all the difference to them. Often and often he has brightened up the
+dreary work of rehearsals by his buoyant humour and all-compelling good
+spirits.
+
+What a happy family must be a company that is led by one who is so
+entirely free from vanity and petty jealousy and whose one aim is to
+help the performance along! Lytton is _bound_ to have that aim because
+of his intense loyalty to the operas themselves, but how much springs as
+well from that inherent kindness of his, which, with that complete lack
+of affectation, makes him so truly one of Nature's gentlemen. "Each for
+all and all for each" was the motto of the heart-breaking Commonwealth
+days, of which he tells us such a pathetic human story here, and it
+seems to remain his motto now that he has climbed to the top of his
+profession as a principal of the D'Oyly Carte Company.
+
+Lytton's acting always seems to me in such perfect "poise." It is so
+refined and spontaneous. Each point receives its full measure, and yet
+is so free of exaggeration or "clowning." He is, that is to say, an
+artiste to his finger-tips, and no real artiste, even when he is a
+humorist, has any place for buffoonery. Like the Gilbert and Sullivan
+operas themselves, he is always so clean and wholesome and pleasant. The
+clearness of his enunciation is a gift in itself, and his dancing
+reminds us of the time when all our dancing was so charming and
+graceful, and thus so different to what it is to-day. And then his
+versatility! Could one imagine a contrast so remarkable as that between
+his characterisation of the ugly, repulsive _King Gama_ in "Princess
+Ida" and the infinitely lovable _Jack Point_ in the "Yeoman of the
+Guard"? Or between his studies of the engaging and more than candid
+_Lord Chancellor_ in "Iolanthe" and that pretentious humbug _Bunthorne_
+in "Patience"? Or between the endless diversions of his frolicsome
+_Ko-Ko_ in "The Mikado" and the gay perplexities of the sedate old
+_General Stanley_ in "The Pirates of Penzance"?
+
+So one might continue to speak of his quite remarkable gallery of
+portraits, both in these operas and apart from them, and one might
+search one's memory in vain for a part which was not a gem of natural
+and clever characterisation, rich in humour and unerring in its
+sympathetic artistry.
+
+Yet no rôle of his, I think, stands out with such fascination in the
+minds of most of us as does dear _Jack Point_, the nimble-witted
+Merryman. The poor strolling player, with his honest heart breaking
+beneath the tinsel of folly, is a figure intensely human and intensely
+appealing, and no less so because of the mingling romance and pathos
+with which it is played. If Lytton had given us only this part, if he
+had shown us only in this case how deftly he can win both our laughter
+and tears, he would have achieved something that would be treasured
+amongst the tenderest, most fragrant memories of the modern stage.
+
+Long may he remain to delight us in these enchanting operas of the
+Savoy! By them English comic opera has had an infinite lustre added to
+it--a lustre that will never be dimmed--and no less surely do the operas
+themselves owe a little of their evergreen freshness and spirit to the
+art of Henry A. Lytton.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+YOUTH AND ROMANCE.
+
+    _Apologia--Early Misfortunes of Management--Stage Debut in
+    Schoolboy Dramatics--St. Mark's, Chelsea--The School's Champion
+    Pugilist--The Sale of Jam-Rolls--Student Days with W. H.
+    Trood--An Artist of Parts--A Fateful Night at the Theatre--The
+    Schoolboy and the Actress--A Firm Hand With a Rival--Three
+    Months' Truancy--Our Marriage and Our Honeymoon in a Hansom--The
+    Dominie and the Married Man--First Engagement with D'Oyly
+    Carte--Dilemma of a Sister and Brother._
+
+
+Eight-and-thirty years on the stage!
+
+Looking back over so long a period, memory runs riot with a thousand
+remembrances of dark days and brighter, and of times of hardship which,
+in their own way, were not devoid of happiness. It has been my good
+fortune to own many valued friendships, and it is to my friends that the
+credit or the guilt, as it may happen to be, of inspiring me to begin
+this venture belongs. Not once, but many times, I have been asked "Why
+don't you write your reminiscences, Lytton?" The late Lord Fisher
+strongly urged me to write them when I paid my last visit to his home a
+few months before he passed to the Great Beyond. So great was my respect
+for Lord Fisher, one of the noblest Englishmen of our age, that I felt
+bound to adopt his suggestion, and it is thus partly in homage to his
+sterling qualities and gifts that I begin now to reveal these "Secrets
+of a Savoyard." This much let me say at the very beginning. Naught that
+is written here will be "set down in malice." Searchers for those too
+numerous chronicles of scandal will look here for spicy tit-bits in
+vain. For what it is worth this is the record of one who has lived a
+happy life, whose vocation it has been to minister to the public's
+enjoyment, and whose outlook has inevitably been happily coloured by
+such a long association with the gladsome operas of the old Savoy.
+
+I cannot say that my love of the footlights was inherited, but at least
+it began to show itself at a very early age. One of my earliest
+recollections is concerned with a little diversion at the village home
+of my guardian. No doubt my older readers will remember the old gallanty
+shows which were in vogue some forty or fifty years ago. Explained
+briefly, these were contrived by use of a number of cardboard figures
+which, with the aid of a candle, were reflected on to a white sheet, and
+which could be manipulated to provide one's audience with a rather
+primitive form of enjoyment. Well, I do not recall where I had been to
+get the idea, but I decided to have a gallanty show at the bottom of the
+garden, and to invite the public's patronage. This ranks as my first
+venture in managerial responsibility. I rigged up a tent--a small and
+jerry-built contrivance it was--and an announcement of the forthcoming
+entertainment in my bold schoolboy's hand was pasted on to the outer
+wall of the garden. The charges for admission were original. Stalls were
+to be purchased with an apple, lesser seats with a handful of chocolates
+or nuts, while a few sweets would secure admission to the pit. The boys
+of the village, having read the notice, turned up and paid their nuts
+and sweets in accordance with the advertised tariff, but the sad fact
+has to be related that the show did not please them at all, and by
+summarily pulling up the pole they brought the tent and the
+entertainment to grief. In other words, I "got the bird." Nor can I say
+that was the end of the tragedy. Under threats I had to repay all that
+the box-office had taken, and as most of the lads claimed more than they
+had actually given, the stock of nuts and sweets was insufficient to
+meet the liabilities. So in the cause of art I found myself thus early
+in life in bankruptcy! My partner in the enterprise proved to be a
+broken reed, for when the roughs of the village got busy he showed a
+clean pair of heels and left me alone with the mob and the wreckage.
+
+Seeing that this is an actor's narrative, I ought to place on record at
+once that my first appearance on any stage was in schoolboy dramatics in
+connection with St. Mark's College, Chelsea. Of St Mark's I shall have
+much to say. I played the title rôle in "Boots at the Swan." Except that
+I enjoyed being the cheeky little hotel "Boots" and fancied myself not a
+little in my striped waistcoat and green apron, I don't remember whether
+my performance was held to be successful or not, but unconsciously the
+experience did give me a mental twist towards the stage.
+
+St. Mark's was regarded in those times--and I am glad to know is still
+regarded--as an excellent school for young gentlemen. But certainly my
+name was never numbered amongst the brightest educational products of
+that academy. What claim I had to fame was in an entirely different
+sphere. I was the school's champion pugilist! In those days I simply
+revelled in fighting. A day without a scrap was a day hardly worth
+living. Occasionally the older lads thought it good sport to tell the
+new-comers what an unholy terror they would be up against when they met
+Lytton. In most cases this was said with such vivid embellishments that
+the youngsters got a heart-sinking feeling. But there was one lad who
+was more adroit. He argued that it was all very well for the school
+champion to fight surrounded by and cheered on by his friends, but that
+this must put the challenger at a distinct disadvantage. He also
+considered that no harm would be done if he measured up this much-boomed
+light-weight before the time came for him to stand up publicly as his
+antagonist. Luring me, therefore, into a quiet corner one day, he
+commanded me in so many words to "put 'em up." Now while it is the
+privilege of a champion to name his own time and conditions, it really
+was too much to tolerate the pretensions of such an impudent upstart. So
+we set to in earnest, and very speedily the new boy was giving me some
+of his best--a straight left timed to the moment--and it needed only two
+such lefts to make me oblivious of time altogether. Certainly he
+succeeded in instilling into my mind a decided respect for his prowess.
+
+Not being too richly endowed with pocket money, I conceived the idea
+that to set up in business as the school pastrycook would serve a
+"long-felt want." Strictly cash terms were demanded. Each day I bought a
+number of rolls at ½d. each and a pot of jam for 4½d. With these I
+retailed slices of most appetising bread and jam at a penny a time and
+made an excellent profit. If the truth must be told the smaller boys got
+no more than a smear of jam on their bread and the bigger boys rather
+more than their share, but on the average it worked out fairly well, and
+the juniors had sufficient discretion not to complain.
+
+[Illustration: Sincerely Henry A Lytton]
+
+If I had any bent in those days--apart from fighting and selling jam
+rolls--it was in the direction of painting. For water-colour sketches I
+had a certain aptitude, and painting remains one of my hobbies, taking
+only second place to my enthusiasm for golf. For tuition I went to W. H.
+Trood at his studio in Chelsea. Trood in his time was an artist of
+parts. He had a fine sense of composition and painted many beautiful
+pictures. If he had not been deaf and dumb he would have made a great
+actor, for his gift of facial expression was extraordinary. Clubmen are
+familiar with a well-known set of five action photographs representing a
+convivial card-player who has gone "nap." Trood was the subject of those
+photographs.
+
+For some time I attended St. Mark's during the day and went to the
+studio each evening. I realised very early that there was no money in
+painting and that it was of little use as a profession. We students were
+a merry band, and though we had little money, we made the most of what
+we had to spend. Our studio was only a garret, and it was a common thing
+for each of us to buy a tough steak for no more than fourpence, grill it
+with a fork over the meagre fire, and make it serve as our one
+substantial meal for many hours. It was a Bohemian existence and I have
+remained a Bohemian ever since.
+
+Trood and I were more than master and pupil. We were, if not brothers,
+then at least uncle and nephew. From time to time we contrived to visit
+the theatre, for although he could not hear, he loved to study the
+colour effects on the stage, and had an uncanny talent for following the
+course of the plot. And one of these nights out was destined to be most
+fateful for me in my future career. We had gone together into the
+gallery at the Avenue Theatre (now the Playhouse). The attraction was a
+French opera-bouffe called "Olivette." And I must confess that my
+susceptible heart was at once smitten with the charms of a young lady
+who was playing one of the subsidiary parts. From that moment the play
+to me was _not_ the thing. Eyes and thoughts were concentrated on that
+slim, winsome little figure, and I remember that at school the following
+day the sale of jam rolls was pushed with redoubled vigour in order that
+I might have the wherewithal to go to the theatre and see my charmer
+again.
+
+I am getting on delicate ground, but the story is well worth the
+telling. It was clear I could not go on worshipping my fair divinity
+afar from the "gods." We must make each other's acquaintance. So to Miss
+Louie Henri I addressed a most courteous note, paying her some exquisite
+compliments, and inviting her to meet her unknown admirer at the stage
+door after the performance one night. And my invitation was accepted. I
+ought to mention here that I was then scarcely seventeen years of age.
+Louie Henri, as it afterwards transpired, was the same.
+
+Well, I bedecked myself in my best and marched off in good time to the
+trysting place at the stage door. I spent my last sou on a fine box of
+chocolates. Nothing I could do was to be left undone to make the
+conquest complete. But first there came a surprise. Another St. Mark's
+boy was at the stage door already. He, too, had a box of chocolates, and
+it was bigger than mine.
+
+"Who are those for?" I demanded. The tone of my voice must have been
+forbidding I already had my suspicions.
+
+"Louie Henri," answered the lad. Seemingly he thought it wise to be
+truthful.
+
+I had a rival! Crises of this kind have to be met with vigour and
+thoroughness.
+
+"Give them to me," I insisted, "and hook it." The command was terrible
+in its severity. More than that, I was not the school's champion
+light-weight for nothing. The rival almost threw the chocolates into my
+hands and vanished like lightning. When Louie came out there I was with
+a double load of offerings! She was sensibly impressed.
+
+From time to time further delightful meetings took place. Luckily the
+jam roll trade was flourishing, and so it was seldom the youthful swain
+met his lady-love empty-handed. Only once did the rival attempt to steal
+a march on me again. I discovered him loitering round the stage door,
+but when he saw my fists in a business-like attitude, he apparently
+realised that discretion was the better part of valour and bolted into
+the night. All of which proves anew that "faint heart never won fair
+lady."
+
+Louie and I got on famously together, and although we were but children
+it was not long before we had decided to become engaged. The course of
+true love was complicated by the fact that while I was at St. Mark's in
+the daytime she at night had to play her part in "Olivette." So it
+occurred to me that the only thing was to give up school. I accordingly
+wrote a letter, in my guardian's name, saying that I was being taken
+away from St. Mark's for a three-months' holiday, and posted it to the
+headmaster at Chelsea. Then followed the rapture of sweetheart days. Our
+pleasures were few--there were no funds for more than an occasional ride
+on a 'bus--but into the intimacies of those blissful times there is no
+need to enter.
+
+We were married late in 1883 at St. Mary's, Kensington. Louie and I
+certainly never realised the responsibilities of married life, and
+love's young dream was not spoiled by anxious reflections about the
+problem of ways and means, as may be gathered from the fact that our
+funds were exhausted on the very day of the marriage. I remember that,
+after the fees at church had been paid, the cash at our disposal
+amounted to eighteen-pence. The question then was how far this would
+take us in the matter of a honeymoon. Strolling into Kensington Gardens
+we decided that we would spend it on the thrills of a ride in a
+hansom-cab, and the driver was instructed to take us as far as he could
+for eighteen-pence. The journey was not at all long. I rather think that
+if the cabby had known the romantic and adventurous couple he had picked
+up as fares he would have been sport enough to give us a more generous
+trip.
+
+Our plan of action after this honeymoon in a hansom had already been
+decided upon. My wife went to the theatre for the evening performance.
+I, on my part, had arranged to go back to school and put the best face
+on things that was possible. During my absence, of course, it had become
+known that my guardian's letter was a deception and that my three
+months care-free existence was truancy. Where I had been the headmaster
+did not know. What I had done he knew even less. But the delinquency was
+one which, in the interest of school discipline, had to be visited with
+extreme severity. The Dominie took me before the class and commenced to
+use the birch with well-applied vigour.
+
+When at the mature age of seventeen one is made a public exhibition of
+one can have a very acute sense of injured dignity. The rod descended
+heavily.
+
+"Stop it!" I shouted. "You can't thrash me like this. Do you know what
+you are doing? _You're thrashing a married man!_"
+
+"_You_ a married man! You lie!" The birching, bad as it had been, was
+redoubled in intensity. The master declared that he would teach me a
+lesson for lying.
+
+"But I _am_ a married man," I yelled. "I was married yesterday."
+
+But even the dawn of truth meant no reprieve. The explanation put the
+offence in a still more lurid light. It was bad enough to tell a lie,
+but a good deal worse to get married, and the headmaster whacked me all
+the more severely as an awful example to the rest of the boys.
+
+Following the thrashing, I enjoyed a fleeting notoriety in the eyes of
+my school mates, who crowded round to see the interesting matrimonial
+specimen. "Look who's married!" they shouted. "What's it like?" I'm
+afraid at the moment that, smarting under the rod, the joys of married
+life seemed to me to be, as Mark Twain would say, "greatly exaggerated."
+And worse was to come. Next day the master, considering my knowledge of
+life made me too black a reprobate to remain in his school any longer,
+terminated my career as a pupil. For a married man to be in one of the
+lower classes was too much of an absurdity.
+
+Here was a pretty how-d'ye-do! A bridegroom in sad disgrace, and finding
+himself on the day after his marriage with no work, no prospects, no
+anything! Louie it was who came to the rescue. "Princess Ida" had just
+been produced at the Savoy, and she had been engaged for chorus work in
+the company which was being sent out on a provincial tour, commencing at
+Glasgow. My wife contrived to see Mr. Carte, and she faithfully followed
+the strategy that had been decided upon. Seeing that theatrical managers
+were understood to dislike married couples in companies on tour, she was
+to ask him whether he would engage her brother for the tour, pointing
+out that he had a good voice and was "fairly good looking." The upshot
+was that I was commanded to wait on Mr. Carte. Later in life I came to
+know him well and to receive many a kindness from him, but this first
+interview remains in my mind to this day, because it was destined to put
+my foot on the first rung of the theatrical ladder.
+
+"Not much of a voice," was the conductor's comment--not a very
+flattering compliment, by the way, to one who had been for a long time
+solo boy in the choir of St. Philip's, Kensington. "Never mind," replied
+Mr. Carte; "he will do as understudy for David Fisher as _King Gama_."
+And as chorister and understudy I was engaged. Each of us was to have £2
+a week, and in view of our circumstances the money was not merely
+welcome, but princely. Our troubles seemed to have vanished for ever.
+
+One of our difficulties was that, having entered the company as brother
+and sister, that pretty fiction had to be kept up, and for a devoted
+newly-married couple that was not very easy. For a brother my
+attentiveness was almost amusing. The rôle was also sometimes
+embarrassing. Louie's charms quickly captivated a member of the company
+who afterwards rose very high in the profession--it would hardly be fair
+to give his identity away!--and one night he gave me a broad hint that
+my dutiful watchfulness was carried too far. "Leave her to me," he
+whispered, affably. When I told him I had promised mother I would not
+leave her, or some such story, a compromise was arranged whereby after
+the show, when we were going home, I should drop back and give him the
+opportunity for playing the "gallant." To have refused would have
+aroused suspicions that might have led to the discovery of our secret.
+So like _Jack Point_, I had to walk behind while the other fellow
+escorted my bride and paid her pretty compliments. It seemed less of a
+joke at the time than it does to-day.
+
+Naturally, the little bubble was bound to explode before long, and it
+exploded when everything seemed to be going splendidly. It happened when
+one of the assistant managers, who also admired my wife, somehow induced
+us to invite him to visit our "digs."
+
+"Nice rooms, these," he commented, taking them in at a glance. "What do
+you pay?"
+
+"Sixteen shillings."
+
+"Only sixteen shillings? Three rooms for sixteen shillings!"
+
+"No! Only two----." The fatal slip! Truth at last had to out.
+
+We told him that we had been afraid that, if we had said we were man and
+wife, we should not have got the engagement, and we were in too much of
+a dilemma to be sticklers for accuracy. Our "marriage lines" were then
+and there produced.
+
+"Well," said the manager, "you _are_ remarkably alike; no wonder you
+easily passed for brother and sister." That, in fact, was true. Our
+marriage, he went on to tell us, would not have been a handicap in the
+D'Oyly Carte Company. Most managers, he said, did not care for husband
+and wife to travel together, but that was not the case with Mr. D'Oyly
+Carte.
+
+The news quickly spread through the company, and on every hand we
+received congratulations. Only one of our colleagues considered that he
+had a grievance. He was the usurper who had insisted that I should allow
+him to escort my alleged sister from the theatre to our lodgings. "What
+a fool you've made of me," he complained. "Why I was going to propose! I
+did think she would make such a nice little wife!"
+
+Long after this it was Mr. Carte's custom, when making enquiries as to
+my wife, to say dryly, "And how's your sister, Lytton?" Similarly,
+whenever he spoke to my wife, there was invariably a twinkle in his eye
+whenever he asked after the welfare and whereabouts of her "brother."
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AT THE AGE OF TWENTY.]
+
+
+
+
+II.
+VAGABONDAGE OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
+
+    _£. s. d. on Tour--The Search for Independence--The Old Showman
+    of Shepherd's Bush--Not the "Carte" I Wanted--The
+    Commonwealth--Our Repertory and Our Creditors--"Well, Mr.
+    Bundle"--A Thirsty Situation and a Melodramatic Finale--A
+    Stammerer's Story--Comradeship in Adversity--Roaming the
+    Country--Back in London and the Search for Work--Diverse
+    Occupations and Little Pay--A Savoy Engagement at
+    Last--Understudy to Grossmith--A Real Opportunity._
+
+
+The "Princess Ida" tour, as I have said, opened at Glasgow. It ran for
+about a year, with enthusiasm and success wherever the company played,
+though unluckily for me, my services as understudy were never required.
+The D'Oyly Carte companies then, as now, were always a happy family, the
+members of which were always helpful to one another and always
+remarkably free from those petty jealousies that distinguish some ranks
+of the profession.
+
+Looking back on those romantic times, my wife and I often marvel how,
+with all our inexperience in housekeeping, our slender finances
+withstood the strain of our extravagance. Whenever we moved on to a new
+town we had the usual fears as to what sort of a landlady we were to
+get. In these times landladies do not always look on actors as their
+legitimate "prey." But then they were extortioners, though there were,
+of course, some pleasant exceptions. I remember, for instance, that in
+some places we were charged 5s. a week for potatoes, and in others only
+6d. On the whole, on that tour, we must have been in luck.
+Notwithstanding that we had lived fairly well--and we did indulge odd
+tastes for luxuries--we found that at the end of the 52 weeks'
+engagement we had saved £52.
+
+Following the "Princess Ida" tour, we were sent out into the provinces
+again with other productions, and in this way we served under the
+Gilbert and Sullivan banner for the best part of two years. But they
+were not continuous engagements. From time to time we would find
+ourselves idle and our tiny resources steadily dwindling. Luckily,
+during this period we always managed to secure a fresh engagement before
+we had spent our last sovereign, though we were hardly as fortunate in
+the dark days that were coming.
+
+I remember receiving at this time the advice of a dear old friend, a Mr.
+Chevasse, of Wolverhampton. "The turning-point in your career," he said
+to me, "will come when you have got 'independence.'" "What," I asked
+him, "do you mean by that?" "Get £100 in the bank," was his answer, "and
+in your case that will bring the sense of independence. It will put you
+on a different footing with everyone you meet, and you will know that at
+last you are beginning to shape your career yourself. Save everything
+you can. Save a shilling a week, or two shillings a week, but save
+whatever happens." And he was right. Later, when I had that £100 stored
+away, I found myself in a position that enabled me to assert my claim
+for principal parts, and I was sent out into the provinces to take three
+leading rôles--_Ko-Ko_, _Jack Point_, and _Sir Joseph Porter_.
+
+But this is anticipating my story. Before that time came there were dark
+days to pass through, days when we did not know where the next meal
+would come from, and days when we tramped the country as strolling
+players, footsore and weary. When our modest savings had been exhausted
+during one prolonged period of "resting," I remember being driven by
+sheer necessity to apply for an engagement at the booth of an old
+showman at Shepherd's Bush. I had to do something. So I walked up to the
+showman, who was standing outside the tent in a prosperous-looking coat
+with an astrakhan collar, and asked him for a job. What did I want to
+be? I wanted, I told him, to be an actor, and would play anything from
+melodrama to low comedy.
+
+"All right," said the showman. "Go over there and wash that cart!"
+
+I went "over there" and started the washing. But it was no use. Sorry as
+things were with us, I just could not come down to that, and off I
+bolted. That was not the sort of "_Carte_" I wanted.
+
+Our next venture was very interesting. It brought us no fame, precious
+little money, a great deal of hardship, and yet a host of pleasant
+remembrances to look back upon in the brighter days. "We were seven" and
+one and all down on our luck. Failing to obtain any engagements in town,
+we decided to band ourselves together as fellow-unfortunates, and to
+seek what fortune there was as entertainers in the villages and small
+towns of Surrey. It was to be a Commonwealth. Whatever profits there
+were made were to be divided equally. One week this division enabled us
+to take 7s. 10d. each! That was the record. What ill-success our
+efforts had was certainly not due to any want of "booming." The services
+of a bill-poster were obviously prohibitive. So at the dead of night we
+used to put our night-shirts over our clothes to save these from damage,
+creep out into the streets with our paste-bucket and brush, and fix our
+playbills to any convenient hoarding or building. It had to be done in
+double-quick time, but we had spied out the land beforehand, and
+generally we made sure that our notices were pasted where they would
+prominently catch the public eye.
+
+Our repertory consisted of a striking drama entitled "All for Her," a
+touching comedy called "Masters and Servants," and an operetta known as
+"Tom Tug the Waterman." In addition, we did songs and dances, and as it
+happened these were the best feature of the programme. We had no capital
+available to spend on dresses and scenery. What we did was to take some
+ramshackle hall or barn, and then to make a brave show with our posters,
+though the printer was often lucky if he got more than free tickets for
+all his family to see our performance. Generally our creditors
+considered that, as there was small chance of getting any money from us,
+they might as well have an evening out for nothing. Our costumes were
+improvised from our ordinary attire. The men figured as society swells
+by using white paper to represent spats or by tucking in their
+waistcoats and using more white paper to indicate that they were in
+immaculate "evening dress." As to scenery all we had was our own crude
+drawings in crayons and pencil.
+
+We presented our plays by what is known as "winging." By that I mean
+that only one manuscript copy of the play was usually available, and
+each player had to get an idea of the lines which he or she had to speak
+after each entrance, though the actual words used on the stage were
+mainly extemporised. "Winging," even when one has theatrical experience
+behind one, is not at all easy. I know that in "Tom Tug" I dreaded the
+very thought of having to go on and make what should have been a long
+speech designed to give the audience a more or less intelligent idea of
+the plot. I was so uncertain about it that I took the book on with me in
+the hope of getting furtive glimpses at it as we went along.
+
+"Well, Mr. Bundle," I began.
+
+"Well?" Mr. Bundle responded.
+
+"Well," I stammered again.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well."
+
+The next "Well" did not come from the stage; it came from the audience.
+"Well?" it yelled, accompanied, so to speak, by a tremendous note of
+interrogation. "Well?" it echoed again. "Say _something_, can't you?"
+
+This was too much. In confusion I rushed off the stage. Even that was
+not all. I should, as I have said, have outlined the course of the
+story, but not only did I not do this but in my confusion I left behind
+me the book of words on which we were all depending. From the others in
+the wings there came anguished whispers. "Where's the book?" "You've
+left the book on the table!" So I had to put the best face on things and
+walk on to get it. But the audience had had enough of me that night.
+"Get off" they shouted--and I did.
+
+"Tom Tug" was also once the occasion of a painful fiasco. Instead of
+dashing on to the stage where my wife was playing the part of a simple
+fisher-girl, and greeting her like the jolly sailor-man I was with a
+boisterous "Here I am my darling," I found myself, standing behind her
+in such a state of stage-fright that I was absolutely "dried up." I
+could not utter a word. I simply stood behind her limp, speechless and
+motionless, and no amount of prompting would induce me to go on with the
+wooing. So there was nothing for it but to ring down the curtain, and
+for the rest of the evening we had songs and dances, with which we made
+amends.
+
+"All for Her" was a drama of a desert island that should have melted
+hearts of stone. We were all dying of thirst (at least, according to the
+plot). Nowhere on that desert island was water to be found. They sent me
+out to explore for it while they rolled about the stage moaning and
+groaning in agony. During my absence from the stage I sat near a
+fire-bucket in the wings. Then came my cue to reappear.
+
+I staggered on famished and weary. The quest had been in vain. "Not a
+drop," I croaked in a parched, dry voice; "not a drop of water
+anywhere."
+
+"Liar!" screamed the audience in unison. Our audiences, as you will have
+gathered, were often critical folk who could sit with dry eyes through
+our most anguishing scenes. It transpired that while I was sitting near
+that fire-bucket the bottom of my Arab cloak had dipped into the water
+and there it was dripping, dripping, dripping right across the stage!
+The dramatic situation was absolutely spoilt.
+
+The company included, besides my wife and myself, a young actress named
+Emmeline Huxley, who after these hard times with us went to America and
+there undoubtedly "made good." Then there was a "character" whom we
+called "'Oppy." He was the general utility man who acted as conductor
+and orchestra rolled into one, and then went behind the scenes to play
+the cornet, to act as stage adviser, or at a pinch to take a small part.
+He was an enthusiast who was here, there and everywhere. "'Oppy," in
+addition to having a wall eye and a club foot, had a decided impediment
+in his speech, but, strangely enough, he was entirely unconscious of
+this disability. For that reason we often used to induce him to tell his
+story of the lady who sang "Home, Sweet Home."
+
+This story is bound to lose some of its effect when put into cold print.
+As "'Oppy" told it the humour was irresistible. "Sh-sh-she wan-wan-ted
+to go on the sta-sta-sta-stage," he used to say, "and the man-an-an-ager
+he sa-a-a-aid to her, 'Wh-wh-wh-what can you sing?' And she said,
+'Ho-ho-ho-home, Sw-we-we-we-weet Ho-ho-home,' And he told her to
+sing-sing-sing it. And (here he could not keep a straight face over the
+poor lady's misfortunes) she-she-she couldn't sing-sing-sing it
+for-for-for stam-stam-stam-stam-stam-mering."
+
+Never did "'Oppy" tell this story, of the ridiculousness of the telling
+of which he seemed entirely unconscious, without his hearers exploding
+with laughter. "Wh-what makes you all lau-lau-laugh so?" he used to
+ask, incredulously. "You lau-lau-lau-lau-laugh altogether to-to-to-too
+hearty. It's a good-good-good yarn, but I'm dam-dam-dam-damned if it's
+as fun-fun-fun-funny as that."
+
+Once he received an unexpected windfall in the shape of a postal order
+from a relative for two or three shillings. "Come and have a little
+dinner with me to morrow," he said to me and my wife. "I know you're
+hungry." When we arrived we found his plate was already on the table and
+empty. He apologised profoundly. He had been too hungry to wait for us
+and had already eaten his dinner. So while my wife and I each enjoyed a
+chop--the first square meal we had had for many a day--he sat by and
+kept us entertained. Splendid fellow! Little did we guess that as he did
+so he was suffering the pangs of hunger accentuated by the sight of our
+satisfaction. Next day the landlady confided to us the fact that as our
+friend's windfall had been insufficient to provide chops and vegetables
+for three, he had smeared his plate with the gravy from the chops we
+were to have, and then made us believe that he had satisfied his hunger
+already.
+
+What became of him later on I have never discovered. I only know that I
+have tried hard to find him in order that that noble act of self-denial
+might be in some generous manner repaid. Neither inquiries nor
+advertisements, however, have ever revealed his whereabouts to me, and
+it may be that already this honest fellow has gone to receive his
+reward. God rest his soul!
+
+Then there was Arthur Hendon. If ever a Christian lived it was that
+sterling fellow. Time after time in those heart-aching days we were on
+the verge of despair. Luck was dead out. Life was a misery. But Hendon,
+though he was as sore of heart and as hungry as the rest of us, was
+always ready with some cheery word, some act of kindness, some "goodness
+done by stealth." Louie and I were rather small in size, and often as we
+tramped from one place to another he carried one of us in turn in his
+arms. For we had little food, and were tired, footsore and "beat." And
+he, too, was "done." Only his great heart sustained him in those
+terrible times as our "captain courageous."
+
+The Commonwealth venture lasted for about three months altogether. As I
+have shown it was one continual struggle against adversity and poverty.
+For some time we were located at Aldershot. Our show ran as a rule from
+six to eleven o'clock, and for want of better amusement the soldiers
+gave us a fair amount of patronage at threepence a head. If we did not
+please them they did not hesitate to fling the dregs of their pint pots
+on to the stage. One night we felt ourselves highly honoured by the
+presence of a number of military officers at our performance. "All for
+Her," I am glad to say, went without a hitch on that gala occasion. Our
+"theatre" was an outhouse owned by a publican, who was very considerate
+towards us in the matter of rent, because he found that our presence
+meant good business for his bar-parlour receipts.
+
+From Aldershot we went on to Farnham, and from there to other hamlets
+where we believed there was an audience, however uncouth and untutored,
+to be gathered together. Eventually we reached Guildford. By then
+matters were getting desperate. The Mayor or some other local public man
+heard of our plight. He drove out to where we were playing, witnessed
+part of our performance, and engaged us to sing at a garden-party. I
+remember that, exhausted as we were, gratitude enabled us to give of our
+very best as the only return we could make for his kindness. He told us
+it was a great pity that such clever people should be living a
+precarious existence in the country villages, and offered to pay our
+train fares to London in addition to the fee for the engagement we had
+fulfilled. This generosity we accepted with alacrity. The next morning
+we were back in town again--each to follow his or her different way. So
+ended the vagabondage of the Commonwealth. It was an experience which
+none of us was ever likely to forget.
+
+Once more in London it would be idle to say that our troubles had
+disappeared. It meant the dreary search again for employment. Mr. D'Oyly
+Carte had no immediate vacancies. Other managers had nothing more to
+offer than promises. Lucky is the actor--if he ever exists--who
+throughout his career has been free from this compulsory idleness.
+During this period I had to turn my hand to all sorts of things. Once I
+called at a draper's shop and secured casual work as a bill distributor.
+I had to go from door to door in a certain select part of Kensington. I
+remember I looked at those gilded walls and those red-carpeted stairs
+with a good deal of envy. Later on I was destined to visit some of those
+very houses and walk up those same red-carpeted stairs as a guest--those
+very houses at which to earn an odd shilling or so to buy bread I had
+delivered those bills! Yes; and there was one house at which I called in
+those humble days where they abruptly opened the door, showed me a
+ferocious-looking dog with the most business-like teeth, and
+significantly commanded me to "get off--and quick!" I had done nothing
+wrong, and my body and my heart were aching. Years afterwards I became a
+breeder of bulldogs--about that you shall hear later on--and sold one of
+them to those very people. And, as if in poetic justice, that bulldog
+bit them!
+
+My training under Trood was turned to advantage during these empty days.
+A fashion had just set in for plaques. I painted some scores of these
+terra-cotta miniatures, and although it was not remunerative work, it
+served to put bare necessities into the pantry. We were living about
+that time in Stamford Street, off the Waterloo Road, and in those days
+it was a terrible neighbourhood where one's sleep was often disturbed by
+cries of "murder" and "police." Our baby's cradle was a travelling
+basket--we could not afford anything better. I remember, in connection
+with those plaques, that in after years I was dining at the house of a
+well-known writer and critic, and he showed me with keen admiration two
+beautiful plaques, which, he said, had been won by Miss Jessie Bond in a
+raffle at the Savoy. She had made a present of them to him. "Yes," I
+commented, "and I painted them." He was kind enough to say that that
+enhanced their value to him considerably.
+
+For a time I went into a works where they made dies for armorial
+bearings. Here I had to do a good deal of tracing, and the work was
+fairly interesting. I drew five shillings the first week--hardly an
+imposing stipend for a family man--but the second week it was ten
+shillings and the third twenty shillings. Singing at occasional smoking
+concerts and running errands supplemented this money very acceptably.
+The job at the die-sinkers might have continued, but the foreman wanted
+me to clean the floors in addition to doing my artistic work, and at
+that my dignity revolted. I left.
+
+Some months went by in this flitting from one job into another, but it
+is useless to attempt a full catalogue of my versatility, for it is
+neither impressive nor very inspiring. During all this hand-to-mouth
+existence I was calling on theatrical managers. Slender as the rewards
+which the stage had thus far given me were--just a meagre livelihood and
+precious little encouragement--the call to return to it remained
+insistent and strong. Sooner or later I was bound to return, and whether
+it were to be to good fortune or ill, the very hope buoyed me up. I had
+worried Mr. Carte with ceaseless importunity. Every week at least I went
+round to try and see him on the off-chance of an engagement. And at last
+there came the turn of the tide.
+
+It happened on the eve of the first London production of "Ruddigore."
+Concerning this new opera, the producers had for good reasons maintained
+an air of secrecy, and the unfolding of the mystery was thus awaited
+with more than usual public curiosity. It was the talk of the town and
+the subject of many skittish references in the newspapers. Calling once
+again at Mr. Carte's office, I caught him, after a long wait, just
+leaving his room and hurrying along a corridor. Without more ado I
+button-holed him and asked him once again for an engagement. Mr. Carte
+was not a man who liked that sort of conduct. "You should not interrupt
+me like this," he said, in a tone that betrayed his annoyance. "You
+ought to send up your name." Explaining that I had done so and had been
+told he was out of town, I repeated my plea for an engagement. Hurrying
+on his way Mr. Carte told me to go down to the stage. Success had come
+at last! When Mr. Carte sent a man to the stage that man became _ipso
+facto_ a member of the company. Later the news came through that Mr.
+Carte had chosen me as understudy to Mr. George Grossmith as _Robin
+Oakapple_. This was indeed a slice of good fortune. Understudy to Mr.
+George Grossmith!
+
+"Ruddigore" was produced for the first time on Tuesday, the 22nd
+January, 1887, at the Savoy. Towards the end of that week Grossmith was
+taken seriously ill with peritonitis. By an effort he was able to
+continue playing until the Saturday. Then he collapsed and was taken
+home for a serious operation. Upon the Monday morning I was told I was
+to play his part--and play it that very night.
+
+Chosen to step into the shoes of the great George Grossmith! Faced with
+such an ordeal to-day I verily believe I should shirk it. But then, the
+audacity of youth was to carry me through. The supreme chance had come.
+At all costs it had to be grasped.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+CLIMBING THE LADDER.
+
+    _The "Ruddigore" Success--Congratulations from everyone--My
+    First Meeting with Grossmith--Gilbert's Advice to a
+    beginner--Irving's wonderful Acting and its Effect--Speaking to
+    the Man in the Gallery--The Mystery of Jack Point--How My Tragic
+    Ending Was Introduced--Gilbert's Approval--A Memorable Hanley
+    Compliment--Laughter I ought not to have had--Bunthorne's
+    Fall--Accidents, Happy and Otherwise--Ko-Ko's Mobile Toe--Not a
+    Mechanical Trick--The Myth of the Poor Old Man of Seventy--Still
+    Youthful in Spirit and Years._
+
+
+The Savoy Theatre had its usual large and fashionable audience on that
+Monday night when I was to play my first big principal part either in or
+out of London. What my sensations were it would be hard to describe.
+Nervous I certainly was, and in the front of the house my wife was
+sitting wondering, wondering whether the stage-fright fiasco in "All for
+Her" was going to be repeated in this critical performance of
+"Ruddigore." Both of us knew that here was my great opportunity. If I
+won the future was assured. If I lost----! I knew the dialogue, and I
+knew the songs, but during the previous week there had been all too
+little chance for me to study Grossmith's conception of the part from
+the "wings."
+
+Then my cue came and I went on. The silence of the audience was deathly.
+They gave me not the slightest welcome. The great Grossmith, the lion
+comique of his day, was not playing! _Oakapple_ was being taken by an
+unknown stripling! No wonder they were disappointed and chilling. First
+I had a few lines to speak, and then I had a beautiful little duet with
+Miss Leonora Braham, who was playing _Rose Maybud_. And when that duet,
+"Poor Little Man" was over, and we had responded to the calls for an
+encore, all my tremors and hesitation had gone. I knew things were all
+right. With every number the audience grew more and more hearty. The
+applause when the curtain fell was to me unforgettable. It betokened a
+triumph.
+
+Behind the scenes the principals and the choristers almost mobbed me
+with congratulations. Up in my dressing-room there were many further
+compliments. Sir (then Mr.) William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan came
+to see me together. I heard afterwards that they had been very anxious
+about the performance. Gilbert, as he shook me by the hand, declared
+"To-night there is no need for the Lyttons to turn in their graves." Mr.
+Carte, though always a man of few words, gave me to understand that he
+realised that his confidence in me had not been misplaced. Cellier, who
+had occupied the conductor's seat, told me that "From to-night you will
+never look back." He and I remained fast friends for life.
+
+The second act was no less successful. Since then I have come to know
+how wonderful receptions can be, but never did applause fall more
+gratefully than when as a young man under the first ordeal of a terrible
+test, I was making that first appearance at the Savoy. Late as it is, I
+should like to thank any who were there and who read these lines for
+that sympathy and encouragement. It gave me confidence in myself and
+helped me along. For every young artist who comes for the first time
+before the footlights, may I bespeak always the same kindly feeling? It
+does mean so much. The Press, to whom my debt has always been great,
+also said many nice things about that performance. "Carte and Company,
+it must be admitted," said one leading paper, "are wonderful people for
+finding out hitherto unexploited talent."
+
+Although George Grossmith was at first not expected to live, he made an
+amazingly rapid recovery, and in about three weeks he was able to resume
+his part in "Ruddigore." One of the first things he did was to send for
+me. "Gee-Gee," as the older generation remembers, was in his day a
+veritable prince of comedians, and in the theatre he was always paid the
+deference due to a prince. Outside his dressing-room a factotum was
+always on duty. None dare think of entering without permission. Thus,
+when I, a mere member of the chorus, was summoned there into the great
+man's presence, it was regarded by the company as an event, and everyone
+wanted to know what it was like! Grossmith told me he had heard of my
+success, gave me a signed copy of his photograph as a memento, and thus
+laid the foundation of a friendship that was destined to grow very
+intimate during the coming years.
+
+Grossmith was a man of brilliant accomplishments, and as an artiste in
+facial expression and in wistful fancy, perhaps we have not seen his
+equal. Shortly after he left the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, he went on
+tour with a repertory of charming songs he had himself composed, and in
+that venture he made a good deal of money. For a reason theatre-goers
+will understand--the desire to avoid becoming a pale imitation of a man
+playing the same part as oneself--I was never a spectator "in front"
+when he was in the cast at the Savoy.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE SIR WILLIAM S. GILBERT.]
+
+Connected with my "Ruddigore" success I was proud to become the
+recipient from Gilbert of a gold-mounted walking-stick that is still one
+of my most treasured possessions, and the letter accompanying this gift
+it may be well to reproduce:--
+
+    39, Harrington Gardens,
+    South Kensington,
+    22nd February, '87.
+
+    MY DEAR SIR,--
+
+    Will you do me the favour to accept the accompanying
+    walking-stick as a token of my appreciation of your excellent
+    performance of the part of _Robin Oakapple_, undertaken, as it
+    was, at a very few hours' notice, and without any adequate
+    rehearsal.
+
+    Faithfully yours,
+    W. S. GILBERT.
+
+    H. A. Henri, Esq.
+
+Let me explain here that, in consequence of the "brother and sister"
+deception, when I joined the D'Oyly Carte organisation just after my
+marriage, I adopted my wife's name and was known as H. A. Henri during
+the early part of my career. It was on Gilbert's own suggestion that I
+made the change.
+
+It was true, as Gilbert said, that I had no adequate rehearsal when I
+was bidden to step at short notice into George Grossmith's shoes, but
+during the next few weeks it was my good fortune to be under the
+playwright's personal coaching. Subsequently I shall have to tell many
+reminiscences of Gilbert, who in after years gave me the privilege of
+being both his friend and confidant, but at this moment I want to refer
+to advice he gave me while "putting me through my paces" in "Ruddigore."
+In my anxiety I was rather hurrying the speech I was supposed to address
+to the picture gallery of my ancestors. He pulled me up.
+
+"Let me tell you something, young man," he began. "That speech, 'Oh! my
+forefathers!' is now a short speech, but originally it consisted of
+three pages of closely-written manuscript. I condensed and condensed.
+Every word I could I removed until it was of the length you find it
+to-day. Each word that is left serves some purpose--there is not one
+word too many. So when you know that it took me three months to perfect
+that one speech, I am sure you will not hurry it. Try to remember that
+throughout your career in these operas." Later on he also gave me this
+sound counsel, "Always leave a little to the audience's imagination.
+Leave it to them to see and enjoy the point of a joke. I am sure you are
+intelligent," he went on to say, "but believe me, there are many in the
+audience who are more intelligent than you!"
+
+Now, if an actor in these operas has to be careful of one thing above
+everything else, it is that of avoiding forcing a point. Gilbert's wit
+is so neat and so beautifully phrased that it would be utterly spoilt by
+buffoonery. The lines must be declaimed in deadly seriousness just as if
+the actor believes absolutely in the fanciful and extravagant thing he
+is saying. I can think of no better illustration of this than the scene
+in "Iolanthe" where _Strephon_ rejects recourse to the Chancery Court
+and says his code of conduct is regulated only by "Nature's Acts of
+Parliament." _The Lord Chancellor_ then talks about the absurdity of "an
+affidavit from a thunderstorm or a few words on oath from a heavy
+shower." What a typical Gilbertian fancy! Well, you know how the "comic"
+man would say that, how he would whip up his coat collar and shiver at
+the suggestion of rain, and how he would do his poor best to make it
+sound and look "funny." And the result would be that he would kill the
+wittiness of the lines by burlesque. The _Lord Chancellor_ says the
+words as if he believed an affidavit from a thunderstorm was at least a
+possibility, and the suggestion that he does think it possible makes the
+very idea, in the audience's mind, more whimsical still. Imagine, again,
+in "Patience" how the entire point would be lost if _Bunthorne_ acted as
+if he himself saw the absurdity of his poem "Oh! Hollow, Hollow,
+Hollow!" _Grosvenor_, in the same opera, is intensely serious when he
+laments sadly that his fatal beauty stands between him and happiness. If
+he were not, the delightful drollery of the piece would, of course, be
+destroyed.
+
+Gilbert, by the way, gave me two other hints which should be useful to
+those just beginning their careers in the theatre, and they are hints
+which even older actors may study with profit. He held that it was most
+important that the artiste who was speaking and the artiste who was
+being addressed should always be well to the front of the stage. "If you
+are too far back," he said to me, "you not only lose grip over the
+audience, but you also lose the power of clear and effective speech."
+Then there is that old trouble--nearly every novice is conscious of
+it--as to what one should do with one's hands when on the stage. Somehow
+they do seem so much in the way, and one does feel one ought to do
+something with them, though what that something should be is always a
+problem. I mentioned this matter to Gilbert. "Cut them off at the
+wrists, Lytton," was his quick reply, "and forget you've got any hands!"
+Every young professional and young amateur should remember this. So long
+as one worries about one's hands or one's fingers, one is very liable to
+be nervous and to do something wrong, and so the only sound rule to
+follow is to forget them entirely.
+
+For a good reason I am going to digress here to tell a story of Sir
+Henry Irving. It was my good fortune once to be in the wings at the
+Lyceum when he was playing _Shylock_ in the "Merchant of Venice." The
+power of his acting upon me that day was extraordinary. Every word I
+listened to intently until at last, in the trial scene, he had taken out
+his knife to cut the pound of flesh. I knew, of course, that he was
+never really going to cut that pound of flesh, but the sharpening of the
+knife, the dramatic gleam in the great tragedian's eyes, the tenseness
+of the whole situation, was all too vivid and all too like reality. I
+hated the sight of bloodshed, and in the shock of anticipation, I
+fainted.
+
+When I came round I was in the green room, and a little later, amongst
+those who came to see me, was Irving himself. I was deadly white, and if
+the truth must be told, rather ashamed. But Irving was immensely
+pleased. He took it as a compliment to the force of his acting. Learning
+that I was a young actor, he declared that my emotionalism was a good
+omen, and said that my sensitive and highly-strung nature would help me
+in my work enormously. Then he went on to give me many hints that should
+be valuable to every aspirant for success on the stage. One hint I have
+never forgotten. "See to it," he said, "that you always imagine that in
+the theatre you have a pal who could not afford the stalls, and who is
+in the back of the pit or the gallery. Let him hear every line you have
+to say. It will make you finish your words distinctly and correctly."
+
+If it is true, as friends have often told me, that one of the chief
+merits of my work is the clearness of my elocution in all parts of the
+house, it is due to the advice given to me in those early days by two of
+the greatest figures connected with the stage, Gilbert and Irving.
+Seeing that these operas are now being played by hundreds of amateur
+societies each year, I want to pass on to those who perform in them this
+golden rule: Always pitch your voice to reach the man listening from the
+furthest part of the building. Since Gilbert's death I have often had
+the feeling that someone is still intently listening to me--someone a
+long way away!
+
+But now I must proceed with my story. When George Grossmith returned to
+the cast, I was sent out as a principal in one of the provincial
+companies, and in this work continued for years. Sometimes we played one
+opera only on tour--the opera most recently produced in town--and
+sometimes a number of them in repertory. It was towards the end of 1888
+that I first played what is, I need hardly say, the favourite of all my
+parts, _Jack Point_, in the "Yeomen of the Guard," the opera which was
+Gilbert and Sullivan's immediate successor to "Ruddigore." And in
+connection with this part let us finally clear up a "mystery." It has
+been a frequent source of enquiry and even controversy in the
+newspapers.
+
+When at the close of "Yeomen" _Elsie_ is wedded to _Fairfax_, does _Jack
+Point_ die of a broken heart, or does he merely swoon away? That
+question is often asked, and it is a matter on which, of course, the
+real pathos of the play depends. The facts are these. Gilbert had
+conceived and written a tragic ending, but Grossmith, who created the
+part, and for whom in a sense it was written, was essentially the
+accepted wit and laughter-maker of his day, and thus it had to be
+arranged that the opera should have a definitely humorous ending. He
+himself knew and told Gilbert that, however he finished it, the audience
+would laugh. The London public regarded him as, what in truth he was, a
+great jester. If he had tried to be serious they would have refused to
+take him seriously. _Whatever_ Grossmith did the audience would laugh,
+and the manner in which he did fall down at the end was, indeed,
+irresistibly funny.
+
+So it came about that while he was playing _Jack Point_ in his way in
+London I was playing him in my way in the provinces. The first time I
+introduced my version of the part was at Bath. For some time I had
+considered how poignant would be the effect if the poor strolling
+player, robbed of the love of a lady, forsaken by his friends, should
+gently kiss the edge of her garment, make the sign of his blessing, and
+then fall over, not senseless, but--dead! I had told the stage manager
+about my new ending. From time to time he asked me when I was going to
+do it, and then when at last I did feel inspired to play this tragic
+dénouement, what he did was to wire immediately to Mr. Carte: "Lytton
+impossible for _Point_. What shall I do?"
+
+I ought to explain that any departure from tradition in the performance
+of these operas was strictly prohibited by the management. Thus, while I
+might demur to the implication that my work was impossible, the fact
+that he should report me to headquarters was only consistent with his
+duty. But the sequel was hardly what he expected. The very next day Mr.
+Carte, unknown to me at the time, came down to Bath. He watched the
+performance and, after the show, the company were assembled on the stage
+in order that, in accordance with custom, he could express any
+criticisms or bestow his approval. What happened seemed to me to be
+characteristic of this great man's remarkable tact. He first told us
+that he had enjoyed the performance. "For rehearsals to-morrow," he went
+on, "I shall want Mr. So-and-so, Mr. So-and-so, Miss So-and-so, Miss
+So-and-so," and several others. The inference was that there were
+details in their work that needed correcting. Then he turned to me,
+shook me most warmly by the hand, and just said very cordially, "Good
+night, Lytton." And then he left. No "Excellent"--that might have let
+down the stage manager's authority--but at the same time no
+condemnation. It was all noncommittal, but it suggested to me, as it
+actually transpired was the case, that he was anything but displeased
+with my reading.
+
+Gilbert and I, when we had become close friends, often had long talks
+about this opera, and particularly about my interpretation of the
+lovable Merryman. I told him what had led me to attempt this conception,
+and asked him whether he wished me to continue it, or whether it should
+be modified in any particular way. "No," was his reply; "keep on like
+that. It is just what I want. _Jack Point_ should die and the end of the
+opera should be a tragedy."
+
+For the sake of fairness I must mention that a fortnight after I had
+introduced this version of the part, another popular artiste, who was
+out with one of the other provincial companies, played the rôle in just
+the same way. It was entirely a coincidence. Neither of us knew that the
+other had evolved in his mind precisely the same idea, even down to the
+minutest details, and still less had either of us seen the other play
+it.
+
+One little detail in my make-up for this part may be worth recording.
+Whenever kings or noblemen in the old days were pleased with their
+jesters they threw them a ring. For that reason I invariably wear a ring
+when I appear as _Jack Point_. Simple ornament as it is, it was once
+owned by Edmund Kean and worn by him on the stage, and another treasured
+relic of the great tragedian that I possess is a snuff-box, also given
+to me by my old friend, Charles Brookfield.
+
+One of the finest compliments ever paid to me as an artiste occurred at
+Hanley. We were playing "Yeomen." Many of our audience that night were a
+rough lot of fellows, some of whom even sat in their shirt sleeves, but
+there could be no question but that they were keenly following the play.
+Everywhere we had been on that tour there had been tremendous calls
+after the curtain. At Hanley when the curtain fell there was--a dead
+silence! It was quite uncanny. What had happened? Were they so little
+moved by the closing scene of the piece that they were going out in
+indifference or in disgust? Gently we drew the edge of the curtain
+aside, and there, would you believe it, we saw those honest fellows
+silently creeping out without even a whisper. He was _dead_. _Jack
+Point_ was _dead_!
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.]
+
+I changed in silence myself. The effect of the incident had been so
+extraordinary. And when I went down to the stage door a crowd of these
+rough men were waiting. Somehow they knew me for _Point_. "Here he is!"
+they shouted. "Are you all right, mister, now?" Then, as I walked on,
+they turned to one another and I overheard one of them say: "He _wasn't_
+dead, after all." As they saw the end of the opera they verily believed
+something had gone wrong. Such a thing in the theatre may possibly be
+understandable, but that the illusion should have lingered after the
+curtain had dropped, and even after they had left the theatre and come
+really to earth in the street, seemed to me extraordinary.
+
+The "Yeomen of the Guard" was staged again the following night, but this
+time the audience must have been told by their pals that they had
+actually seen me afterwards, and that it was "only a play." _Jack_
+didn't die--not really. It was only "pretended."
+
+That Hanley audience rather overdrew the gravity of things. Some
+audiences, on the other hand, go to the opposite extreme and they have
+their biggest laugh when and where I least expect it. I remember once
+playing the _Pirate King_ in the "Pirates of Penzance," and as a result
+of a slip (a physical one) I was the sorry figure in one of those
+incidents which I might catalogue as "laughs I ought not to have got." I
+had to come in, armed to the teeth, high up on the stage. By some
+mischance I slipped down the rocks, and encumbered with all those
+knives, pistols and cutlasses about me it was a pretty bad drop. The
+audience, of course, thought my undignified entrance a capital joke. I
+didn't--it hurt. But I turned the mishap to account, first picking up a
+dagger and putting it between my teeth, then groping round for the other
+weapons, and all the while cowing my pirate swashbucklers with a vicious
+look that suggested "Come on at your peril; I'm ready." That incident
+was not in the book.
+
+Lovers of "Patience" will recall that little diversion where _Lady Jane_
+picks up _Bunthorne_ in her arms and carries him off. Well, when Miss
+Bertha Lewis was playing with me in this scene quite recently, she did
+something quite unauthorised. She dropped me--it was a terrible
+crash--and the audience thought it a "scream." In the shelter of the
+wings I remonstrated with her, pointing out that this was a distinct
+departure from what Gilbert intended. All the sympathy I got was, "Well,
+I've dropped you only twice in eight years!" Scarcely an effectual
+embrocation for bruises!
+
+When we were doing "Ruddigore" in Birmingham, some years ago, I broke my
+ankle in the dance with which the first curtain fell. Somehow I finished
+the performance, but when I went up to my dressing-room to change I
+fainted. When I came to I found that my foot had swollen enormously,
+that the top boot I was wearing had burst, and that they were doing
+their best to cut it away. The speediest medical aid to be found was
+that of a veterinary surgeon, and although the pain was awful it was
+nothing like the feeling of doom when I overheard him saying, "He may
+not walk again!" Luckily his fears were altogether unfounded, but
+although the accident has not affected my dancing, the ankle has never
+been quite right to this day.
+
+Once, in the "Yeomen," I kicked one of the posts near the executioner's
+block. It dislocated my toe, but what a happy accident it was I did not
+realise until some weeks later, when we were playing "The Mikado," and
+when I was doing the dance in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring," I
+trod upon a tin-tack, and instinctively drew my toe away, as it were,
+from the pain. From the audience there came a tremendous roar of
+laughter. For a moment I could not understand it at all. Looking down,
+however, I was amazed to find that big toe upright, almost at right
+angles to the rest of the foot. With my fan I pressed it down--then
+raised it again. This provoked so much merriment among the audience that
+I did it a second time, and a third. All this time the theatre was
+convulsed. I confess that to myself it seemed jolly funny. Here, indeed,
+was a quaint discovery.
+
+This "toe" business has ever since been one of _Ko-Ko's_ greatest
+mirth-provokers in the "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring." The
+explanation of its origin shows that it is not a trick mechanical toe
+nor, as some people suppose, that it is done with a piece of string. The
+fact is simply that the toe is double-jointed.
+
+Now that I have made a brief reference to dancing, I think it may be
+well to correct a legend which has grown up about my age, and which
+usually turns up when we have been encored a first or a second time for
+a dance or some boisterous number, especially in "Iolanthe" or "The
+Mikado." "Isn't it a shame?" I know some dear kind friends say, "making
+him do it again. Poor old man! He's well over seventy." Others declare,
+"Isn't he a marvel for sixty-five?" Well, if a man is as old as he
+feels, then my age must still be in the thirties, and certainly there is
+no intention on my part of retiring just yet. But if we have to go by
+the calendar, and if it is necessary that there should be "no possible
+shadow of doubt" in the future as to my age, I had better put on record
+the fact that I was born in London on January 3rd, 1867. The rest, a
+small matter of arithmetic, may be left to you. At all events I am still
+some distance from the patriarchal span.
+
+The stage is a wonderful tonic in keeping one healthy and strong. Not
+once, but many times, I have gone to the theatre in the evening
+suffering from neuralgia, but the moment my cue comes the pain has
+entirely disappeared. No sooner, worse luck, have I finished for the
+night than it has returned!
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+LEADERS OF THE SAVOY.
+
+    _Memories of Gilbert--His instinct for stagecraft--Stories of
+    rehearsals--Jack Point's unanswered conundrum--The craze for the
+    Up-to-Date--Gilbert's experiments on a miniature
+    stage--Nanki-Poo's address--The Japanese colony at
+    Knightsbridge--The geniality of Sullivan--A magician of the
+    orchestra--The cause of an unhappy separation--Only a
+    carpet--Impressions of D'Oyly Carte--Merited rebukes and
+    generous praise--D'Oyly Carte and I rehearse a love scene--A
+    wonderful business woman--Mrs. Carte's part in the Savoy
+    successes--Our leader to-day._
+
+
+Sir William Gilbert I shall always regard as a pattern of the fine old
+English gentleman. Of that breed we have only too few survivors to-day.
+Some who know him superficially have pictured him as a martinet, but
+while this may have been true of him under the stress of his theatrical
+work, it fails to do justice to the innate gentleness and courtesy which
+were his great and distinguishing qualities. Upright and honourable
+himself, one could never imagine that he could ever do a mean,
+ungenerous action to anyone, nor had any man a truer genius for
+friendship.
+
+Gilbert, it is true, had sometimes a satirical tongue, but these little
+shafts of ridicule of his seldom left any sting. The _bons mots_
+credited to him are innumerable, but while many may be authentic there
+are others that are legendary. He was a devoted lover of the classics,
+and to this may be attributed his command of such beautiful English.
+Nimble-witted as he was, he would spend days in shaping and re-shaping
+some witty fancy into phrases that satisfied his meticulous taste, and
+days and weeks would be given to polishing and re-polishing some lyrical
+gem. But when a new opera was due for rehearsal, the libretto was all
+finished and copied, and everything was in readiness.
+
+Few men have had so rare an instinct for stagecraft. Few men could
+approach him in such perfect technique of the footlights. Up at Grim's
+Dyke, his beautiful home near Harrow, he had a wonderful miniature stage
+at which he would work arranging just where every character should
+enter, where he or she should stand or move after this number and that,
+and when and where eventually he or she should disappear. For each
+character he had a coloured block, and there were similar devices, of
+course, for the chorus. Thus, when he came down for rehearsals, he had
+everything in his mind's eye already, and he insisted that every detail
+should be carried out just as he had planned. "Your first entrance will
+be here," he would say, "and your second entrance there. 'Spurn not the
+nobly born' will be sung by _Tolloller_ just there, and while he sings
+it _Mountararat_ will stand there, _Phyllis_ there," and so on.
+
+When the company had become familiar with the broader outlines of the
+piece, he would concentrate attention upon the effects upon the audience
+that could be attained only by the aid of facial expression, gesture and
+ensemble arrangement. Not only did he lay down his wishes, but he
+insisted that they must be implicitly obeyed, and a principal who had
+not reached perfection in the part he was taking would be coached again
+and again. I remember once that, in one of those moods of weariness and
+dullness that occasionally steal over one at rehearsals, I did not grasp
+something he had been telling me, and I was indiscreet enough to blurt
+out, "But I haven't done that before, Sir William." "No," was his reply,
+"but I have." The rebuke to my dullness went home! It was Durward Lely,
+I think, whom he told once to sit down "in a pensive fashion." Lely
+thereupon unmindfully sat down rather heavily--and disturbed an
+elaborate piece of scenery. "No! No!" was Gilbert's comment, "I said
+pensively, not ex-pensively." That quickness of wit was very typical.
+
+George Grossmith once suggested that the introduction of certain
+business would make the audience laugh. Gilbert was quite unsympathetic.
+"Yes!" he responded in his dryest vein, "but so they would if you sat
+down on a pork pie!" Grossmith it was, too, who had become so wearied
+practising a certain gesture that I heard him declare he "had rehearsed
+this confounded business until I feel a perfect fool." "Ah! so now we
+can talk on equal terms" was the playwright's instant retort. And the
+next moment he administered another rebuke. "I beg your pardon," said
+the comedian, rather bored, in reference to some instructions he had not
+quite understood. "I accept the apology," was the reply. "Now let's get
+on with the rehearsal."
+
+You will remember that in "The Yeomen" poor _Jack Point_ puts his
+riddle, "Why is a cook's brainpan like an overwound clock?" The
+Lieutenant interposes abruptly with "A truce to this fooling," and the
+poor Merry-man saunters off exclaiming "Just my luck: my best conundrum
+wasted." Like many in the audience, I have often wondered what the
+answer to that conundrum is, and one day I put a question about it to
+Gilbert. With a smile he said he couldn't tell me then, but he would
+leave me the answer in his will. I'm sorry to say that it was not found
+there--maybe because there was really no answer to the riddle, or
+perhaps because he had forgotten to bequeath to the world this
+interesting legacy.
+
+Sir William not only studied the entrances and exits beforehand, but he
+came with clear-cut ideas as to the colour schemes which would produce
+the best effect in the scenery, laid down the methods with which the
+lighting was to be handled, and arranged that no heavy dresses had to be
+worn by those who had dances to perform. No alterations of any kind
+could be made without his authority, and thus it comes about that the
+operas as presented to-day are just as he left them, without the change
+of a word, and long may they so remain!
+
+I ought, perhaps, to answer criticisms which are often laid against me
+when, as _Ko-Ko_ in "The Mikado," I do not follow the text by saying
+that _Nanki-Poo's_ address is "Knightsbridge." I admit I substitute the
+name of some locality more familiar to the audience before whom we are
+playing. Well, it is not generally known that Knightsbridge is named in
+the opera because, just before it was written, a small Japanese colony
+had settled in that inner suburb of London, and a very great deal of
+curiosity the appearance of those little people in their native costumes
+aroused in the Metropolis. Gilbert, therefore, in his search for "local
+colour" for his forthcoming opera, had not to travel to Tokio, but found
+it almost on his own doorstep near his home, then in South Kensington.
+A Japanese male-dancer and a Geisha, moreover, were allowed to come from
+the colony to teach the company how to run or dance in tiny steps with
+their toes turned in, how to spread or snap their fans to indicate
+annoyance or delight, and how to arrange their hair and line their faces
+in order to introduce the Oriental touch into their "make-up." This
+realism was very effective, and it had a great deal to do with the
+instantaneous success of what is still regarded as the Gilbert and
+Sullivan masterpiece.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE MR. RICHARD D'OYLY CARTE.]
+
+But to return to the point about Knightsbridge. When "The Mikado" was
+produced at the Savoy, the significance of the reference to a London
+audience was obvious and amusing enough, but it was a different matter
+when the opera was sent into the provinces. Gilbert accordingly gave
+instructions that the place was to be localised, and there was and
+always is something very diverting to, say, a Liverpool audience in the
+unexpected announcement that _Nanki-Poo_, the great Mikado's son, is
+living at "Wigan." In the case of Manchester it might be "Oldham" or in
+that of Birmingham "Small Heath." What I want to make clear is that, so
+far from any liberty being taken on my part, this little variation is
+fully authorised, and it is the only instance of the kind in the whole
+of the operas.
+
+Sir Arthur Sullivan I knew least of the famous triumvirate at the Savoy.
+I was under him, of course, at rehearsals, and we had pleasant little
+talks from time to time, but my relations with him were neither so
+frequent nor so intimate as they were with the other two partners. We
+had a mutual friend in Francois Cellier, about whose work as conductor I
+shall have more to say, and it was through him that I learned much about
+the fine personal and musical qualities of the composer.
+
+Certainly Sullivan was a great man, intensely devoted to his art, and
+fame and fortune never spoilt a man less. A warm-hearted Irishman, he
+was always ready to do a good turn for anyone, and it was wonderful how
+the geniality of his nature was never clouded by almost life-long
+physical suffering. Sullivan lived and died a bachelor, and I believe
+there was never a more affectionate tie than that which existed between
+him and his mother, a very witty old lady, and one who took an
+exceptional pride in her son's accomplishments. Nor is it generally
+known that he took upon himself all the obligations for the welfare and
+upbringing of his dead brother's family. It was to Herbert Sullivan, his
+favourite nephew, that his fortune was bequeathed.
+
+Of Sullivan the musician I cannot very well speak. I have already owned
+that I have little real musical knowledge. But at the same time he
+always seemed to me to be something of a magician. Not only could he
+play an instrument, but he knew exactly what any instrument could be
+made to do to introduce some delightful, quaint effect into the general
+orchestral design. "No! No!" he would say at a rehearsal to the double
+bass, "I don't want it like that. I want a lazy, drawn-out sound like
+this." And, taking the bow in his fingers, he would produce some
+deliciously droll effect from the strings. "Oh, no! not that way," he
+would say to the flutes, and a flute being handed up to him, he would
+show how the notes on the score were to be made lightsome and caressing.
+Then it would be the turn of the violins.
+
+At the earlier rehearsals it was often difficult for the principals to
+get the tune of their songs. The stumbling block was the trickiness of
+rhythm which was one of the composer's greatest gifts. Now, although I
+cannot read a line of music, my sense of rhythm has always been very
+strong, and this has helped me enormously both in my songs and my
+dancing. Once when Sir Arthur was rehearsing us, and we simply could not
+get our songs right, I asked him to "la la" the rhythm to me, and I then
+got the measure so well that he exclaimed "That's splendid Lytton. If
+you're not a musician, I wish there were others, too, who were not."
+
+One story about Sullivan--I admit it is not a new one--well deserves
+telling. Standing one night at the back of the dress-circle, he
+commenced in a contemplative fashion to hum the melody of a song that
+was being rendered on the stage. "Look here," declared a sensitive old
+gentleman, turning round sharply to the composer, "I've paid my money to
+hear Sullivan's music--not yours." And whenever Sir Arthur told this
+story against himself he always confessed that he well deserved the
+rebuke.
+
+Gilbert and Sullivan were collaborators for exactly twenty-five years.
+It was in 1871 that they wrote "Thespis," a very funny little piece of
+its kind that was produced at the Gaiety, and it was this success that
+induced Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte to invite them to associate again in
+the writing of a curtain-raiser destined to be known as "Trial by Jury."
+From that time until 1889 they worked in double harness without a
+break, and it was in that latter year, after the most successful
+production of "The Gondoliers" that there came the unfortunate
+"separation." It lasted four years. When, in 1893, the two men re-united
+their talents, they gave us that delightfully funny play, "Utopia
+Limited." But with "The Grand Duke" in 1896--and the superstitious will
+not overlook that this was the thirteenth piece they had written
+together--the curtain finally came down upon the partnership.
+
+It may be expected of me that I should say something about the cause of
+the famous "separation." It is a matter I should prefer to ignore,
+partly because the consequences of it were so very unfortunate to the
+cause of dramatic and musical art, and partly because the reason of it
+was trivial to a degree. Slight "tiffs" there may have been between the
+two from time to time--that was inevitable under the strain of
+rehearsals--but these minor differences were mended within a day or a
+night. What caused the rift was--would you believe it?--a carpet! This
+Mr. Carte, who under the contract was responsible for furnishings, had
+bought for £140, as a means of adding to the comfort, as he believed, of
+the patrons of the Savoy. Seeing this item in the accounts, Mr. Gilbert
+objected to it as a sheer waste of money, arguing that it would not
+bring an extra sixpence into the exchequer. The dispute was a mere
+"breeze" to begin with, but Gilbert and Carte had each a will of his
+own, and soon the "breeze" had developed into a "gale." And that
+miserable carpet led at last to the break-up of the partnership.
+
+Sullivan, whether he agreed with the purchase or not, did his best to
+put an end to the quarrel, but as in the end he had to adhere to one
+side or the other, he linked himself with Mr. Carte. This, then, was the
+sole cause of the breach, and by none was it more regretted than by the
+principals. Gilbert, I know, felt this severance from his old friend
+very acutely, though in our many talks in after years he was always
+inclined to be a little reticent as to this subject. Sullivan, too,
+though he went on composing, was not at all fortunate in his choice of
+lyrical writers, none of whom had the deftness and quaint turn of fancy
+of the playwright with whom he had worked so long and so successfully.
+
+Before I leave Sullivan, I think students of music will be interested to
+hear what Cellier once told me as to the composer's methods in writing
+his beautiful songs. With Gilbert's words before him, he set out first
+to decide, not what should be the tune, but the rhythm. It was this
+method of finding exactly what metre best suited the sentiment of the
+lyric that gave his music such originality. Later, having decided what
+the rhythm should be, he went on to sketch out the melody, but it was
+seldom that he set to work on the orchestration until the rehearsals
+were well under way. In the meanwhile the principals practised their
+songs to an accompaniment which he vamped on the pianoforte. Sullivan,
+who could score very quickly, had a mind running riot with musical
+ideas, and he could always pick out the idea for a given number that
+fitted it like the proverbial glove. "I have a song to sing O!" he
+regarded, I have been told, as the most difficult conundrum Gilbert ever
+set him, and musicians tell me that, in sheer constructive ingenuity, it
+is one of the cleverest numbers in the "Yeomen of the Guard."
+
+Now I must turn to Mr. D'Oyly Carte. From time to time in this book I
+have given indications as to the manner of man that he was, but although
+much is known about his capacity as a business manager, the world knows
+very little indeed of his kindly generosity. It was impossible, of
+course, for him to take into the company every poor actor who was down
+on his luck, but certain it is that he never sent him empty away. Seldom
+did he leave his office without seeing that his pockets were well laden
+with sovereigns. Out in the Strand, as he knew, there would be some waif
+of our profession waiting for him, always sure that under cover of a
+handshake, Mr. Carte would press a golden coin upon him with a cheery
+"see you get yourself a good lunch," or "a good supper."
+
+Mr. Carte, as I have said before, was a man of few words and of a rather
+taciturn humour, but it would be wrong to think that he was not fond of
+his joke. First, however, let me tell the story of a small youthful
+folly of mine, in "The Mikado." It happened in the second act where
+_Ko-Ko_, _Pooh Bah_ and _Pitti Sing_ are prostrate on the floor in the
+presence of the _Emperor_. We three had to do our well-known "roll-over"
+act in which I, like _Pitti Sing_ herself, had to bear the weight of the
+20-stone of dear old Fred Billington. Well, an imp of mischief led me
+one night to conceal a bladder under my costume, and when Fred rolled
+over it exploded with a terrible "bang." Billington had the fright of
+his life. "What's happened Harry?" he whispered anxiously, his nose
+still to the floor, "What have I done?"
+
+I am afraid that in those days I had an incurable weakness for practical
+joking. One night I went for dinner into a well-known hotel in the
+Strand. Soon after I had entered the restaurant I was roughly grasped by
+one would-be diner, who was obviously in a very bad temper, and who
+demanded to know why no one had been to take the order for himself and
+his guests. Well, if I was to be mistaken for a waiter, it would be just
+as well to play the part. "Pardon, monsieur!" I exclaimed, dropping at
+once into a most deferential attitude, and immediately getting ready to
+write down his order on the back of a menu-card that was handy. The
+diner, still in the worst of humours, recited the courses he had
+selected. "And wine, monsieur?" I asked. Yes, he wanted wine as well,
+and that order also was faithfully booked. Then I went to the far end of
+the room to join my own party of friends. What combustible heat the
+diner developed when he found that his wishes were still unattended to,
+and what verbal avalanche the real waiter had to endure when he had to
+ask that the order should be repeated, are matters upon which no light
+can be thrown--by myself! But to return to the story of the "explosion"
+in "The Mikado."
+
+My little bit of devilment was duly reported to the management. Mr.
+Carte summoned me before him and looked very grave. Unauthorised
+diversions of this kind would never do--and certainly not when
+perpetrated by a leading principal. "I think it is about time you
+stopped your schoolboy pranks," was his rebuke.
+
+But a different side of Mr. Carte was seen in connection with a certain
+incident at the Savoy. The point to remember is that it had reference to
+something that did not involve any liberties with the performance, and
+this fact put it, in his eyes, in an entirely different category. We had
+in the company a man who was always telling tales about the rest to the
+stage manager. So one night some of us got hold of him, ducked his head
+in a bucket of dirty water, and kept it there as long as we dare.
+Naturally he reported us, and in due course we were summoned to attend
+and explain our conduct to Mr. Carte. We were bidden to enter his room
+one by one. I, as one of the ring-leaders, was the first to go in. "This
+is very serious," said Mr. Carte, but having heard my explanation of the
+incident, and still looking exceedingly severe, he warned me that "this
+sort of thing must not happen again." Then, as a smile stole over his
+face, he added "All the same I might have done it myself!"
+
+With that he told me, when I went out of the room, to put one hand on my
+temple and, with the other stretched out in the air, to exclaim "Oh!
+it's terrible--terrible." What the effect of this melodramatic posture
+was on those anxiously waiting outside may well be imagined. It could
+only mean instant dismissal for all of us. Then Mr. Carte had another
+culprit before him, and having formally rebuked him, commanded him to
+make his exit in much the same way. It was an excellent joke--except for
+those at the end of the queue.
+
+It was Mr. D'Oyly Carte, by the way, who once did me the compliment of
+saying, "My dear Lytton, you have given me the finest performance I have
+ever seen of any part on any stage." Strange as it may seem to-day, the
+rôle which I was playing then, and which drew those most cordial words
+from one whose praise was always so measured and restrained, was that of
+_Shadbolt_ in the 1897 London revivals of "The Yeomen of the Guard." It
+was impossible for a small man to play the part just as the big men had
+played it, and so my interpretation of it was that of a creeping,
+cringing little dwarf who in manner, in method and in mood was not
+unlike Uriah Heep. This seemed to me to be consistent with the
+historical figure from which the part was drawn. Gilbert, it is not
+generally known, took him from a wicked, wizened little wretch who, in
+the sixteenth century, so legend says, haunted the Tower when an
+execution was due, and offered the unhappy felon a handful of dust,
+which was, he said, "a powder that will save you from pain." For reward
+he claimed the victim's valuables.
+
+[Illustration: MR. RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE.]
+
+When, by the way, Mr. Carte told me that mine was the best performance
+he had ever seen on any stage, I was so flattered by the compliment that
+I asked him if he would write his opinion down for me, and he readily
+promised to do so. Within a day or two I received a letter containing
+those words over his signature, and it remains amongst my treasured
+possessions. Only once did I know him to be guilty of forgetfulness, and
+that was when, meeting me in London, he said: "Oh! I think I can offer
+you an engagement, Lytton." I had to point out to him that I was
+actually playing in one of his companies. We were, I think, at Greenwich
+at the time, and I was making a flying visit to London.
+
+Mr. Carte was a great stage manager. He could take in the details of a
+scene with one sweep of his eagle eye and say unerringly just what was
+wrong. Shortly before I was leaving town for a provincial tour he
+noticed that _Ko-Ko's_ love scene with _Katisha_ might be improved, and
+so we went together for an extra rehearsal into the pit bar at the
+Savoy. Mr. Carte said he would be _Katisha_ and I, of course, was to be
+_Ko-Ko_. Now, to make love to a bearded man, and a man who was one's
+manager into the bargain, was rather a task but we both entered heartily
+into the spirit of the thing. "Just act as you would if you were on the
+stage," was his advice, "though you needn't actually kiss me, you know!"
+For this scene we had an audience of one. Little Rupert D'Oyly Carte was
+there, and before the rehearsal commenced I lifted him on to the bar
+counter, where he sat and simply held his sides with laughter watching
+me making earnest love to his father! I imagine he remembers that
+incident still.
+
+That "eye" for stagecraft, which in Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte amounted to
+genius, has been inherited in a quite remarkable degree by his son, Mr.
+Rupert D'Oyly Carte. He, too, has the gift of taking in the details of a
+scene at a glance, and knowing instinctively just what must be corrected
+in order to make the colours blend most effectively, the action move
+most perfectly, and the stage arrangement generally to be in balance and
+proportion. I need not say that in all this he most faithfully observes
+all the traditions which have stood so well the test of time.
+
+So far I have given in this chapter my random reminiscences of the chief
+three figures--the triumvirate, as I have called them--at the Savoy. But
+there was also a fourth, and it would be a grave omission were I not to
+mention one who, in my judgment, was as wonderful as any of them. I
+refer to Miss Helen Lenoir, who, after acting for some years as private
+secretary to Mr. Carte, became his wife. There was hardly a department
+of this great enterprise which did not benefit, little though the wider
+public knew it, from Mrs. Carte's remarkable genius. It was not alone
+that hers was the woman's hand that lent an added tastefulness to the
+dressing of the productions. She was a born business woman with an
+outstanding gift for organisation. No financial statement was too
+intricate for her, and no contract too abstruse. Once, when I had to put
+one of her letters to me before my legal adviser, though not, I need
+hardly say, with any litigious intent, he declared firmly "this letter
+_must_ have been written by a solicitor." He would not admit that any
+woman could draw up a document so cleverly guarded with qualifications.
+
+Mrs. Carte, besides her natural business talent, had fine artistic taste
+and was a sound judge, too, of the capabilities of those who came to the
+theatre in search of engagements. The New York productions of the operas
+were often placed in her charge. Naturally enough, the American managers
+did not welcome the "invasion" any too heartily, and her
+responsibilities over there must have been a supreme test of her tact
+and powers of organisation. Yet the success of these transatlantic
+ventures could not be gainsaid.
+
+When her husband died Mrs. Carte took the reins of management entirely
+into her keeping, and it was one of her most remarkable achievements
+that, notwithstanding constant pain and declining health, this
+wonderful woman should have carried the operas through a period when,
+owing to the natural reaction of time, they were suffering a temporary
+eclipse. Long before she died in 1913 they had entered upon a new lease
+of life, and to-day we find them once more on the flood tide of
+prosperity, loved alike by those who are loyal to their favourites of
+other days and no less by those of the younger generation who have been
+captivated by all their joyous charm of wit and melody.
+
+Our leader to-day is Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte. Of him I find it difficult
+to speak, as is bound to be the case when one is working in constant
+association with one who has the same cause at heart, and sharing with
+him the earnest intention that the great tradition of these operas shall
+be worthily and faithfully upheld. Upon Rupert D'Oyly Carte's shoulders
+has fallen the mantle of a splendid heritage. Speaking as the oldest
+member of his company, and no less as one who may claim also to be a
+friend, I can assure him that the happy family of artistes who serve
+under his banner, and who play in these pieces night by night with all
+the more zest because they love them for their own freshness and grace,
+will always do their part under him in keeping alight the "sacred lamp"
+of real English comedy that was first kindled into undying fires within
+the portals of the Savoy.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+ADVENTURES IN TWO HEMISPHERES.
+
+    _Actors in real life--Reminiscences of my American visit--A
+    thrill in Sing-Sing--The detective and the crook--Outwitting the
+    Pirates--In "The Gondoliers" in New York--A cutting Press
+    critique--Orchestral afflictions--Our best audiences--Enthusiasm
+    in Ireland and a short-lived interruption--Exciting fire
+    experiences--Too realistic thunder and lightning--"Hell's
+    Full."_
+
+
+"Lytton," said a well-known man of affairs to me, "we are all actors.
+You are an actor. I am an actor. Come with me to a meeting at which I am
+to make a speech and I will show you a real-life drama truer than ever
+you will see or hear on the stage. The audience would kill me if they
+dare. They would rend me limb from limb. And yet in half-an-hour--mark
+my words, in half-an-hour!--they will be shaking me by the hand and
+everything will be ending happily."
+
+We were in Holborn at the time and we took a short cab-ride into the
+City. My friend had to meet the shareholders of a company which he had
+promoted and which had not been prospering. No sooner had he entered the
+meeting room than he was met with a hostile reception. Epithets of an
+unequivocally abusive kind were flung at him from every side. Men shook
+their fists in his face. When he reached the platform the demonstration
+was redoubled, and at first he was not allowed to speak. Solidly he
+stood his ground waiting for the storm to subside. Eventually they did
+allow him to speak, and first to a crescendo and then to a diminuendo
+of interruption he told them how the failure of things could not be his
+fault at all, how he was ready to stand by the venture to the very end,
+how he would guarantee to pay them all their money back with interest,
+and how he would work the flesh off his bones to put the company right.
+
+Here, indeed, was real drama--and at a company meeting. Here was a man
+fighting for his commercial existence, and by the force of wits, sheer
+self-confidence and personal magnetism gradually winning. Just after the
+meeting closed a number of those infuriated shareholders were on the
+platform shaking him by the hand and telling him what a fine fellow he
+was. Towards the end of his speech I had seen him look at his watch and
+flash a significant glance in my direction. "Well," he said, when he
+rejoined me, quite calm and collected, "I did it under half-an-hour--in
+fact, with just a minute to spare."
+
+It is an incident like this which proves that histrionics is no
+theatrical monopoly. I once met another actor in real life--this time in
+America. I had gone to New York to do the _Duke_ in "The Gondoliers."
+Amongst the many delightful people I met there was General Sickles.
+Sickles was a "character," and also a man of influence. Only a few weeks
+before he had met Captain Shaw, the chief of the London Fire Brigade,
+whom Gilbert has immortalised in the Queen's beautiful song in
+"Iolanthe." Shaw had argued with the General that America's
+fire-fighting methods were not as speedy as they were in England.
+
+"Oh! aren't they?" was the reply. "Come and see." Forthwith the General,
+who was not a fire chief himself, but who had been Sheriff of New York
+and was thus a powerful individual, ordered out the New York Fire
+Brigade. No sooner had a button been touched than the harness
+automatically fell on the horses, the men came flying down a pole right
+on to the engine, and in so many seconds the brigade was ready. Long
+since, of course, all these methods have been adopted in this country,
+and I believe I am right in saying that the improvement followed this
+visit of Captain Shaw to the United States. I myself saw a turn-out of
+the brigade and thought their swiftness astonishing.
+
+It was General Sickles who introduced me to Mr. Burke, a famous New York
+detective of his day, who took me on a most interesting tour of
+Sing-Sing Prison. He persuaded me to sit in the electric chair, and
+having put the copper band round my head and adjusted the rest of the
+apparatus, he took a big switch in his hand and said, "I've simply got
+to press this and you're electrocuted--dead in a jiffy!" I'll own up I
+did not share his affection for his plaything. The experience was not at
+all pleasant.
+
+Burke, as an additional thrill, asked me if I should like to meet a
+notorious bank robber, whom I will call Captain S. It was arranged that
+the three of us should have dinner together. Captain S., the other
+real-life actor referred to, was at that time enjoying a spell of
+liberty, and to me it was amazing how cordial was the friendship between
+the great detective and the great "crook." When "business" was afoot it
+was a battle of wits, with the bank robber bringing off some tremendous
+haul and the detective hot on his tracks to bring him to justice, and
+probably it was because each had so much respect for the other's
+talents that socially they could be such excellent pals.
+
+"Yes, Burke," I heard Captain S. say, "you've 'lagged' me before this
+and I expect you'll do it again." I found him a delightful companion,
+with a fund of good stories, and he played the violin for us most
+beautifully.
+
+Captain S. told us how he planned one of his earlier exploits. It was
+his custom to pose as an English philanthropist, who was almost
+eccentric in his liberality and who made himself _persona grata_ in
+society. Even the most suspicious would have been disarmed by one so
+benevolent both in manner and in appearance. In this particular case,
+having decided on the bank he intended to rob, he took a flat over the
+building. One part of the day was spent in preparing his gang for the
+coup and the other part in performing kindly acts of charity. "I really
+felt sorry," he told us, "when the time had come to do the trick. I had
+been spending a lot of money and thoroughly enjoying myself. Luckily, we
+had found that, although the bank had steel walls and a steel floor, it
+had just an ordinary ceiling. That, of course, helped us enormously, and
+we got away with a regular pile. I left a note on the counter: 'You must
+blame the designer of the bank for this, not me.'"
+
+I have not yet explained the circumstances that took me to America.
+Shortly after "The Gondoliers" had been produced in London it was put on
+in the States. No sooner had any new Savoy opera been successfully
+launched in London than preparations were pushed forward for its
+production on the other side of the Atlantic. This, in point of fact,
+was done as a precaution. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte had learnt the
+need of that by bitter experience in their earlier ventures, which had
+been exploited by "pirates." These nimble gentlemen, having secured a
+rough idea of the new opera that was being produced in London, lost no
+time in bringing out a miserable travesty of it under the identical
+title that it was given at the Savoy. Thus not only did they trade on
+the reputation of these operas, but they were able to prevent the
+genuine production being given under its own title, inasmuch as this
+would have transgressed the law of copyright. So the "pirates" had to be
+forestalled by an immediate staging of the real operas, and in some
+cases these were put on in America simultaneously with, and in one case
+actually before, the productions in England.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE MRS. RICHARD D'OYLY CARTE.]
+
+"The Gondoliers" in America was not a success. Mr. Carte, who was there
+at the time, tried to mend matters by completely re-casting the play. I
+was in York, and I received a cable "Come to New York." It was never my
+custom to question my manager's requests. Whenever he commanded I was
+ready to obey. So from York to New York I travelled by the first
+available steamer and was soon playing the _Duke of Plaza-Toro_. During
+my first interview with Mr. Carte after my arrival there occurred an
+incident characteristic of the great manager. "Lytton," he said,
+producing his note-book, "I believe you owe me £50." I admitted it--the
+loan had been for a small speculation. "Well," was his reply, striking
+his pen through the item, "that debt is paid." It was in this way that
+he chose to show his appreciation of my action in responding to his
+summons immediately.
+
+What I remember most about "The Gondoliers" was the simply uproarious
+laughter with which the audience greeted the line in the Grand
+Inquisitor's song, "And Dukes were three a penny." It was quite
+different to the smiles with which the phrase is received in England.
+The significance of their merriment was the fact that no fewer than
+seven men had taken the part of the _Duke of Plaza-Toro_! I myself was
+there as the seventh! A Press critic, having drawn attention to this
+rather prolific succession, proceeded to place the seven in the order of
+merit--at least, as it appeared to his judgment. He gave six of the
+names in his order of preference in ordinary type, and then came a wide
+gap of space, followed by the last name in the minutest type. While I do
+not remember where I stood I do know that mine was not the name in such
+conspicuous inconspicuousness!
+
+Speaking of Press criticisms, which in this country are almost
+invariably fair and judicious, it was my curious experience once to go
+into a barber's shop in a small town in which we were playing and to
+find the wielder of the razor very keen about discussing the operas. He
+then urged me to be sure to buy a copy of the _Mudford Gazette_. "I've
+said something very nice about you," he said. I looked perplexed. "Oh!
+I'm the musical critic, you know," explained the worthy Figaro.
+
+Our "properties" in the small towns were sometimes a little primitive.
+Once in "The Gondoliers" our gondola was made of an egg-box on a couple
+of rollers, and we had to wade ashore. This was at Queenstown, where
+there was a strike, and we could not get all our baggage from the liner
+that had brought us from America. But often the chief affliction was
+the orchestra. I remember one violinist whose efforts were woeful. "You
+can't play your instrument," the conductor told him at last in
+exasperation. "Neither would you if your hands were swollen with hard
+work like mine," was his retort. "This job doesn't pay me. I just come
+here in the evening." It transpired that he was a bricklayer. At another
+place the musicianship of one instrumentalist was truly appalling. "How
+long have you been playing?" asked the conductor. "Thirty years man and
+boy," was the response. "It is thirty years too long," was the retort.
+
+From time to time I am asked where our best audiences are found. Really
+it is hard to say. Except for one big city--and why not there it is
+impossible to explain--the company has a wonderful reception everywhere.
+The Savoy audiences in the old days, of course, were like no other
+audiences, and it was something to remember to be at a "first night."
+Long before the orchestra was due to commence--with Sullivan there to
+conduct it, as he usually was also at the fiftieth, the hundredth and
+other "milestone" performances--it was customary for many of the songs
+and choruses from the older operas to be sung by the "gods." And
+wonderful singers they were.
+
+The London audiences of to-day are also splendid. Our welcome in the
+1920 season was a memorable experience. Gilbert and Sullivan operas
+depend for their freshness and their spirit far more on the audience
+than do any of the ordinary plays, and as it happens this enthusiasm on
+both sides is seldom wanting. Yet now and then we find an audience that
+is cold and quiet at the beginning and then works up to fever-heat as
+the opera proceeds, whereas on the other hand there is the audience that
+begins really too well and towards the end has simply worn itself out,
+being too exhausted to let itself go.
+
+The North, if not so demonstrative as the South, is always wonderfully
+responsive to the spirit of the witty dialogue and the sparkling songs,
+and two cities in which it is always a pleasure to play are Manchester
+and Liverpool. And those who declare that the Scots cannot see a joke
+would be disabused if they were to be at the D'Oyly Carte seasons at
+Glasgow and Edinburgh. Our visits there are always successful. But if I
+had to decide this matter on a national basis I should certainly bestow
+the palm on Ireland.
+
+Nowhere are there truer lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan than the Irish.
+It may be that Gilbert's fantastic wit is the wit they best understand,
+and it may be, too, that their hearts are warmed by the "plaintive song"
+of their fellow countryman, Sullivan. Whatever the cause, we have no
+better receptions anywhere. One feature of our Dublin and Belfast
+audiences is, oddly enough, shared with those at Oxford and Cambridge.
+They do not merely clap, but openly cheer again and again, throwing all
+conventional decorum away. And when the Irish are determined to have
+encores--no matter how many for a particular piece--there is no denying
+them.
+
+What we have found in the Emerald Isle--even during the unhappy times
+during and after the war--was that they kept their pleasures and their
+politics in watertight compartments. Sinn Feiners they might be outside
+the theatre, but inside it they are determined to enjoy themselves, as
+an interrupter found on one of our latest visits, when he tried to
+protest against the song, "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves." "No
+politics here," shouted someone from the stalls, and the audience
+agreeing very heartily with this sentiment the protestor subsided into
+silence.
+
+Looking back on the reference earlier in this chapter to fire brigades,
+I am reminded that I have more than once been on the stage at times when
+events have occurred which might have had terrible results, though my
+success as a panic-fighter is a distinction I would rather have
+foregone. One incident of this kind was at Eastbourne when we did
+"Haddon Hall." It will be remembered that in one part there are
+indications of an oncoming storm of thunder and lightning. Nowadays the
+authorities take care that effects of this kind are contrived with
+absolute safety to all concerned, but in those times the lightning was
+produced by a man in the wings taking pinches of explosive powder out of
+a canister, throwing these on a candle flame, and so securing a vivid
+flash over the darkening stage. Well, our man had done this so often
+that he had grown contemptuous of danger, and this time he took such an
+ample helping of the powder that the flash caught the canister, and
+there was a tremendous explosion. The canister went right through the
+stage and embedded itself in the ground.
+
+In "Haddon Hall" I was _McCrankie_, dressed in a kilt and playing the
+bagpipes when the explosion occurred. It plunged both stage and
+auditorium into darkness. I could hear the injured stage-hand groaning
+near the wings. Somehow I managed to grope my way to the man, pick him
+up in my arms, and carry him to one of the exits from the stage. I
+remember that a number of the chorus ladies, who could not find the door
+in the darkness, were clawing the walls of the scenery, for in their
+panic that was the only way they thought they could make their escape.
+The strange thing was that the door was not a yard away.
+
+Still dressed as a kilted Scot, I carried the injured man into the
+street, and already a crowd had gathered in the belief that there had
+been a terrible disaster. If not as serious as that, it had been quite
+bad enough, and it was a miracle that there had not actually been a
+calamity. In one of the boxes was one of those hardy playgoers who
+attended our shows night after night. We had nicknamed him "Festive."
+The concussion had lifted him out of his seat on to the floor. He
+complained that the thunder had been far too realistic!
+
+Fortunately we were able to go on with the performance, though many of
+us were suffering from nerves very badly. The stage hand had been
+speedily taken to hospital with serious injuries. It was typical of Mr.
+Carte's kindness that, although the man had been guilty of a very grave
+fault, he did not dismiss him from his service, but on his recovery made
+him a messenger and afterwards gave him a pension.
+
+Early in my career as a D'Oyly Carte principal on the provincial tours,
+we had a fire on the stage at the Lyceum, Edinburgh. It was the week
+before Henry Irving was due there to give his first production of
+"Faust." I remember that because we had his great organ behind the
+stage. Our piece that night was "Ruddigore" and while I was singing one
+of my numbers I became aware that something was amiss. It proved to be
+an outbreak of fire in the sky borders over the stage, and small
+smouldering fragments were falling around me in a manner that was
+entirely unpleasant. The steps at the back also caught fire, and it was
+a lucky thing that, the piece being then a new one, the audience should
+have taken it as a bit of realism added to the ghost scene. Otherwise
+nothing could have avoided a panic.
+
+I remember the stage manager shouting to me from the wings "Keep
+singing, keep singing." It was not easy, I can assure you, to keep on
+with a humorous number in circumstances like those, and with sparks
+dropping over one's head, but I did keep on with the song until they
+decided to ring down the curtain. Then I was told to run upstairs to
+warn the girls, whose dressing-rooms were near the flies. Now, as a
+young man I had made a reputation for myself as a practical joker, and
+one of my favourite antics was to tell this person or that, quite
+untruly, "You're wanted on the stage." Thus, when I rushed up to sound
+the real alarm, it was treated as a cry of "wolf." I banged the doors
+and entreated them to come out, but it was not until the smoke began to
+creep into the rooms that the girls knew positively that there was a
+fire, and promptly scurried for safety. Fortunately the outbreak was
+speedily subdued and the performance proceeded.
+
+A minor incident of this kind may be worth mentioning. We were in
+"Erminie" at the Comedy, and at the close of one of the acts the chorus,
+the ladies dressed as fisher girls and holding lighted candles, were
+singing a concerted "Good Night." Suddenly I noticed that one of the
+girls who was not paying much attention to her work had let the candle
+ignite the mob cap she was wearing. If the flame had reached her
+wig--and wigs in those days were cleaned with spirit--she must have been
+seriously burnt. So I ran up and tore off her cap, only to be rewarded
+with a haughty, "How dare you!" Later, when she realised what her danger
+had been, her apology and thanks were profuse.
+
+It may not, I think, be amiss if to these combustible reminiscences is
+added just one more story, though in a much lighter vein. It occurred in
+"The Sorcerer." _John Wellington Wells_, the "dealer in magic and
+spells," disappears at last into the nether regions, as it were, through
+the trap-door in the stage. One night the trap, having dropped a foot or
+so, refused to move any further, and there was I, enveloped in smoke and
+brimstone, poised between earth and elsewhere. So all I could do was to
+jump back on to the boards, make a grimace at the refractory trap-door,
+and go off by the ordinary exit. "Hell's full!" shouted an irreverent
+voice from the "gods." The joke, I know, was not a new one, for legend
+has it that a similar incident occurred during a performance of "Faust."
+Whether it did or not I do know that it occurred in that performance of
+"The Sorcerer."
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "JACK POINT" IN "THE YEOMEN OF THE
+GUARD."]
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+PARTS I HAVE PLAYED.
+
+    _List of my Gilbert and Sullivan Rôles--Parts in Other
+    Comedies--Excursions into Vaudeville--A Human Shuttlecock--When
+    Gilbert Appeared before the Footlights--Essays as a
+    playwright--A Burlesque of Shakespeare--Embarrassing
+    Invitations--A Jester's Hidden Remorse--My Life's Helpmate._
+
+
+It is my melancholy distinction to be the last of the Savoyards. Numbers
+of my old comrades, of course, are playing elsewhere or living in their
+well-earned retirement, but I alone remain actively in Gilbert and
+Sullivan. In all I have played thirty parts in the operas--no other
+artiste connected with them has ever played so many--and it may interest
+my innumerable known and unknown friends if I "put them on my list." In
+the following table I give incidentally the date of the original
+production of the comedies in London.
+
+    "Trial by Jury" (1875)        _Judge_; _Counsel_; _Usher_.
+    "The Sorcerer" (1877)         _Hercules_; Dr. _Daly_; _Sir_
+                                  _Marmaduke_; _John Wellington Wells_.
+    "H.M.S. Pinafore" (1878)      _Dick Deadeye_; _Captain Corcoran_;
+                                  _Sir Joseph Porter_.
+    "The Pirates of Penzance"     _Samuel_; _The Pirate King_,
+        (1880)                    _Major-General Stanley_.
+    "Patience" (1881)             _Grosvenor_; _Bunthorne_.
+    "Iolanthe" (1882)             _Strephon_; _Lord Mountararat_,
+                                  _Lord Chancellor_.
+    "Princess Ida" (1884)         _Florian_; _King Gama_.
+    "The Mikado" (1885)           _The Mikado_; _Ko-Ko_.
+    "Ruddigore" (1887)            _Robin Oakapple._
+    "The Yeomen of the Guard"     _Lieutenant of the Tower_;
+        (1888)                    _Shadbolt_; _Jack Point_.
+    "The Gondoliers" (1889)       _Giuseppe_; _The Duke of Plaza-Toro_.
+    "Utopia Ltd" (1893)           _The King._
+    "The Grand Duke" (1896)       _The Grand Duke._
+
+My connection with the D'Oyly Carte company falls into three periods.
+The first of these was in 1884 and 1885, when I went on tour for twelve
+months with "Princess Ida," to be followed by the heart-breaking time I
+have recounted in the "Vagabondage of the Commonwealth." Then, in 1887,
+I rejoined it to win my first success as George Grossmith's understudy
+in "Ruddigore." That period was destined to continue almost without
+interruption until 1901. For most of this time I was touring in the
+provinces, though I was in London for many of the revivals, as well as
+for several of the plays not by Gilbert and Sullivan produced by Mr.
+D'Oyly Carte. Eventually this latter enterprise was brought to an end by
+the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1900, and by that of Mr. Carte
+himself four months later in 1901. London saw the Gilbert and Sullivan
+works no more until 1906, though the suburban theatres were sometimes
+visited by the provincial company, which in the country kept alight the
+flickering torch that was to burn once more with all its accustomed
+brightness.
+
+Shortly after my old chief had passed away, I closed my second period
+with the company in order to throw in my lot with the musical comedy
+stage, and it was my good fortune to play leading comedy parts under
+several successful managements. Looking back on those years, I regard
+them as amongst the most prosperous and happy in my career, and yet it
+is no affectation to say that all other parts seemed shallow and
+superficial when one has played so long in Gilbert and Sullivan. Shall
+I say I was anxious to return to them? In a sense that would be true.
+Certainly the yearning was there--if not the opportunity. Then, in 1909,
+Sir William Gilbert earnestly invited me to rejoin the company, and I
+relinquished a very profitable engagement in order to play once more the
+parts I loved so well. Thus began my third period with the operas. This
+period has still to be finished.
+
+Sir William, I ought to say, was at this time an ageing man, and he had
+retired with a comfortable fortune. Grim's Dyke and its beautiful
+grounds gave him all the enjoyment he wanted, and to the end he had the
+solace and companionship of his devoted wife, Lady Gilbert. He died in
+1911. Following a visit to town, he had gone to bathe in the lake in his
+grounds, and had a heart seizure whilst swimming. He was rescued from
+the water and carried to his room, but there life was found to be
+extinct. The curtain had fallen.
+
+But to proceed. I propose to give a list of the comedies in which I
+played between 1901 and 1909. Lacking a good memory for dates, I cannot
+guarantee at all that the order in which they appear is correct, though
+approximately this may be the case:--
+
+      Comedy.                        Part.              Management.
+
+    "The Rose of Persia"           _The Sultan_       D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Emerald Isle"             _Pat Murphy_       D'Oyly Carte.
+    "Merrie England"               _Earl of Essex_    D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Beauty Stone"             _Simon_            D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Lucky Star"               _Tobasco_          D'Oyly Carte.
+    "His Majesty"                  _The King_         D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Grand Duchess"            _Prince Paul_      D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Vicar of Bray"            _The Vicar_        D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Princess of Kensington."  _Jelf_             D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Earl and the Girl"        _The Earl_         William Greet.
+    "The Spring Chicken"           _Boniface_         George Edwardes
+    "The Little Michus"            _Aristide_         George Edwardes
+    "My Darling"                   _Hon. Jack_
+                                   _Hylton_           Seymour Hicks.
+    "Talk of the Town"             _Lieut. Reggie_    Seymour Hicks.
+                                   _Drummond._
+    "The White Chrysanthemum"      _Lieut. R._        Frank Curzon.
+                                   _Armitage_
+    "The Amateur Raffles"          _Raffles_          Music Halls.
+    "Mirette"                      _Bobinet_          D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Chieftain"                _Peter Grigg_      D'Oyly Carte.
+    "The Grand Duchess"            _Prince Paul_      D'Oyly Carte.
+    "Billie Taylor"                _Captain Flapper_  D'Oyly Carte.
+
+In the opinion of many friends, my best piece of pure character acting
+was that as _Pat Murphy_, the piper in "The Emerald Isle." Without a
+doubt it _was_ a fine part. I had to be blind, and in contrast to the
+manner in which most blind characters were played at that time, my eyes
+were wide open and rigid. From the moment I entered I riveted my gaze
+tragically on one particular spot, and my eyes never moved, no matter
+who spoke or however dramatic the point. Naturally the strain was
+tremendous. Then, at last, _Pat's_ colleen lover began to have
+suspicions that he was not really blind--that the idle good-for-nothing
+fellow was shamming. And when _Pat_ admitted it, the subterfuge had been
+kept up so long that, both to those on the stage and to the audience,
+the effect was marvellous to a degree. I loved playing the piper and
+speaking the brogue. "The Emerald Isle," as is now generally known, was
+the last work that Sir Arthur Sullivan composed, and on his lamented
+death the music was completed by my gifted friend, Edward German. I
+remember that when, later on, the piece was taken to Dublin, we had
+doubts as to whether anything in it might offend the susceptibilities
+of the good people of the "disthressful counthree." Strangely enough, no
+objection of any kind was raised until the jig in the second act, and as
+it was believed that this was not done correctly and that the girls were
+lifting their heels too high, the dance was greeted with an outburst of
+booing. This was quelled by the lusty voice at the back of the pit.
+"Shame on ye," he shouted. "Can't ye be aisy out of respect for the
+dead?" And another voice: "Eh, an' Sullivan an Oirishman too, so he
+was!" The appeal was magical. The interruption died away and the
+performance proceeded.
+
+"The Earl and the Girl," the most successful of all the musical comedies
+in which I appeared and the one which gave me my biggest real comedy
+part, ran for one year at the Adelphi, and then for a further year at
+the Lyric. When it was withdrawn I secured the permission of the
+management to use "My Cosy Corner," the most tuneful of all its musical
+numbers, as a scena on the music-halls, and with my corps of Cosy Corner
+Girls it was a decided success.
+
+One other venture of mine on the music-halls was in conjunction with
+Connie Ediss when we had both completed an engagement at the Gaiety.
+"United Service," in which we figured together, ran for fourteen weeks
+at the Pavilion, and it provided me with one of the best salaries I ever
+drew. The idea of this piece was a contrast in courtships. First we
+would imitate a stately old colonel paying his addresses to an exquisite
+lady, and then a ranker making love to the cook, with an idiom
+appropriate to life "below-stairs." Eighteen changes of dress had to be
+made by each of us, and the fun waxed fast and furious when the colonel
+commenced pouring his courtly phrases into the ears of the cook, and
+when, by a similar deliberate mishap, the soldier in his most ardent
+vernacular declared his passion for m'lady.
+
+Connie Ediss and I might have done as well with a successor to "United
+Service." But the theatre, she said, "called her back," and accordingly
+we went our separate ways in "legitimate."
+
+Some reminiscences still remain to be told of my struggling early days
+on the stage. One of these concerns my brief and boisterous connection
+with the well-known Harvey Troupe. I was chosen as deputy for their page
+boy, whom these acrobats threw hither and thither as if he were a human
+shuttlecock, and a very clever act it was, however uncomfortable for the
+unfortunate youngster. I scarcely relished the job, but old Harvey told
+me "All you've to do is to come on the stage; leave the rest to us;
+we'll pull you through." It was not a case of pulling me through. They
+literally _threw_ me through. For half-an-hour I was thrown from one to
+another with lightning speed, and that was about all I knew of the
+performance. "You did very well," they told me afterwards, "didn't you
+hear the laughs?" I am afraid I hadn't heard them. I had been conscious
+only of an appalling giddiness and of feeling bruised and sore. Next day
+I was black and blue, and unable to perform, but in those hard days,
+when food was scarce, one had to be ready for anything.
+
+It was about this time in my career that I secured a pantomime
+engagement at the Prince's, Manchester, though my rôle was merely that
+of standard-bearer, in the finale, to the "show lady," before whom I
+walked with a banner inscribed, "St. George and the Dragon."
+Unfortunately, in my nervousness, I marched on with the reverse side of
+the banner to the front, and at the sight of this piece of tawdry linen
+the audience laughed uproariously.
+
+When the Second Demon was absent I was chosen as his understudy, and it
+seemed to me to be a wonderful honour, because it gave me eight words to
+speak. I had the comforting feeling of being a big star already. How
+well I remember those lines:--
+
+    Second Demon (sepulchral and sinister): Who calls on me in
+        this unfriendly way?
+    Fairy Queen (in a piping treble): A greater power than yours;
+        hear and obey!
+
+Coming to a much later date, I include in my list of memorable
+theatrical occasions the benefit matinee given in the Drury Lane Theatre
+for Nellie Farren, for many years the bright particular star at the
+Gaiety. The stage was determined to pay the worthiest tribute it could
+to the brilliant artiste who, once the idol of her day, was now laid
+aside by sickness and suffering, and never had such a wonderful
+programme been presented. King Edward, then Prince of Wales, gave the
+benefit his gracious patronage, and it was in every way a remarkable
+success. The D'Oyly Carte contribution to the entertainment was "Trial
+by Jury." Gilbert himself figured in the scene as the _Associate_. It
+was, I believe, his only appearance before the footlights in public, and
+it was a part in which he had not a line to speak. I played the
+_Foreman_. Amongst other benefit performances in which I have taken part
+were those to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Dacre and Miss Ellen Terry. We gave
+"Trial by Jury" on these occasions also, and my part was _Counsel_.
+
+Speaking of King Edward, I am reminded that when, by going to the Palace
+Theatre after his accession, His Majesty paid the first visit of any
+British Sovereign to a music-hall, the occasion coincided with the run
+there of an operetta of my own, called the "Knights of the Road." It was
+a Dick Turpin story, for which I had written the lyrics, and the music
+had been provided by my good friend Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Principal
+of the Royal Academy of Music. I conceived the idea that pieces of this
+kind, based on English stories and typically English alike in sentiment
+and musical setting, might be made an attractive feature on the
+music-halls, and in point of fact, all that was wrong with the
+experiment was that it was a little too early. To-day, when the
+better-class music-halls have attained a remarkable standard of taste,
+they would be just the thing. Nevertheless, my "Knights of the Road" had
+a successful career, and it served to give Walter Hyde, now one of our
+leading operatic tenors, one of his first chances to sing in the
+Metropolis.
+
+I wrote about eight of these pieces altogether. The libretto and the
+scores are still in existence, and for better or for worse, they may be
+produced even yet. One of them is written round the well-known picture,
+"The Duel in the Snow." This depicts a beautiful woman rushing between
+the two swords in a duel, and my object was to fill in the dramatic
+significance of the picture, representing how it came about that the men
+were fighting in those wintry surroundings for the hand of the lady.
+
+"For one night only" I appeared with the Follies. I was at the Palace in
+"My Cosy Corner," and Pellissier asked me to come on, garbed as the
+poet, in their burlesque on Shakespeare. Leaning from my pedestal, I had
+to reproach them for daring to take such liberties, and we finished up
+with a boxing match. Our jokes on that occasion were mainly
+extemporised. Nobody in the audience knew that I was acting deputy, but
+those in the wings had heard that a conspiracy of some kind was afoot,
+and they entered heartily into the spirit of the burlesque.
+
+It is far easier, I think, to improvise on the stage than it is away
+from the footlights, and I well remember my dilemma when I was once
+invited to an "at home." It was a children's party, and my hostess had
+told the youngsters that they were going to see _Ko-Ko_, the "funny man"
+in "The Mikado." No doubt if I had come in my Oriental costume it would
+have been less difficult to act up to the part, but it was quite another
+thing to arrive in an immaculate frock-coat and silk hat, to be escorted
+at once into the circle of children, and invited then and there to act
+the clown in the circus with "jibe and joke and quip and crank." For
+some moments I stood almost tongue-tied. Luckily, as it happened, my
+hostess handed me a cup of tea, and in my nervousness I dropped it. The
+children giggled hugely. With that trivial incident the ice was broken.
+
+Enjoyable as it is to meet so many people in the social sphere, our good
+friends who see us from the auditorium, and then shower their
+invitations upon us, are at times a little embarrassing. Kind as they
+undoubtedly are--and we do appreciate the hospitality so readily
+offered to us wherever we go--they are perhaps forgetful that every week
+we have to get through seven or eight hard performances. With rehearsals
+taken into account, we have not over-much leisure for social enjoyment,
+and certainly no great reserves of energy. A Scotch lady was once most
+pressing that I should attend a dance she was arranging. Now, much as I
+love dancing on the stage, I have never had any taste at all for the
+conventional ball-room dancing, and really how could one have after
+doing, say, the courtly gavotte in "The Gondoliers?" "I never dance," I
+told my Scottish friend, "unless I'm paid for it." Evidently she mistook
+my meaning, for with her invitation to her dance she enclosed me--a
+cheque for £5. I returned it with my compliments.
+
+From time to time on these social occasions we are prevailed upon to
+give one or two of our songs from the operas. Songs from the Gilbert and
+Sullivan operas, nevertheless, seldom sound well away from the stage and
+their familiar surroundings, and long ago most amateur vocalists dropped
+them from their repertory. I, personally, have found that the most
+suitable of my numbers for private circles are the _Lord Chancellor's_
+"Dream Song"--it is so dramatic that it goes quite well as an
+unaccompanied recitation--and _King Gama's_ "I can't tell why." Here I
+must note a remarkable fact. When I am on the stage, I know not only my
+own lines, but the lines of everyone else, but away from the stage and
+the atmosphere of the play my otherwise excellent memory is not always
+so amenable to discipline. Indeed, I can recall an occasion when, at a
+garden party, I was asked to sing "Tit Willow." I cheerfully undertook
+to do so, but half-way through I stumbled, and try as I would even with
+the promptings of obliging friends, I could get no further than the
+middle of the second verse. And yet on the stage I have sung "Tit
+Willow" without a fault many thousands of times.
+
+I think I was only once in any danger of forgetting my lines on the
+stage. It happened in "The Mikado." Behind the scenes, unknown to me,
+_Pooh Bah_ had fainted, and one of his entrances had to be made by _Pish
+Tush_. Well, I was on as _Ko-Ko_ at the time, and the sound of an
+unexpected voice was so strange, so bewildering, that for a moment it
+seemed to me that my reason had gone! "Get off! It's _Pooh Bah_" I
+whispered, excitedly. _Pish Tush_ managed to give me a hint that
+something had happened, and we continued our comedy scene, though in my
+frame of mind this might easily have come to grief!
+
+Speaking of memory, I am reminded that my first recollection in life was
+that of listening, as a very small child, to a lad playing a quaint
+little tune on a banjo. I never heard that tune again, but it has ever
+since remained in my mind, and only a few years ago I was talking about
+it to a man who had spent nearly all his life in Australia. When we were
+children we were neighbours in the same village. "Yes," said my
+long-lost friend, "I was the lad who played that tune on the banjo, and
+you were lying in a cot in the garden!" Between that incident and our
+mutual recollection of it nearly fifty eventful years for both of us had
+passed.
+
+Before I close this chapter of random reminiscences I feel I must pay my
+tribute to the best, the oldest and the truest of all my friends--my
+helpmate in life, "Louie Henri." As Albert Chevalier would put it,
+"We've been together now for (almost) forty years, and it don't seem a
+day too much." Louie Henri, as I have already told, secured me my first
+engagement, and from that time to this she has been the intimate sharer
+in whatever troubles and successes have fallen to me in what is now a
+long and eventful career. Optimistic as I may be in temperament, there
+were times when her encouragement meant a great deal, and to my wife I
+pay this brief tribute (as brief it is bound to be). Our family has
+consisted of three sons and two daughters. Our two elder sons served
+during the war in the Royal Air Force, and one of them was lost whilst
+flying in a night-bombing raid in France. I well remember the time when
+my boy was first reported missing. With that anxious sorrow weighing on
+my mind, it was no small trial to keep alive the semblance, at least, of
+comedy.
+
+    Oh, a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
+    If you listen to popular rumour.
+
+_Jack Point's_ song appealed to me with peculiar poignancy during that
+time of heavy anxiety. But to return to my wife.
+
+Louie Henri, as the older generation well remembers, is able to count
+herself amongst the distinguished Savoyards. Before she retired she had
+probably played a greater number of parts--soprano, contralto, and
+soubrette--than any other lady connected with the company. I am sure it
+will be of interest if I enumerate here the rôles she has played:--
+
+    "Trial by Jury"                _Plaintiff._
+    "The Sorcerer"                 _Constance_; _Mrs. Partlet_.
+    "H.M.S. Pinafore"              _Josephine_; _Hebe_.
+    "The Pirates of Penzance"      _Edith._
+    "Patience"                     _Lady Angela._
+    "Iolanthe"                     _Iolanthe._
+    "Princess Ida"                 _Melissa._
+    "The Mikado"                   _Pitti Sing._
+    "Ruddigore"                    _Mad Margaret._
+    "The Yeoman of the Guard"      _Phoebe._
+    "The Gondoliers"               _Tessa._
+    "Utopia, Ltd"                  _Nelraya._
+    "The Grand Duke"               _Julia._
+
+Mrs. Lytton, apart from her success as an actress, has always been an
+accomplished musician, and in that respect I owe much to her for the way
+in which, during the preparation of my new rôles, she has helped me, "a
+lame, unmusical dog, over the stile." Our pianoforte at home is the one
+on which Sir Arthur Sullivan first played over his music for "The
+Mikado." It is a handsome satinwood grand, designed for Mr. D'Oyly Carte
+by the late Sir Alma Tadema, R.A., and this most interesting and
+valuable souvenir was presented to me by Mrs. D'Oyly Carte.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+FRIENDS ON AND OFF THE STAGE.
+
+    Lessons to the Prince on the Bagpipes--A Charming and Lovable
+    Personality--Queen Alexandra's Compliment--An Afternoon with
+    Fisher--Stories of the Great Seaman--George Edwardes and His
+    Genius for Stagecraft--His Successes on the Turf--"Honest Frank"
+    Cellier--A Model Conductor--Traditions of the Savoy--Rutland
+    Barrington--An Admiral in Disguise--Fred Billington--A Strange
+    Premonition--Our War-Time Experiences--Caught in the Toils of
+    the Dublin Rebellion.
+
+
+It was my great privilege and pleasure, when we were at Oxford on one
+occasion, to be introduced to the Prince of Wales, who was then in
+residence at Magdalen. Nothing impressed me more than his sunny nature
+and the wonderful knack he had of putting everybody at their ease
+immediately. Since then it has been just those qualities which have made
+him so immensely popular in his tours of the Empire.
+
+Our first meeting was in His Royal Highness's own rooms, where he was
+accompanied by his tutor, Mr. H. P. Hansell. I remember that as I was
+speaking to him the members of a college team were brought in to be
+presented. "Ah!" exclaimed the Prince, "that's the best of being a
+celebrity, Lytton. I could not draw a muster like this." It was just a
+little pleasantry, this suggestion that it was myself who was the
+attraction, but it was an example of his happy knack of putting
+everybody at their ease immediately. I recall, too, that the Prince at
+that time was learning the chanter, with which one proceeds to the full
+glory of playing the bagpipes. Greatly to his surprise, I took the
+chanter and proceeded to give him a lesson, to which he listened most
+attentively, and then played a skirl, with which he was delighted. It so
+happens that, although I am no musician, I do know how to handle the
+bagpipes, and once a group of Scottish yokels who were listening to me
+stood open-mouthed with astonishment that such skill should be possessed
+by a trousered Englishman. This was when I visited my old colleague
+Durward Lely's place in the Highlands. The Scotties were enjoying a
+homely dance in a barn, and as the piper had been hard at it and seemed
+tired, I volunteered to act as his deputy. I don't want to be boastful,
+but my performance was regarded as a _tour de force_, at least for a
+Saxon.
+
+The Prince came to the theatre frequently during our stay, and one night
+he came round to our dressing-room, where once more one fell
+irresistibly under the spell of his lovable and attractive personality.
+He invariably addressed me as "Ko-Ko." The Prince told me then, as he
+had done on other occasions, how really delightful he thought the operas
+were, and he said he looked forward to seeing them again and again. Then
+he asked to be introduced to a member who, in more than one sense, is
+one of the stalwarts of the choristers, Joe Ruff. Seeing that Joe had
+been with us so many years, I thought this special "recognition" was
+particularly happy, and it was a very great pleasure to me to be allowed
+to introduce my colleague to the Heir-Apparent.
+
+From time to time, both during my connection with D'Oyly Carte and when
+temporarily away from the company, I have played before Royalty.
+Especially do I recall a night when Queen Alexandra occupied a box at
+the Savoy. It was in the "Yeoman of the Guard" revivals and my rôle was
+_Shadbolt_. Her Majesty was kind enough to send Sir Arthur Sullivan to
+my dressing-room to compliment me on the clearness of my enunciation,
+and I need hardly say how gratifying such praise was to me.
+
+Seldom was "H.M.S. Pinafore" staged during the 1920 season without Lord
+Fisher coming to chuckle over Gilbert's clever satire on the "ruler of
+the Queen's Navee." He revelled in that opera. It was not only, I think,
+that it smacked of the sea, but he loved the gibes at the politicians
+and the hearty loyalty of the honest salt who, "in spite of all
+temptation," firmly resolves to "remain an Englishman." It was after he
+had seen me several times as _Sir Joseph Porter_ that he invited me to
+bring a few of my colleagues and spend an afternoon with him at his home
+in London. I reproduce his very typical letter on another page. My
+recollections of that afternoon are very delightful. Lord Fisher was a
+wonderful veteran, and it was difficult afterwards to realise that a
+fortnight later he was stricken down with his last illness, to which he
+succumbed in the following July.
+
+I remember that we did not have to do much of the talking. Lord Fisher
+walked up and down, up and down the room as if it were the quarter-deck,
+and he was telling us all the while such capital stories that we forgot
+that we, too, were still standing up! Of his yarns there were two that
+were very typical of the man and his ways.
+
+[Illustration: A LETTER FROM THE LATE LORD FISHER.]
+
+"One day," he began, "I was walking through Trafalgar Square, and as I
+always do, I looked up at the statue of the greatest man that ever
+lived. Then a woman who was munching a bun came along. 'Here, master,'
+she said, 'who's 'e?' 'That's Lord Nelson,' I answered. 'Is it?' she
+returned, 'and who's 'e?' Fancy! Never heard of Nelson! Such ignorance!
+'Well,' I said, 'if it had not been for him, that bun would have cost
+you, not a halfpenny, but fourpence. Good day!' And I walked on. I
+suppose she thought she had been talking to a lunatic."
+
+Then Lord Fisher spoke of the exertion needed in our dances on the
+stage. "Energy! Energy! That's what we want," he declared. "Why, I was
+fed by my mother until I was quite a big baby. I refused to be weaned--I
+was so determined even in those days! You must have good natural food
+when you are born. It means everything. It gives you stamina--it makes a
+man of you."
+
+From that interview I brought away a signed portrait of the great
+seaman. "I'm an ugly blighter, aren't I?" he reflected, sadly, as he
+handed it to me, "but I'm good." Candour would have compelled one to
+admit that he was anything but strikingly handsome, but in that small,
+intensely sallow face there was, after all, something that was
+extraordinarily kindly and strong. In that sense his face was the
+faithful mirror of his character.
+
+"Jackie Fisher's" candour reminds me of a frank admission made to me by
+a statesman who still wields a leading influence in present-day
+politics. I think I had better not mention his name, although he is
+numbered amongst my friends, and he has often been exceedingly kind in
+his appreciation of my work on the stage. He told me he once met a lady
+whom he had not seen for several years, and having cordially greeted
+her, he said, "I'm so delighted to see you, Sybil." That he should have
+remembered her, and still more, that he should have remembered her first
+name, pleased the lady immensely. She said she was charmed that he had
+not forgotten her name. "Oh," responded the statesman, with the best of
+intentions, "I've a remarkable memory for trifles." The next moment he
+realised he had committed an awful _faux pas_. What was more, he saw
+that he, though a politician, could not explain it away.
+
+Not many people remember now that Mr. George Edwardes, who created the
+vogue for musical comedies as we now know them, and who made a fortune
+out of his connection with the Gaiety and Daly's, was in his early days
+Mr. D'Oyly Carte's manager at the Savoy. When he became a producer his
+flair for stage effect amounted to genius. He could decide in a moment
+to make the most revolutionary changes in a production. For instance, I
+have heard him give orders that the first act should be made the second
+one and the second the first, because he saw that it would better work
+up the interest in the play. He would transpose a certain scene from
+here to there because he knew instinctively that there was its proper
+place. "I don't like that man singing that song," he said once, just
+before a new comedy was due to have its first performance, and when even
+the dress rehearsals were almost complete, "We'll give it to a lady."
+"But," it was objected, "it's a man's song--a military song." "Never
+mind," he answered in that familiar drawling voice of his, "we'll dress
+her in a red coat, and we'll bring the chorus on as soldiers too." And
+his judgment was absolutely right. That girl's soldier song was the
+great hit of the piece.
+
+George Edwardes was a generous, kindly-natured man, accessible to
+everybody, and a splendid companion. Keenly interested as he was in his
+theatrical ventures, he never made these his sole and only
+pre-occupation. Upon the Turf, as every sportsman knows, he was a
+shining light, and many horses from his stables won the biggest prizes
+of their year. He often invited me to join him at the races, and never
+failed to tell me the winners--"well, hardly ever." One day he gave me
+three running. Just then I was arranging to play under his management
+for a term of three years, and he said those three winners proved that
+we could make money together both on and off the stage, and that we must
+sign up the contract, which we did the next day.
+
+One of my closest friends was Francois Cellier, of whom it would be
+literally true to say that he devoted his life, his talents and all his
+enthusiasm to the operas at the Savoy. For thirty-five years he served
+them as conductor, to the exclusion of all the fame he might have won in
+a wider field, for he was a musician of surpassing accomplishments. He
+was the younger brother of Alfred Cellier, who was the composer, amongst
+other delightful comedies, of "Dorothy." Both men were Bohemians, and
+both of them might have been the architects of their own fortunes if
+they had put only their own goal in front of them, and pursued it
+steadily.
+
+Francois Cellier--Honest Frank they called him, and the name suited him
+well--was a prince of good fellows and a most charming and helpful
+companion. I can never tell the debt I owe to him for all the advice he
+gave to me regarding our performances. He knew Gilbert's and Sullivan's
+ideas to the minutest detail, and, with all his love of the operas, he
+wanted those ideas carried through exactly on the stage. Even with the
+audiences he had a magnetic personality. Unlike most conductors, who
+feel they must allow just as many encores as the audience demands, he
+could indicate by some strange method to those behind him that an encore
+would be unreasonable or inconsiderate, and immediately the applause
+would subside and the play would proceed.
+
+Cellier had his heart and soul in every performance, and what that means
+is known only to those who work on the stage, and who do sometimes
+become dull and listless because of their very familiarity with the
+parts they are playing or because the audience cannot easily be aroused
+to "concert pitch." What brightness they may give to their acting is of
+a superficial and mechanical kind that can give them no pleasure. It is
+at just such times as these that a real conductor is worth his weight in
+gold. Notwithstanding that he may have seen the piece hundreds of
+times--and might with reason be more bored than the principals
+themselves--he comes to each new performance with an enthusiasm which
+shakes the company out of themselves and makes everything go with a
+will.
+
+Some conductors I have known have shown so little interest in their work
+that they did not even attempt to conceal their boredom. This is very
+unfair to the players. Can anyone expect there to be any spirit in the
+singing of a chorus when the conductor is just listlessly waving his
+baton, or when he shows such little respect for the artistes that,
+during their dialogues, he either yawns sleepily or leans over for a
+chat with the strings? Cellier was never guilty of that discourtesy.
+From the time he picked up his baton for the first bar of the overture
+the "play was the thing." During a chorus you would see him alert and
+awake and stirring on the company to give their best, and during your
+own solos or dialogues you would see him listening intently so that,
+like a friendly critic, he could afterwards praise you for what you had
+done well or give you hints where there was cause for improvement. It is
+a great thing to the artistes to see a genial face at the conductor's
+desk, and the operas go with a great spirit and nerve whenever the
+conductor, seconded by the orchestra, is doing everything to help us
+along. Our company's record has been a very fortunate one in this
+respect.
+
+Everybody who plays in Gilbert and Sullivan makes it a point of honour
+to do his or her best to preserve what we call the traditions of the
+Savoy. If I were asked to name the secret of the charm of these operas,
+I should have to answer that there was not one secret, but many, but
+that one of the chief is their sense of "repose." Gilbert, like the
+master playwright he was, would never have two situations running
+together. If, that is to say, the leading character was going to offer
+his hand to the heroine, the whole company must look on eagerly and
+expectantly. It would never do for them to be indifferent and
+uninterested. Still less would it do for subsidiary characters to do
+something that might attract the audience's eye to them in some other
+part of the stage. Everything must be focussed on the central incident,
+and to this end every member of the company must think first and all the
+time of the play, and not indulge in those hateful individual touches of
+"pantomime."
+
+What I mean is best seen in what happens quite frequently in ordinary
+plays. Nearly every minor actor and actress seems to take, or is allowed
+to take, licence to put in a little bit of "business" on his or her own
+account, and so draw kudos to himself or herself by being supposed to be
+"funny." It is really only "supposed." Generally it is not funny at all,
+and it mars the effect of the play by making the entire atmosphere
+restless and perplexed. Eyes are strained here, there and everywhere,
+and the poor audience in trying to catch this, that and the other point,
+is probably missing what is the chief point of the play. Well, if
+refinement is not the keynote of a production, this may possibly not
+matter so much, but it is certainly foreign to the tranquil atmosphere
+of Gilbert and Sullivan.
+
+No one, I think, could have done more by his example on the stage to
+encourage refinement in these operas than my good friend, Rutland
+Barrington. During his playing career--now at an end, unhappily--he was
+an artiste to his finger tips. He had also a great asset in his fine
+presence and personality. Our friendship has been of the closest, and I
+call to mind an incident when we were at Portsmouth and when there was
+something important occurring at the Royal Dockyard. "We can't get in
+without a pass," I said to him, but he only smiled and said that, at all
+events, we could try. "Watch me," he commanded. Straightening himself
+up, he walked to the gates as if in the manner born, took the salute
+from the sentries, and entered the yard. It looked ridiculously easy. So
+I decided to follow suit. The sentries would not let me through. "Can't
+come in without a pass," I was told, and let me through they would not
+on any account, however much I tried to "flatter, cajole and persuade."
+Barrington always did have "a way with him." I imagine the sentries were
+impressed by his bearing, or it may be that they had mistaken him for
+his brother, Admiral Fleet.
+
+This naval reference serves to recall a most interesting story bearing
+on the subject of "make-up." Now, "make-up" has always been a
+fascinating study to me, and many kind friends tell me that I have a
+special gift for it, instancing how completely I transform my appearance
+for parts so different, for example, as the hunchback _King Gama_ and
+the martial old _General Stanley_. Certainly I do spend more time than
+most actors do over the arts and deceptions of the dressing-room. For
+_King Gama_ the make-up of the face alone takes an hour, apart from all
+the physical deformities that have to be contrived when playing this
+ugly, ungainly character in "Princess Ida." But all this by the way.
+What I was going to write about was an incident when a worried young
+naval lieutenant came to see me at the close of our show at the Savoy.
+He was at the romantic age then, a trifle oblivious to the passing of
+time when there was a charming lady at his side, and at the theatre he
+overlooked that by a certain hour he should have been back at the Naval
+College at Greenwich. Lieutenant X came round to see me in a terrible
+state. What was he to do? If he went back, he told me, he would be
+stopped at the gates by the sentries and he would have to give
+explanations, of which none he could think of would be adequate. If, on
+the other hand, he did not return there would be a court-martial, and he
+would be dismissed from the Service. Before him, whichever way he
+turned, was the blank ruin of his career and he disgraced in the eyes of
+his family. Well I don't know which of us actually suggested it, but it
+occurred to us that if only he could be disguised as an Admiral, he
+might easily get into the college! An Admiral had to keep no strict
+hours when absent from duty, and if only he could look and act the part,
+the sentries would let him pass and ask no awkward questions. So in a
+very few minutes I was busy treating him with all the arts of "make-up."
+Certainly the addition of a pointed beard made a most effective
+disguise, and it answered splendidly, for at Greenwich he marched boldly
+through the gates to the dutiful salutes of the sentries. The situation
+was saved. For my own part I felt that I had done something to save a
+career, and as it happens, the romantic young friend of those days is
+now a real Admiral, and a very well-known and popular one, in his
+Majesty's Navy.
+
+Numerous are the stories told about my friend and colleague for so many
+years--Fred Billington. In temperament and character we were entirely
+opposites, but there was scarcely one disagreement throughout our long
+companionship, during which we played together almost continuously. He
+was a Yorkshireman, and before he joined the company, with which he
+remained for thirty-seven years, he was in the office of the Water Board
+at Huddersfield. The whole of his stage career was spent with these
+operas.
+
+It was not everybody who understood Billington. Sometimes he could be
+uncommonly moody and gruff, and if he did not feel in the mood to talk,
+he would make it clear that he wanted no introductions to one's own
+acquaintances. But under the rugged surface he was a fine-hearted
+fellow, who lived life heartily and lived it well, and nothing pleased
+him better, apart from a game of golf, than to sit and gossip with those
+whose society he liked.
+
+One day he invited three of us to a round of golf, and it being a cold
+morning, he told us that he was ordering "a good beef-steak and kidney
+pudding." Well, when we had finished the game and returned to the
+club-house, in came that steaming pudding. Billington looked at it long
+and earnestly. "It won't do for four," he reflected. Then a pause. "It
+would make a poor meal for three. There's scarcely enough for two. I'll
+tell you what. I'll have it--and you three can have chops." And that is
+just what we did.
+
+Billington had a gift of robust eloquence, and unless one was accustomed
+to it, the freedom with which it flowed from his tongue was most
+embarrassing. He was playing a clergyman one day at golf. The cleric,
+whenever he made a bad shot, invariably relieved his feelings by
+exclaiming, "Oh, Pickles! Pickles!" Language of this kind in
+Billington's ears was exceedingly trying, and as if determined to give
+the parson a lesson, he came out with a string of oaths of the richest
+and most vivid description. "Thank you very much, Mr. Billington," said
+the clergyman, smilingly, "thank you very much!" Evidently those were
+the sort of words which, but for respect for his cloth, he wanted to
+say!
+
+One day he went out for a match with a bishop. The club officials,
+knowing how exuberant his language could be, were on tenter-hooks of
+anxiety all the time they were out, and on their return the secretary
+hastened to take the episcopal visitor apart. "Mr. Billington, the
+actor, you know, my lord," he explained. "I hope his language didn't
+shock you." "Oh, no!" responded the bishop, diplomatically, "he did once
+call on the Almighty, but otherwise his language was beyond reproach."
+
+Dear old Billington! Earlier in life he had been with the company on a
+South African tour, and the wide spaces, the ample life and the
+boundless opportunities of that vast country appealed to him
+irresistibly. South Africa had a "call" for him, and he had ambitions,
+when the time came for him to retire, to settle there. That ambition was
+never realised. Only the night before he died, while we were in our
+dressing-room, he surprised me with the question, "How would you like to
+die, Harry?"
+
+From a man so little inclined to brood on the morbid the question was
+strange. I told him I didn't know. I had never, I told him, thought it
+out, and didn't intend to, either.
+
+"But if you had to die," he insisted, "how would you prefer to go?"
+
+"Oh! I don't know," I retorted. "Anyhow, we're not going to die just
+yet."
+
+"Well," was his answer, "if I had my way, it would be a good dinner, a
+bottle of wine, a good cigar, a good joke, and--pop-off!"
+
+It must have been a premonition. The very next day, while still
+apparently in perfect health, he left Cambridge to keep a luncheon
+engagement with Mr. Rupert D'Oyly Carte at the Great Eastern Hotel,
+London. The intention was that he should be back for the night
+performance. With the lunch they had a bottle of wine, and afterwards,
+over cigars, they talked with many a hearty joke in between. Then he
+went out into the foyer--and collapsed. It was at least good to think
+that the passing of my dear old friend was free from pain or suffering.
+
+Fred Billington's end must have been hastened by a sequence of events
+during the war. Strangely enough, when we were at Sheffield, the town
+was visited by a Zeppelin raid, and there was another raid when we were
+at Hull, a third when we were at Kennington, and a fourth when we were
+at Wimbledon. Billington's nerves, naturally enough, were very upset.
+Wherever we went the Zepps seemed to be after us. "Do you know, Harry,"
+he said, at last, "I believe that bally Kaiser has got our tour." What
+he meant, of course, was that our list of bookings had got into the
+hands of the All-Highest, and that he thought, apparently, that if he
+could wipe out the Gilbert and Sullivan operas he would be able to break
+the spirit of England. Looked at in that way, the attention paid to us,
+whether intentional or not, was certainly flattering.
+
+Worse than those raids, however, was the Dublin rebellion, into which we
+ran at Easter 1916. We should have opened there on the Bank Holiday. In
+point of fact we did not play one single night. Fred and I were at the
+Gresham Hotel. The very first day we were not allowed out at all, for we
+were in the very centre of hostilities, and no one could go into the
+street except at his peril. Chafing under the restraint, I did at last
+attempt to venture out, though feeling that there were too many bullets
+about for things to be healthy. Opposite the Gresham, at the door of the
+Irish Club, I saw the well-known figure of the Dublin Coroner, Mr.
+Friery. I rushed across to him, and it was because I spoke to him, I
+believe, that I was ever able to get back alive. Mr. Friery, with his
+top hat and frock-coat, was an easily distinguished citizen, and neither
+the military nor the rebels would have been likely to fire at him
+deliberately. "You ought never to have come across," he told me, and as
+it happened, the very same thought had occurred to me.
+
+Conditions in the hotel itself were the reverse of pleasant, what with
+the noise of the firing outside and bullets shooting through our own
+windows, though these were shuttered and protected as far as possible.
+Our food stocks commenced to run low--by the end of the week's siege we
+had only biscuits and ham--and the strain on the larder was added to by
+the arrival of scores of visitors who had been turned out of the
+Metropole Hotel. They had been told to take their valuables with them,
+and it was remarkable how, in the fright of such an emergency, men would
+grasp the first thing that came into their hands and leave their real
+treasures behind. One man rushed over clutching two dirty collars, while
+another had a bath-towel which he had picked up, it seemed, instead of a
+dressing-gown. English jockeys who were there for the race week hurried
+over holding a saddle case.
+
+Our anxieties were increased in the meanwhile by the systematic
+operations of the military around Eden Quay. One by one the houses were
+being demolished by shellfire, and in one of the threatened houses, as
+we knew, were many of the ladies of the company. To get to them was
+impossible. Luckily for them a sergeant on signalling duty heard their
+cries, and at once rushed to their help. "Who are you?" he shouted.
+"What are you doing here?" "We're the D'Oyly Carte," they answered. The
+D'Oyly Carte name worked like magic. Signalling to the gunners to cease
+fire, the sergeant hurried them out and through the streets, where
+sniping was going on at every corner, and took them to a police-station
+for safety.
+
+All the other members of the company had more or less miraculous
+escapes. Leicester Tunks, Frederick Hobbs, Leo Sheffield, and several
+others lost all their luggage, but fortunately none sustained any more
+serious mishap. From the good people of Dublin we received every
+possible kindness, but as you will imagine, we were thankful when we
+heard that there were berths on a boat to take us back to Holyhead.
+
+I have not, of course, told all my experiences of that awful week,
+though in memory these still linger vividly. But one of the things I
+remember best of all was a quaint remark of Billington's. Outside there
+was still the noise of the fighting, and most persistent of all was the
+crack! crack! crack! of a sniper somewhere near our own building. "Oh!
+Harry," said poor Fred, in utter weariness, "I do wish that bally
+wood-pecker would chuck it!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+HOBBIES OF A SAVOYARD.
+
+    _Luckless ventures in Theatrical Management--Farces that
+    failed--New outlets for Enthusiasm--Baldness in the poultry
+    run--Captain Corcoran and the crooks--Floricultural
+    topsy-turvydom--The flowers that did not bloom in the
+    Spring--Recreations that remain--Prize Costumes at fancy-dress
+    balls--The big-game shot and the tiger._
+
+
+Like "Mr. Punch" in another connection, I have a sound piece of advice
+for those who may ever think of embarking on theatrical management.
+"Don't!" I say this after bitter experience. It was not only that my
+gallanty show as a boy ended disastrously. This, of course, was itself a
+bad omen, and it ought to have taught me that public taste is fickle and
+that the gamble of theatrical management is surrounded by all kinds of
+perils. A West-end audience may be just as capricious and as hard to
+please as my audience of village lads in the garden.
+
+My first real venture, a London one, was at the Criterion Theatre, which
+with a few others I took on lease from Sir Charles Wyndham, in order to
+produce "The Wild Rabbit." It was by Mr. George Arliss, who has since
+given up writing plays in order to act them, and he is now a "star" in
+America. It was one of those rollicking farces which, one would have
+thought, would have filled the house every night. I was playing
+elsewhere at the time, but we got together a really excellent company,
+amongst whom were the Broughs. But fate was against us from the very
+beginning. The production coincided with a heat wave, which is bound to
+be disastrous to all but the best of shows, and one of the facetious
+complaints of the newspaper critics was that they had to come to the
+theatre when the temperature was eighty in the shade.
+
+"The Wild Rabbit" survived three weeks only. It drew £34 the first
+night--and that was the high-water mark in the matter of receipts. One
+night the box-office took a mere £8. Seeing that the expenses were about
+£600 a week, it will be understood that the failure was severe and
+complete, and in most circumstances one lesson of the kind would have
+been enough. However, a number of friends of mine had secured the rights
+of "Melnotte," an operatic version of that good old comedy, "The Lady of
+Lyons." They did not ask me to invest any capital, but they invited me
+to let them have the use of my name in booking a tour for the provinces,
+as they themselves were unknown to theatrical managers. Upon that basis
+an eight weeks' tour was arranged. Gathering together about sixty
+artistes all told, they rehearsed them and bought all the scenery, and
+were almost on the eve of the first production of "Melnotte." Then one
+fine morning there came the thunderbolt. They told me that all the money
+they had put into the venture had gone! It had gone before the company
+had even left London. What was to be done? Seemingly their idea was
+centred in how speedily they could cut their losses and abandon the
+venture. Such a thing to me was impossible. With my name attached to the
+tour, a breach of faith with so many provincial managers would have
+been a serious blow to my reputation, and apart from that, the fact that
+sixty of my fellow artistes were in danger of being thrown out of work
+compelled me to take both a moral and a financial obligation on my
+shoulders and run the show myself. I could only hope for the best and
+wait patiently for the report of my manager that the tour was
+flourishing.
+
+That report never came. Every week I had to post a big cheque to cover
+the deficit on the takings, and every week made it clearer that,
+although the play itself was a good one, it was a thoroughly bad
+speculation. Something certainly was amiss. I could not leave London
+myself, and the only alternative was to offer a friend his railway fare
+and expenses and ask him to run into the country, see the play and tell
+me frankly what was amiss. "Harry," said my friend very meaningly, "I've
+never done you a bad turn. I've seen it--_once_." Once was enough!
+
+Eight weeks saw the end of "Melnotte." From the first it was a forlorn
+hope, and in any case it was impossible to run a company successfully
+unless one could be on the spot to superintend the production. The only
+satisfaction I had out of it--and I admit it with some feelings of
+pride--was that of standing by my fellow professionals, and, at whatever
+cost to myself, "playing the game." I have never made--and never shall
+be lured to make--another plunge into management. The risks are too
+great.
+
+Sometimes I am inclined to contrast my bad luck in these business
+ventures with the good fortune of a friend who once asked me for a loan
+of £90. He was in humble circumstances then, but he had a little money
+of his own and his ambition was to buy the licence of a public-house in
+Holloway. I lent him the cash, and later on he came to repay me, with
+many thanks for thus giving him his opportunity. Years afterwards we met
+again. Upon the basis of that little public-house he had built a
+comfortable fortune, for he was a director of a brewery concern, had a
+big interest in various industrial undertakings, and eventually became a
+well-known member of Parliament. "You have been my mascot," he said--and
+there have been others who for various reasons have said the very same
+thing!
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "THE LORD CHANCELLOR" IN "IOLANTHE."]
+
+Once I met a "dear friend"--you may know the kind yourself--who was
+terribly anxious that I should be "in" with him in a rich gold mine in
+Alaska. He brought some nuggets to show me, and they were so plentiful,
+he told me, that he had picked these from the top of the ground.
+Evidently I must have been a particularly credulous person, because he
+got a good deal of my money, whereas all I got was experience!
+
+Where hobbies are concerned my luck always seems to be appalling. I have
+had a mania for turning my hands to all sorts of things. It began, I
+remember, with my determination to commence breeding poultry, and having
+made up my mind to this, it had to be done very thoroughly. I bought
+quite a number of chickens and wired them within a very small space. The
+poor things had nothing like enough room, and they began to get bad
+tempered, to fight one another, and to pull out their feathers. Further,
+having pulled out their rivals' feathers and found the oil at the roots
+very tasty, they set to in earnest, and before long there was not one
+bird with a feather left in the place. They were all bald! A more
+miserable collection of freaks you could never imagine. With
+characteristic humour Dan Leno sent me a bottle of Tatcho for them!
+
+From hens to ducks was not a far cry. So I bought a number of ducks'
+eggs, hatched them in an incubator, and at last decided that it was time
+the little wretches had their first swim. I accordingly carried them
+down to a pond to put them in. Alas! once more for my amateur
+enthusiasm! The ducklings were too young for that, and they got cramp
+and died.
+
+Nothing daunted, I turned now to bulldogs, and in order to do things
+well I bought seven big kennels, complete with iron gates. They would
+have done credit to a big estate, where breeding is done on up-to-date
+lines, and were quite out-of-place in my suburban garden at Chiswick. To
+begin with we could not get the kennels into the garden. For hours they
+were on the street pavement while we cogitated just how we were going to
+get them round to the back of the house, and it was only after a
+police-officer had intervened with an order to remove them forthwith,
+because they were a nuisance, that we found that if there is a will,
+there must be a way.
+
+"Captain Corcoran" was the name I gave to my best bulldog, and as he
+brought me luck, I was glad I had chosen that name from "Pinafore." He
+was a sturdy fellow, the winner of very many championships, and his
+progeny have since also carried off valuable prizes. But even my one
+successful hobby was doomed to be blighted. One day two crafty-looking
+individuals came to my house and said they wanted to see me about a dog.
+They were Americans, and they wanted, they told me, to buy "Captain
+Corcoran." I told them I would not sell him--not at any price. They
+found it a waste of time to try to fix up a deal. "Well," they said as
+their parting shot, "we're going to have him, anyhow." Within a day or
+two police officers called to warn me that two expert dog thieves had
+taken rooms in the neighbourhood, and I was forced to the conclusion,
+much as I disliked it, that I must dispose of "Captain Corcoran." Later
+on I commenced to breed dachshunds and Borzois, but somehow I did not
+care for the "doggy" people with whom I had to mix, and the end was that
+I gave up dogs altogether.
+
+Then I determined I would venture into the more tranquil arts of
+floriculture. I would have my own flower garden, and what was more,
+everything in it should be done by myself. My wife, shrewd woman, said
+nothing. It was a case of "leave him alone, and he'll play for hours."
+From Holland I ordered an immense number of bulbs and put them into the
+ground. Months went by, but not a sign was there of my hyacinths. I
+pondered deeply over my manual of useful hints for gardening. Watered
+them? Yes. Raked the soil? Yes. What was wrong? Certain it was that
+these flowers never bloomed in the spring!
+
+Eventually, I saw a tiny yellow spike creeping out of the earth, but the
+colour and nature of it were not "according to plan." At last I called
+in a gardener. "Oh," he declared, doing his best to soften the blow,
+"you've planted the bulbs upside down." And so I had! The poor little
+shoots had to dig down into the soil before they could curve round and
+creep into the light. Nearly everything in that unfortunate garden had
+been planted upside down.
+
+Friends of mine chaffed me unmercifully over that topsy-turvy exploit.
+When they came to my house they would turn all the ornaments upside
+down. Before I entered the room they would reverse the chairs, the
+settee and anything they could lay their hands upon, and then they would
+explain themselves by saying, "We thought you liked things like that,
+old man. The bulbs you know. We've just heard about the bulbs."
+
+Well, after the failure with the hens, the ducks, and the flowers, there
+seemed only one other diversion to try, and that was photography. Even
+that did not survive very long, nor yet did my attempt to cultivate
+mushrooms in my cellar, a craze that threatened very literally to get
+the place into bad odour. But there are two recreations to which I still
+remain faithful, and they, after all, are worth all the rest put
+together. One is golf and the other painting. Golf is a great game for
+keeping the actor fit, and his mind clear for his work, and it is very
+popular in our profession. Now and then, too, a day with the palette and
+easel is a wonderful pleasure to me, and seldom do I take up the brush
+without a thought of poor old Trood and his studio at Chelsea.
+
+One diversion at least in which I have had my share of success has been
+in the fancy dress balls at Covent Garden. Once I took the first prize
+with a representation of Nelson, the costume of which was copied in
+every detail from the uniform of the great seaman preserved in Greenwich
+Museum, and I remember that my entry was signalised by Dan Godfrey's
+orchestra striking up "'Twas in Trafalgar Bay." Then I took the chief
+honours with a wonderful bust of Nero, in connection with which I
+received enormous help from my old friend, the celebrated sculptor,
+Albert Toft. From my waist downward I was encased in what appeared to be
+a blood-marble pedestal. My face was whitened, my eyes were closed, and
+my brow was adorned with the laurel leaf, and when the lights were
+focussed on my rigid figure and the plaster frame it was acclaimed as a
+marvellously clever imitation of the statue of the great Roman Emperor.
+Once again I took the first prize at Covent Garden with the subject of
+the Knave of Clubs. The costume was a silk one, half black and half
+white, and on it were fastened the names of all the well-known clubs in
+London. Even the members of the Beef Steak Club found that their
+institution had not been overlooked--and that this title appeared on the
+costume in an appropriate place!
+
+Nowadays, when we are on tour, it is very pleasant to be able to travel
+by motor-car instead of by train. With my Austin-20 car I have now
+covered well over 42,000 miles, and probably the only occasion when I
+deliberately exceeded the speed limit was once outside Plymouth. A
+doctor with a troublesome car was held up in the roadway. When I drew up
+and asked whether I could help him, he told me he had been a
+quarter-of-an-hour trying to get the engine to go, though he was due at
+a very critical operation some miles away. It was, indeed, a matter of
+life and death, and in my own car he was very speedily taken to the
+hospital. It was in the same district, I think, that I gave a "lift" to
+a man who was footsore and weary, and who said at the end of the
+journey, "I suppose you won't tell the gov'nor about this, will you?"
+Evidently he had mistaken me for somebody's chauffeur!
+
+Some years ago, when I was setting out from my home at Chiswick, I was
+held up by a 'bus bound for Twickenham. It was crowded already, and the
+conductor had to refuse a poor old woman who wanted to board it, and who
+was very distressed, because she had a job at Twickenham, "and if I
+don't get there," she told me, "they'll think I'm too old for work and
+they won't want me again." The problem was easily solved. I offered to
+take her where she was going. She had never been in a motor-car before,
+and in trying to stammer her thanks, she asked me to tell her my name
+"so that I shall never forget you." So I handed her my card--she
+certainly did not know anything about me or what was my profession--and
+went on my way. Judge of my surprise when, soon after the end of the
+war, I found that that old lady had bequeathed to me the two little
+rooms and all the furniture that had been her poor, but neat and cosy,
+home at Hammersmith. Luckily, I heard of a demobilised soldier who, with
+his wife and child, was urgently in need of a shelter, and it was a
+great pleasure to me to be able to turn this touching legacy to such
+good account.
+
+Speaking of hobbies, I don't think I knew a more curious taste than that
+of an old friend of mine who was a big-game shot and traveller, and who
+had a miniature zoo of his own at his home at Derby. Once, when the
+company was playing in that town, he invited me to go and stay the night
+with him after the performance, and in his library we sat chatting until
+the early hours of the morning. He told me many graphic stories about
+his expeditions into strange lands, about the tigers and elephants he
+had shot, and about his marvellous escapes. One story was about a
+faithful servant of his, a powerfully-built black, who stood right in
+front of an infuriated wounded elephant, which trampled on him and
+killed him, as the poor fellow doubtless knew would be the case, though
+he was ready to chance all so that his master might be protected. I
+remember that my friend, having told me this incident, added, "They are
+the greatest men on God's earth, are these blacks."
+
+"Just half-a-minute," then said the explorer. Listening to those strange
+adventures in the jungle had already set my nerves on edge, and to be
+left alone in that dimly-lit room, with everything outside and inside it
+silent and still, was really uncanny. I heard my host walk along the
+corridor, open one or two doors, and apparently enter the garden. He had
+left me alone in that house! In a few moments I heard an unnatural tread
+in the corridor. Pit-pat, pit-pat! My eyes almost sprang out of my head.
+Pit-pat, pit-pat. Nearer and nearer it came until at last into the room
+there sauntered a--tiger! My friend walked in behind it.
+
+"For God's sake take it away," I screamed, drawing my feet up into the
+chair and expecting every second the beast would pounce, "Take it away!"
+The tiger was really only a cub, but coming like an apparition into that
+room, it seemed to be the biggest and most ferocious and most ghastly
+sight on earth. Large beads of perspiration were on my forehead, my
+heart was beating itself out of my body, and through my mind flashed the
+countless sins of my youth. My last hours had come. "Take it away," I
+yelled, again and again, "it will tear us to pieces."
+
+Now I think of it, the tiger did not really look as if it had much of an
+appetite, or if it had, the idea of making a tough meal of an actor did
+not appeal to its palate. The hunter tried to assure me that the beast
+was "quite all right." It flopped down by his side, and as he stroked
+it, the cub purred in a manner which, to me at all events, was not at
+all pleasant. "I know just how long you can keep them," my host
+explained. "This one will be harmless for another month. Then it will be
+dangerous. It is quite all right to-night. Come and stroke it!"
+
+Not I! So long as the tiger remained there I kept cringed up in my seat
+on the other side of the room, and mighty thankful I was when he had
+taken his strange pet away. I've an old-fashioned notion that a library
+is not the happiest place for a menagerie. I heard that just a month
+afterwards the beast did, in fact, turn on the big-game shot, and his
+arm was terribly ripped. He must have trusted it just a day too long.
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "KO-KO" IN "THE MIKADO"]
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+GILBERT AND SULLIVAN.
+
+    _World-wide Fame of the Operas--The Secrets of Their
+    Charm--Sullivan's Music and the Popular Taste--Gilbert and the
+    Englishman--Stage Figures That Are True to National Type--The
+    Germans and "H.M.S. Pinafore"--Characters That Mirror
+    Ourselves--Gilbert's Versatility--Pedigree of the
+    Operas--Practical Hints for Amateurs--The Importance of the
+    First Entrance--Studying the Art of Make-up--A Splendid Heritage
+    of Humour and Song._
+
+
+The Gilbert and Sullivan public are said to number three millions.
+Exactly how this figure is arrived at I cannot say, but it is presumed
+to represent those who make it a point of honour to see the operas
+whenever they possibly can, who are familiar with all the music and the
+songs, and who lose no chance of making others as enthusiastic as they
+are. Literally they are to be found the whole world over--from China to
+Peru--and the operas are as successful in Australia and America as they
+are in the United Kingdom. I was told once of an Englishman, exiled in
+the wilds of China, who had an audience of Celestials listening at his
+garden gate while he was warbling to himself "Take a Pair of Sparkling
+Eyes!"
+
+What a wonderful thing it is that plays which are all well over thirty
+years old should have such a faithful following! Clearly there must be
+something exceptional about them, some magnetic force that draws the
+multitudes to them, some elixir that gives to them the freshness of
+eternal youth. Imitators have tried hard to capture the secret of their
+sweet simplicity. That they have failed so far to do so is a
+misfortune. The Savoy operas still stand alone, unchallenged either by
+any changing in popular taste or by the passage of time, though if there
+were more of them it would be good for the public that loves such
+honest, wholesome enjoyment. It would also be good for the stage. What
+is the secret?
+
+Sullivan's music often reminds me of a beautiful garden. No attempt is
+there here to picture in bold orchestral strokes the frowning peaks, the
+expansive landscapes or the scenes of pomp and splendour. The canvas is
+ever a miniature one. Each melody is comparable to a lily or a
+daffodil--just as unpretentious and just as charming--while the whole
+has the fragrance of the flowers that bloom in the spring. We love this
+music because it soothes and delights. It is not too "intellectual." We
+appreciate it as a free and easy distraction, just as we appreciate a
+popular novel, though we may have high-brow moments when we peer into
+our Darwin and Spencer. Sullivan's greatest virtue was that he wrote
+music that was "understanded of the people."
+
+British folk, as we know, are easy going. We are a little too inclined
+to doff the thinking-cap at the first opportunity. Speaking generally,
+we are not a studious race, and we don't want to be bothered with
+"problems." Sullivan's music is never in the problem style--the problem
+of intricate chords and modern progressions--and just as certainly does
+it avoid the strident atrocities of the modern ragtime type. It is
+transparent and simple. It sparkles like the stream in the sunshine, and
+it is always joyous, buoyant and happy. We want more of such music.
+Give the people more of these delicate melodies--frankly popular as they
+are, and yet supremely good music--and into their own lives will enter
+much of the same romantic warmth and content.
+
+All this shows how Sullivan in his music was perfectly and typically
+British. What about Gilbert? In his way I think he was the same. British
+audiences, he knew, did not want either abstruse plots or out-and-out
+farces, but they did like to be indulged with gentle ripples of
+laughter. They did not care over-much for the incongruous, but they did
+love rollicking, good-natured burlesque. And Gilbert was a master of
+burlesque. Endless arrows are released from his bow, but they hit the
+mark without disfiguring it, for the tips are not dipped in poison. The
+Briton can laugh with the best when his own weaknesses and foibles are
+held up to satire. Certain people would go at once into a tantrum. The
+Germans, as we know, could never understand "H.M.S. Pinafore." They said
+it was impossible! No doubt to them it was impossible. Gilbert was
+making play with Britain's proudest possession--her Navy. Well, the
+Germans could never have produced a Gilbert of their own in any case,
+but imagine the enormity of the crime if such a one had written a play
+caricaturing the omnipotent German War Lords and the old German Army!
+
+Whatever the national costume in which the Gilbert characters are
+dressed, and however remote the age to which these costumes belong, we
+know at once that the garb is the purest "camouflage." We have met their
+like in present-day London or Glasgow or Liverpool. What a lot of folk
+in real life we know with the same little oddities! _The Duke of
+Plaza-Toro_, though described as a Spanish grandee, is really very much
+an Englishman. He sings, too, about the human weakness for small titles
+and orders, and we know that that is not an exclusive weakness of the
+Venetians or the Baratarians in "The Gondoliers." The cap can find a
+head to fit it much nearer home. Then there is the character of _Sir
+Joseph Porter_ in "Pinafore." No doubt he is an exaggerated political
+type, but he is not exaggerated, after all, beyond recognition.
+
+"The Yeomen of the Guard" is, of all operas ever written, the one most
+essentially English. The Elizabethan setting is there, and so is the
+happy spirit of old Merrie England. Slightly, perhaps, it may be a
+drama, but it brings to the surface the tears of gentle melancholy only.
+That also stamps it as typically British. _Colonel Fairfax_, under the
+shadow of the executioner's axe, does not strike a dramatic pose and
+tell us that it is a far, far better thing he is going to do than he has
+ever done. Not a bit! In effect, he says its rather hard luck, but there
+it is anyhow, and after all things might be very much worse. A British
+officer always was ready to face death with a smile. Nor does _Jack
+Point_ himself, the most lovable of characters, make a parade of his
+grief. The burning, aching pain is smothered almost to the end beneath
+the outward jesting, and when his honest heart breaks there is no murmur
+against the cruelty of fate, nor any cry of vengeance upon the rival who
+has won _Elsie Maynard_.
+
+Yes, we British people can often see ourselves in these characters as
+if in a mirror, and it is probably due to this, together with the
+exquisite blend of inimitable music and wit, that the popularity of
+these operas is so strong and enduring. Stage "puppets" as they may be,
+they do show us a lot about both our virtues and follies, but rather
+more about our follies, because as a race we are notoriously shy of our
+praises being sung! They are always ready to own up to their weaknesses
+in some capital song. So like the self-depreciating British! Like the
+rest of us, too, they are for ever getting into some dilemma or other,
+and they disentangle themselves without excitement or flurry. Each point
+is made without the banging of drums or the sounding of trumpets.
+Contrast this with Wagner, who makes a terrible fuss about the merest
+trifle, and works up his orchestration in a manner that might suggest
+that the heavens were falling. Whether we like our music like this must
+be a matter of taste and individual discretion. Here in Gilbert and
+Sullivan at all events we have common sense--for there can be common
+sense even in the ridiculous--and a tranquilising atmosphere. In a busy,
+workaday world, with its ceaseless nervous and physical strain, it is
+surely a grateful attribute, a pleasant diversion between the burdens of
+one day and those of the next!
+
+Sir William Gilbert, as I have said before, had a master mind as a
+playwright. Every opera he wrote had a definite and an interesting plot,
+and a plot which had, moreover, a purpose. "H.M.S. Pinafore," as we
+know, was a shrewd shaft aimed at some of the absurdities of our
+political life, though I say this without being in any way a politician
+myself! In "Patience" he held up to ridicule the æsthetic craze of the
+'eighties. With "Iolanthe" we enter the fantastic field, and to me there
+is always something uncommonly whimsical in the idea that Parliament is
+ruled by the fairies, who thus must be the real rulers of England.
+"Princess Ida" was a clever anticipation of the women's movement, though
+it is well-known that Gilbert took the outlines of the story from
+Tennyson. Then "The Mikado" transports to the romantic and picturesque
+land of Japan. "Ruddigore" was intended to be a travesty on the
+melodramatic stage. Following this came an historical play, designed to
+show his gifts in a new, more serious and no less successful light. I
+refer, of course, to "The Yeomen of the Guard." Then "The Gondoliers"
+carried us to beautiful Venice, whilst last of all were "Utopia
+Limited," which I trust will soon be revived, and "The Grand Duke." It
+is remarkable that so wide a range could be covered in one series of
+plays.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gilbert, at an O.P. Club dinner in 1906, admitted his "indebtedness to
+the author of the 'Bab Ballads,' from whom I have so unblushingly
+cribbed." The diligent student of the ballads and the operas will find
+many evidences of the development of ideas from the chrysalis to the
+butterfly stage. I have to thank Mr. Robert Bell for the following
+notes--confirmed and amplified by Gilbert during his lifetime--on the
+pedigree of a few of the more popular operas:--
+
+    "H.M.S. Pinafore"              "Captain Reece," "The
+                                   Baby's Vengeance," "General
+                                   John," "Lieutenant-Colonel
+                                   Flare," "The Bumboat
+                                   Woman's Story," "Joe
+                                   Golightly," "Little Oliver."
+
+    "The Yeoman of the Guard"      "Annie Protheroe," "To
+                                   Phoebe."
+
+    "Iolanthe"                     "The Fairy Curate," "The
+                                   Periwinkle Girl."
+
+    "Patience"                     "The Rival Curates."
+
+"H.M.S. Pinafore," it will be seen, owed more to the ballads than did
+any of the later operas, and it will be noticed that _Captain Corcoran_,
+with his solicitude for his crew and his carefully moderate language,
+was clearly of the stock of _Captain Reece_, of "The Mantelpiece," who
+
+    "Did all that lay within him to
+    Promote the comfort of his crew;
+    A feather bed had every man
+    Warm slippers and hot-water can,
+    Brown Windsor from the captain's store,
+    A valet, too, to every four."
+
+--an example of unselfishness to be compared in the other branch of the
+Service only with the altruism of "Lieutenant-Colonel Flare." The main
+theme of the opera--the babies changed in their cradles--was a great
+favourite with Gilbert. In the ballads it appears in "General John" and
+"The Baby's Vengeance," which latter poem may have suggested, moreover,
+certain details in "Ruddigore." The origin of _Robin Oakapple's_
+bashfulness may possibly be traced back to "The Married Couple," in
+which the pair were betrothed in infancy, as also happens in "Princess
+Ida."
+
+"Iolanthe" has an obvious resemblance to "The Fairy Curate." In both a
+fairy marries a mortal, with the result in one case of the curate,
+_Georgie_, and in the other the Arcadian shepherd, _Strephon_. Then we
+are bound to notice how the feud of the two poets in "Patience" is
+modelled on the emulation of the _Rev. Clayton Hooper_ and the _Rev.
+Hopley Porter_ in "The Rival Curates." Indeed, the parallel between the
+ballad and the opera was originally so complete that in the opera the
+dragoons were curates, and _Bunthorne_ and _Grosvenor_ clergymen! Sir
+William, however, began to doubt whether it was good taste to hold up
+the clergy to a certain amount of ridicule, and so he changed the
+principals into æsthetes, and the curates into dragoons.
+
+Coming to "The Yeomen of the Guard" we find that _Wilfred Shadbolt_,
+with his anecdotes of the prison cells and the torture chamber, had a
+prototype in the jailor in "Annie Protheroe." In both a condemned man is
+reprieved and enabled to outwit his rival for the love of a lady. "Were
+I thy Bride" is also a song with an obvious affinity to the ballad, "To
+Phoebe." So we might continue to trace in the ballads ideas which the
+playwright turned to the happiest account in the operas. Strangely
+enough, "The Mikado" is the opera which best keeps its secrets, and one
+searches the poems in vain for anything in the nature of a "pedigree."
+
+Lucky is the actor or actress who secures an engagement in these operas
+at the outset of his or her career on the stage. The Savoy tradition
+which Gilbert and Sullivan founded was, of course, entirely different to
+anything which had preceded it, and the great feature of this new school
+was the insistence that was and still is placed on clear enunciation,
+distinct vocal phrasing, and refinement of manner and gesture. The
+beginner who is trained on these lines is thus taught the essentials of
+genuine artistry, and it is also a great advantage to a new-comer that,
+early in his professional life, he has played in pieces which have such
+an infectious spirit about them and before audiences that are always so
+ready with encouragement. By the management itself good work is
+invariably recognised, and it is always possible, as has happened in my
+own case, for one to rise from the chorus itself to the principal parts.
+
+Gilbert and Sullivan's works are now given by hundreds of amateur
+societies all the year round, and often we hear that parties of those
+who are going to play in them have travelled some distance to see us,
+and so to gather notes for their own performances. Scattered about these
+pages are many practical hints for these amateur players. From an "old
+hand" they may be of some service, not merely because they are drawn
+from my own long experience, but because many of these points were given
+me by Gilbert himself and by great actors like Irving. It will be
+useful, I think, if I now summarise and amplify these suggestions, which
+are applicable chiefly to those who are to play in these operas, but
+which in a general way may be helpful to all amateur and young
+professional performers. Here they are:--
+
+1. Study your part very thoroughly beforehand, and when on the stage
+forget all about yourself, and live that part entirely. Concentrate all
+your thoughts upon it, and if it is a whimsical part, see that you get
+the right atmosphere before you begin.
+
+2. Speak clearly and deliberately. Never forget the man at the back of
+the gallery, and so long as your enunciation is distinct, your words
+will reach him without any need for shouting. Special care should be
+taken to phrase clearly when singing.
+
+3. Be perfectly natural in your actions and gestures. The secret of this
+is, whether you are actually speaking or not, to wrap yourself up in
+your part and in the play, and so save yourself from being troubled with
+self-consciousness.
+
+4. Give your audience credit for humorous perception. Gilbert's wit, in
+other words, is such that the actor must not force his lines through
+fear, as it were, that the people in front will otherwise not be
+intelligent enough to "see the joke." Indeed, the more serious and
+intense he is in many cases, the more oblivious he pretends to be to the
+absurdity of what he is saying, the quainter and more delightful is the
+effect on the other side of the footlights.
+
+5. Exceptional instances apart, the actor who is speaking or being
+spoken to, or who is singing a song, should stand well to the front of
+the stage. Not only does this let you make the best use of your voice,
+but it helps you, what is more important, to rivet the attention of the
+audience.
+
+6. Keep up a keen personal interest in the play. If you are in the
+chorus, your job is not solely to help in the singing and to show off a
+picturesque costume, but to assist in focussing the interest on the
+central incident. If, on the other hand, you are listless and stare
+about the theatre, it is bound to rob the whole performance of freshness
+and spontaneity.
+
+7. The Gilbert and Sullivan atmosphere, as I have said several times
+elsewhere, is "repose." This is impossible if every member of the
+company--and even the leading principal himself--indulges in little
+mannerisms liable to take the audience's eye from the central point.
+
+8. Never forget that a company, so far from being divided into
+principals and chorus, is really one big family, and success depends on
+one and all "pulling together." Still less should the principals forget
+what they owe to the chorus for loyally backing them up, and a little
+kindly appreciation, a word of encouragement from themselves, as the
+more experienced players, to those who are anxious to learn, goes a
+mighty long way.
+
+Now that the old stock companies have become almost things of the past,
+our amateur operatic societies should be recognised as one of the best
+recruiting fields for theatrical talent, and it is a fact that from
+their ranks many great artistes have sprung. I myself have seen numbers
+of these amateur shows, and in most of them there have been two or three
+performers who, with work and experience, could take a creditable place
+on the professional stage. For this reason I am anxious to give them all
+the advice it is in my power to give. First and foremost, therefore, I
+should insist that before any words are memorised the part itself must
+be thoroughly studied, so that one knows exactly what the author intends
+and just what sort of figure one has to depict. Especially have I made
+it my aim, on my first entrance in any part, to let the audience see
+just what the character is, whether a comedian, a tragedian, a lover, a
+fool, or a "fop." _Feel_ that you are actually one of these, and
+especially when you make your first entry, and the battle is half won
+already. You will then have something of what people variously call
+"magnetism" or "personality" or "atmosphere." This _feeling_ of your
+part at the first entrance is of vital importance, and as far as you
+can, you must try to keep it up right through the play.
+
+Take the case of _Jack Point_. From the moment he enters the audience
+should know the manner of man that he is and he must win their sympathy
+immediately. He is a poor strolling player who has been dragged from
+pillar to post. Footsore and weary though he is, _Jack Point_ is anxious
+to please the crowd who have roughly chased him and _Elsie Maynard_ in,
+for if he fails them have they not threatened to duck him in the nearest
+pond? _Jack_ and _Elsie_ are no ordinary players. In Elizabethan times
+the street dancer was a familiar character. The Merry-man and his maid,
+however, tell us that they can sing _and_ dance too, a wonderful
+accomplishment. All this and more is made clear on their first entry. It
+should be the same in the interpretation of all the other parts.
+
+When the _Duke of Plaza-Toro_ arrives, he must at once impress the
+audience that, although impecunious, he still expects the deference due
+to birth and breeding. _Ko-Ko_, on the other hand, is a cheap tailor
+suddenly exalted to the rank of Lord High Executioner, and from _his_
+first entrance it is obvious that he was never brought up in the
+dignified ways of a Court. He tells the gentlemen of Japan that he is
+"much touched by this reception." Somehow one feels that that speech was
+written out for him when he received his appointment, that he has since
+recited it forty times a day, and that now the upstart is trying to make
+believe it is entirely extempore! Then there is _Sir Joseph Porter_.
+Whenever I play this rôle I do my best to cultivate a sense of immense
+self-importance. I do this, of course, whilst waiting my cue, but the
+effect of it should be seen on the stage. _Bunthorne_'s first appearance
+should be done in such a way as to stamp him definitely for what he
+is--an affected "poseur." The exaggeration may be relaxed a little
+afterwards--but it _must_ be there at the beginning.
+
+So long as one has studied one's part beforehand, particularly in regard
+to the nature of the first entry, the memorisation of the words becomes
+more or less easy. And amateurs ought to realise what a tremendous help
+to them it would be to practice their own facial "make-up." Generally
+they leave that to an expert, but if they practised it themselves, they
+would find it a very fascinating, and certainly an important, branch of
+the actor's profession. Many and many a time have I taken my pencils and
+colours, retired to some quiet room at home, and spent an afternoon
+experimenting in make-up. Notwithstanding that I have never played any
+Shakespearian characters, I have made up privately for dozens of them,
+and the practice has helped me in innumerable ways.
+
+For instance, I used to be fond of making up as the hunchback _Richard
+the Third_, and I turned these experiments to account when I had to play
+the rôle of _King Gama_. Shakespeare's _Touchstone_ also appealed to me,
+and having made up as this clown so often, I had many useful ideas when
+I came to do _Jack Point_. The deathly pallor of the poor jester at the
+end was contrived from many similar experiments. Setting photographs
+before me, I would make myself resemble the late Lord Roberts and the
+late Sir Evelyn Wood, and these were used as a model when I had to be
+_Major-General Stanley_. Several visits to the Law Courts gave me
+valuable hints for the _Lord Chancellor_. The _Duke of Plaza-Toro_ was
+studied from an old print of a grandee. _Ko-Ko's_ make up, which was
+bound to be a difficult one, was the outcome of a good deal of sketching
+on paper, particularly in regard to the treatment of the lines round the
+eyes. When Mrs. D'Oyly Carte first saw me as _Bunthorne_, she exclaimed
+"How you do remind me of Whistler!" That was a compliment. It was from
+Whistler, of course, that this rôle was understood to be drawn, and so I
+was not loath to copy the poet's photograph, even to the white lock in
+his ample jet-black hair!
+
+Yes, make-up well rewards one for all the time one spends in practising
+it, and many brother professionals agree with me that the great
+past-masters of the art were the late Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and the
+late Wilson Barrett. With them, of course, make-up concerned not merely
+the face but the figure, and it was wonderful how Tree, to instance only
+two of his great parts, could adapt himself either to the portly and
+blustering _Falstaff_ or to the lean and haggard _Svengali_. And
+Barrett, though ordinarily stocky of build, could appear at times as a
+towering, dominating personality. Seeing that these men were big
+theatrical figures, they were not compelled to sink their identities in
+the parts they were playing, and yet they were such great artistes that
+they always did so completely.
+
+I close this book with a simple story of the different operas. This
+will, I am sure, be read with interest both by those who know them
+already and by those, the younger generation, who are growing up to know
+and love them too for what they are--a heritage of pure humour and song
+of which the nation may well be proud, and to which it will remain
+faithful as long as the spirit of laughter abides in its heart.
+
+    Dear are their melodies to England's heart,
+      Pure English is the fount from which they flow,
+    As frank and tender as was English art
+      In the rich times of Purcell, Arne and Blow;
+    As English the libretto every whit,
+      Jests how well polished, whimsies how well said;
+    True English humour, and true English wit,
+      Sword-sharp yet kindly, hearty yet well-bred.
+    Thus have they lasted, and out-last the years.
+      Being in their fantasy to life so true,
+    So intermix't with laughter and with tears.
+      So gay, so wise, so old, and yet so new.
+    Long may they, living for our children's joy,
+    Renew the triumphs of the old Savoy!
+
+
+
+
+THE STORIES OF THE OPERAS.
+
+
+"TRIAL BY JURY."
+_Produced March 25th, 1875._
+
+Gilbert and Sullivan's fame was really based on a little comic opera
+called "Thespis." It was produced by John Hollingshead at the Gaiety,
+and its success was so great that Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte was induced
+to invite them to collaborate again in the first of what we now know as
+the D'Oyly Carte operas, the dramatic cantata, "Trial by Jury." Short
+and slender as it is, this opera has always been immensely popular, and
+it still appears regularly in the company's programmes. Gilbert, who had
+himself followed the law before he transferred his talents to the stage,
+took as his subject an imaginary breach of promise case between Edwin
+and Angelina. That it is a faithful picture of a court of law and of
+those who minister there one would never dare to suggest! But as a very
+free and clever burlesque even those who follow the vocation of the wig
+and gown will admit its claims immediately.
+
+When the curtain rises we see the interior of a court of justice, and
+the barristers, solicitors and jury are already in their places. The
+Usher, a functionary of the old school, at once proceeds to give some
+homely and informal advice to the jurymen, telling them to listen to the
+case with minds free from vulgar prejudice. With that he goes on to try
+to soften their masculine hearts over the plight of poor Angelina. When
+the defendant enters the twelve good men and true shake their fists in
+his face, hail him as a "monster," and bid him "dread our damages."
+Edwin ventures to suggest that, as they are in the dark as to the merits
+of his case, these proceedings are strange. He tells how he once
+rapturously adored the lady, how she then began to bore him intensely,
+and how at last he became "another's love-sick boy." The jury reflect
+that they, too, were rather inconstant in their own youthful days, but
+now that they are older and "shine with a virtue resplendent" they
+"haven't a scrap of sympathy with the defendant."
+
+The Judge now takes his seat on the bench. The genial soul, as a prelude
+to the duties of the day, confides how he rose to judicial eminence. For
+years he searched in vain for briefs, and then he found an easy escape
+from poverty by marrying a rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter. He
+would, his father-in-law said, soon get used to her looks, and in the
+meanwhile he promised to deluge him with briefs for the "Sessions and
+Ancient Bailey." By these means he prospered, and then he "threw over
+that rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter." And now he is ready to try
+this present breach of promise of marriage.
+
+Counsel for the plaintiff having taken his place, the jury are sworn
+well and truly to try the case, which they do by kneeling low down in
+the box and, with the exception of their upraised hands, quite out of
+sight. The plaintiff's arrival is heralded by that of a beautiful bevy
+of bridesmaids. The Judge, having taken a fancy to one of them, pens her
+a little note, which she kisses rapturously. Yet when he sees the
+plaintiff, a still brighter vision of loveliness, he orders that the
+note shall be taken from the bridesmaid and given to her. Judge and jury
+alike are entranced. Counsel proceeds to open the case, and with bitter
+reproaches he assails the traitor whose heartless wile victimised his
+"interesting client," to whom "Camberwell (had) become a bower, Peckham
+an Arcadian vale." The plaintiff weeps. When she is lead to the
+witness-box she falls in a faint on to the foreman's shoulders, but upon
+the Judge inquiring whether she would not rather recline on him, the
+fair lady jumps on to the bench and sits down fondly by the side of the
+Judge.
+
+Edwin, regarded by all as an object of villainy, now proceeds to state
+his case, and can only offer to marry the lady to-day and then marry his
+new love to-morrow. The Judge suggests that this may be a fair
+proposition, but counsel holds that, on the other hand, "to marry two at
+once is burglaree." Angelina, with a view to increasing the damages, now
+embraces her inconstant lover and calls upon the jury to witness what a
+loss she has to deplore. Edwin, in the hope in turn of reducing them,
+declares that at heart he is a ruffian and a bully, and that she could
+never endure him a day. The Judge suggests that, as the man declares
+that when tipsy he would thrash her and kick her, the best plan would be
+for them to make him tipsy and see! Objection is raised to this on every
+side, and then the man of law, losing his temper and scattering the
+books hither and thither, declares that as nothing will please them he
+will marry the lady himself. This solution seems to carry general
+agreement. The Judge, having claimed her hand, sings:--
+
+    "Though homeward as you trudge
+    You declare my law is fudge,
+    Yet of beauty I'm a judge."
+
+To which all in court reply, "And a good judge too!"
+
+
+"THE SORCERER."
+_Produced November 17th, 1887._
+
+"The Sorcerer" is a merry story of sentimental topsy-turvydom. Cupid
+could never have performed such mischievous pranks as he did, aided by a
+magician's love potion, in the pleasant village of Ploverleigh. Sir
+Marmaduke Pointdextre, a baronet of ancient lineage, has invited the
+tenantry to his Elizabethan mansion to celebrate the betrothal of his
+son Alexis, a Grenadier Guardsman, to the lovely Aline. So happy and
+romantic a union between two old families deserved to be worthily
+honoured, and a large and lavishly stocked marquee, we notice, has been
+erected at one side of the garden. Aline herself is rich, the only
+daughter of the Lady Sangazure, and the seven thousand and
+thirty-seventh in direct descent, it seems, from Helen of Troy. Nor are
+there heart-stirrings only in the homes of the great. Early in the opera
+it transpires that Constance Partlet, the daughter of a humble
+pew-opener at the Parish Church, has a doting love for the vicar, Dr.
+Daly. It is a hopeless passion. Not that the vicar, now a bachelor of
+venerable years, had never felt the throb of romance in his soul, and
+never recalled the "aching memory of the old, old days." Fondly does he
+muse over the time when--
+
+    "Maidens of the noblest station,
+        Forsaking even military men,
+        Would gaze upon me, rapt in admiration--
+        Ah, me! I was a pale young curate then."
+
+This, indeed, was the time when love and he were well acquainted, as he
+tells us in a delightful ballad, and when none was better loved that he
+in all the land! Yet even these dreams of yesteryear fail to awaken in
+him the desires for a joyous to-morrow. Constance's mother finds him
+quite unresponsive to her ingenious suggestions, for though he sees the
+advantage of having a lady installed in the vicarage, he is too old now
+for his estate to be changed.
+
+Sir Marmaduke and Alexis enter. The honest heart of the father glows at
+the thought of the marriage, though he confesses that he has little
+liking for the new kind of love-making, in which couples rush into each
+other's arms rapturously singing:--
+
+    "Oh, my adored one!"       "Beloved boy!"
+    "Ecstatic rapture!"        "Unmingled joy!"
+
+So different, he reflects, to the older and more courtly "Madame, I
+trust you are in the enjoyment of good health"; "Sir, you are vastly
+polite, I protest I am mighty well." Even thus did he once pay his
+addresses to the Lady Sangazure. For once they, too, were lovers! But
+these reveries are ended by the arrival of Aline, and soon afterwards,
+to the tuneful salutation of the villagers, the marriage contract is
+signed and sealed in the presence of Counsel.
+
+Left alone at last with his betrothed, Alexis tells her of his maxim
+that true love, the source of every earthly joy, should break down all
+such artificial barriers as rank, wealth, beauty and age. Upon this
+subject he has lectured in the workhouses, beershops and asylums, and
+been received with enthusiasm everywhere, though he cannot deny the
+aloofness as yet of the aristocracy. He is going to take a desperate
+step to put those noble principles to proof. From London he has summoned
+the great John Wellington Wells. He belongs to an old-established firm
+of family sorcerers, who practise all sorts of magics and spells, with
+their wonderful penny curse as their quick-selling speciality. From the
+moment he enters it is obvious that this glib-tongued charlatan is a
+hustling dynamo. Alexis, much to Aline's alarm, commissions him to
+supply liberal quantities of his patent love philtre in order that, from
+purely philanthropical motives, as he explains, he may distribute it
+secretly amongst the villagers. Wells, like the pushful tradesman he is,
+has the very thing in his pocket. He guarantees that whoever drinks it
+will fall in love, as a matter of course, with the first lady he meets
+who has also tasted it, and his affection will be returned immediately.
+Then follows a melodramatic incantation as the sorcerer deposits the
+philtre into a gigantic teapot. "Spirits of earth and air, fiends of
+flame and fire" are summoned "in shoals" to "this dreadful deed
+inspire." This done Mr. Wells beckons the villagers, and all the party,
+except the two lovers, join merrily in drinking a toast drawn from the
+teapot. Quickly it becomes evident from their strange conduct that the
+charm is working. All rub their eyes, and the curtain falls on the
+picture of many amorous couples, rich and poor alike, under the spell of
+the romantic illusion.
+
+The same scene greets us when the second act opens. The couples are
+strangely assorted--an old man with a girl, an elderly woman with a
+youth--but all sing and dance to a love that is "the source of all joy
+to humanity." Constance confesses her rapture for a deaf old Notary. Sir
+Marmaduke himself walks arm-in-arm with Mrs. Partlet. Dr. Daly is sadly
+perplexed. The villagers, who had not been addicted to marrying and
+giving in marriage, have now been coming to him in a body and imploring
+him to join them in matrimony with little delay. The sentimental old
+bachelor reflects, moreover, how comely all the maidens are, and sighs
+that alas! all now are engaged! Meanwhile, Alexis has tried to persuade
+Aline that they should drink the philtre too, for only thus can they
+ensure their own undying devotion. She refuses and there is a tiff, but
+later, to prove that her love for him is true, she does drink the
+potion, only to be seized by a passionate affection for--Dr. Daly. Nor
+can the good vicar resist the yearning to reciprocate. Coming to the
+scene, Alexis is outraged with his lover's perfidy, and at last has very
+serious doubts about the excellence of his theories and the wisdom of
+the sorcerer's spell. Dr. Daly, determined to be no man's rival, is
+ready to quit the country at once and bury his sorrow "in the congenial
+gloom of a colonial bishopric."
+
+But one of the drollest effects of the enchantment has still to be told.
+The first man on whom the Lady Sangazure casts her eye after she has
+succumbed is none other than the notorious John Wellington Wells. In
+vain does he lie to her that he is already engaged. In vain does he
+describe a beauteous maiden with bright brown hair who waits for him in
+the Southern Pacific. She threatens at last to end her sorrows in the
+family vault, and only then does the sorcerer, as a small reparation for
+all the emotional disturbance he has created, decide that the acceptance
+of her hand might not be at all a bad bargain.
+
+In the end the magic scheme becomes so involved that it must be at all
+costs disentangled. It can be done in only one way. Someone must yield
+his life to Ahrimanes. Wells agrees to commit this act of
+self-immolation, and amidst a wreath of fire and brimstone he
+disappears, melodramatic to the last, through a trap-door in the stage.
+With his departure the couples re-assort themselves, selecting mates in
+keeping with their various social stations and ages, and the betrothal
+festivities resume their merry sway.
+
+
+"H.M.S. PINAFORE."
+_Produced May 25th, 1878._
+
+Certainly "H.M.S. Pinafore" was not a model ship as regards the sense of
+discipline that exists in the real British Navy. But in every other
+respect it _was_ a model ship. Captain Corcoran was the commander of its
+jovial crew, and a very fine commander he was, always indulgent to his
+men and always ready to address them politely. Swearing on board was a
+thing almost unknown. Corcoran did say "bother it" now and again, but he
+tells us that he never used "a big, big d----" at least, "hardly ever."
+Lustily do the crew "give three cheers and one cheer more for the
+well-bred captain of the Pinafore."
+
+The opera has the quarter-deck for its setting, and it is related that
+Gilbert took as his model for this scene the old Victory, which he went
+to see at Portsmouth. Our first introduction is to the crew, who busily
+polish the brasswork and splice the rope while they sing in tuneful
+nautical strains that their "saucy ship's a beauty" and manned by "sober
+men and true, attentive to their duty." Only one gruff old salt is there
+amongst them, and we discover him in the ugly, distorted form of Dick
+Deadeye. He is thoroughly unpopular. Soon the sailors welcome on board
+Little Buttercup, a Portsmouth bumboat woman who has come to sell her
+wares, and who is hailed as "the rosiest, the roundest and the reddest
+beauty in all Spithead." She has certainly some delightful ditties to
+sing.
+
+One member of the crew is handsome Ralph Rackstraw, who confesses to a
+passion for Corcoran's pretty daughter, Josephine. The poor fellow is
+downcast that his ambitions should have soared to such impossible
+heights. Yet Josephine herself is also sad because of a heart that
+"hopes but vainly." Corcoran chides her, and tells her how happy she
+should be when her hand is to be claimed, that very day, by the great
+Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., the First Lord of the Admiralty. She
+confesses that, although she is a proud captain's daughter, she loves a
+humble sailor on board her father's own ship.
+
+Sir Joseph's stately barge is approaching. He comes attended by a host
+of his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, a very large and charming
+family group whom the sailors, instead of standing rigidly at attention,
+salute with effusive politeness. Sir Joseph, attired in the Court dress
+of his office, proceeds at once to describe his meteoric rise from an
+office boy in an attorney's firm to become the "ruler of the Queen's
+Navee." The story is that of an industrious clerk who, having "served
+the writs with a smile so bland and copied all the letters in a big
+round hand" is taken at last into partnership, and eventually becomes an
+obedient party man in Parliament and a member of the Ministry. For
+landsmen the moral of it all is summed up in this golden rule:--
+
+    "Stick close to your desk and never go to sea
+    And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee."
+
+The First Lord has ideas of his own that the sense of independence in
+the lower deck must be fully encouraged. The British sailor he holds to
+be any man's equal, and he insists that Captain Corcoran shall accompany
+every order of his crew, over whom he has been placed merely by accident
+of birth, with a courteous "if you please." Then he takes Corcoran into
+the cabin to teach him another accomplishment--dancing the hornpipe.
+Josephine meanwhile steals out on to the deck. She meets Ralph
+Rackstraw, who boldly gambles his all on an immediate protestation of
+love, only to be refused for his presumption and impetuosity. The poor
+fellow, before the whole ship's company and without their lifting a hand
+to restrain him, prepares to blow out his brains, when the girl rushes
+into his arms. Notwithstanding the evil Dick Deadeye's warning, they
+arrange to steal ashore at night to be married, and the curtain falls on
+the crew giving three cheers for the sailor's bride.
+
+When the second act opens the deck is bathed in moonlight. Captain
+Corcoran is strumming his mandoline and singing a plaintive song--he
+laments that everything is at sixes and sevens--while gazing at him
+sentimentally is Little Buttercup. Following a duet between them, Sir
+Joseph Porter enters to complain that he is disappointed in Josephine,
+and Corcoran can attribute her reticence only to the exalted rank of so
+distinguished a suitor as the First Lord of the Admiralty. Corcoran
+afterwards takes his daughter aside and explains to her that love is a
+platform on which all ranks meet, little mindful how eloquently he is
+thus pleading the cause of humble Ralph. When the girl has left Dick
+Deadeye comes to warn the father of the plan for a midnight elopement.
+Enveloping himself in a cloak, with a cat-o'-nine-tails in his hand, he
+awaits developments. Soon the crew steal in on tiptoe, and afterwards
+the two lovers, ready to escape ashore in the dingy. Captain Corcoran
+surprises them, but, to his amazement, Ralph Rickshaw openly and
+defiantly avows his love, while the crew chant his praises as an
+Englishman:--
+
+    "For he might have been a Roosian,
+    A French, or Turk, or Proosian,
+        Or perhaps Itali-an.
+    But in spite of all temptations
+    To belong to other nations
+        He remains an Englishman!"
+
+Even for the well-bred skipper this is too much. He explodes with a
+"big, big d----." Sir Joseph hears the bad language and is horrified. He
+will hear of no explanations. Captain Corcoran is banished to his cabin
+in disgrace.
+
+The First Lord is destined to receive still another shock. He hears of
+the attachment between Josephine and Ralph. The "presumptuous mariner"
+is ordered to be handcuffed and marched off to the dungeon. But it is
+after this that we hear the biggest surprise of all--and from the lips
+of Little Buttercup. She recalls that in the years long ago she
+practised baby farming, and to her care were committed two infants, "one
+of low condition, the other a patrician." Unhappily, in a luckless
+moment she mixed those children up, and the poor baby really was
+Corcoran and the rich one Ralph Rackstraw. Ralph thereupon enters in a
+captain's uniform. Corcoran follows him in the dress of a mere
+able-seaman. Sir Joseph decides that, although love levels rank in many
+cases, his own marriage with a common sailor's daughter is out of the
+question, and he resigns himself then and there to his venerable cousin,
+Hebe. Ralph claims his Josephine, while the fallen Corcoran links his
+future with that of the bumboat woman, Little Buttercup.
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "SIR JOSEPH PORTER"
+IN "H.M.S. PINAFORE."]
+
+
+"THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE."
+_Produced April 30th, 1880._
+
+Sheltered in the Cornish coast was the hiding place of a band of
+tender-hearted pirates. Never was the trade of the skull-and-cross-bones
+followed by men of such sensitive and compassionate feelings. They made
+it a point of honour never to attack a weaker party, and whenever they
+attempted to fight a stronger one they invariably got thrashed. Orphans
+themselves, they shrank from ever laying a molesting hand on an orphan,
+and many of the ships they captured had to be released because they were
+found to be manned entirely by orphans. Little wonder was it that these
+Pirates of Penzance could not make the grim trade of piracy pay.
+
+The curtain rises on a scene of revelry. Frederic has just completed his
+pirate apprenticeship and is being hailed as a fully-fledged member of
+the gang. That he had been indentured with them at all was a mistake.
+When he was a lad his nurse was told to take and apprentice him to a
+pilot, and when she discovered her stupid blunder she let him stay with
+the pirates, and remained with them herself as a maid-of-all-work rather
+than return to brave the parental fury. Frederic, at all times the slave
+of duty, has loyally served out his time, but now he announces that not
+only will he not continue at a trade he detests, but he is going to
+devote himself heart and soul to his old comrades' extermination. The
+declaration turns the camp from joy into mourning, but these very
+scrupulous pirates have to admit that a man must act as his conscience
+dictates, and they can only crave that the manner of their deaths may
+be painless and speedy.
+
+Frederic has never seen a woman's face--no other woman's face, at least,
+but Ruth's, his old nurse, who adores him--and thus there come as a
+vision of loveliness to him the figures of the many daughters of
+Major-General Stanley. They have penetrated into the rocky cove during a
+picnic. Frederic, sensitive about his detested dress, hides from them
+for a while, but soon he reveals himself and entreats them all to stoop
+in pity so low is to accept the hand and heart of a pirate. Only one of
+them, Mabel, is ready to take him for what he is, and the love-making
+between the two is swift and passionate. It is interrupted by the return
+of the gang, each member of which seizes a girl and claims her as his
+bride, and during this lively interlude there arrives old General
+Stanley. He has lagged behind the rest of the party.
+
+The General, a resplendent figure in his uniform, knows a good deal
+about the most abstruse and complicated sciences, though he proclaims
+that he knows no more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery. In this he
+holds himself to be "the very model of a modern major-general."
+Completing the candid recital of his attainments and want of them, he
+inquires what strange deeds are afoot, and he has no liking either for
+pirates as sons-in-law or for the prospect of being robbed wholesale of
+his daughters. But where is the way of escape? Luckily the General has
+heard of these Penzance pirates before, and he wrings their sympathy
+with the sad news that he, too, is "an orphan boy." For such
+tender-hearted robbers that is enough. They surrender the girls, and
+with them all thoughts of matrimonial felicity, and restore the entire
+party to liberty.
+
+The second act is laid in a ruined chapel at night. General Stanley,
+surrounded by his daughters, has come to do penance for his lie before
+the tombs of his ancestors, who are his solely by purchase, for he has
+owned the estate only a year. Frederic is now to lead an expedition
+against the pirates. For this perilous mission he has gathered together
+a squad of police, who march in under their sergeant, all of them very
+nervous and under misgivings that possibly they may be going to "die in
+combat gory." Soon after they have left there is a whimsical
+development. Frederic, alone in the chapel, is visited by the Pirate
+King and Ruth. Covering him first of all with their pistols, they tell
+him that they have remembered that he was born on the 29th of February,
+and that as he thus has a birthday only every four years he is still but
+five years of age!
+
+Frederic, as we have observed before, has a keen sense of duty. In blank
+despair he agrees to return to the gang to finish his apprenticeship.
+Once more a member of the band, he is bound also to disclose the
+horrible fact that the old soldier has practised on the pirates'
+credulous simplicity, and that in truth he is no orphan boy. The Pirate
+King decrees that there shall be a swift and terrible revenge that very
+night.
+
+When all have left but Mabel, who declares that she will remain faithful
+to her lover until he has lived his twenty-one leap-years, there
+re-enter the police. The sergeant laments that the policeman's lot is
+not a happy one. It is distressing to them to have to be the agents
+whereby their erring fellow-creatures are deprived of the liberty that
+everyone prizes.
+
+    "When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling,
+        When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime,
+    He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling
+        And listen to the merry village chime.
+    When the coster's finished jumping on his mother,
+        He loves to lie a-basking in the sun.
+    Ah! Take one consideration with another
+        The policeman's lot is not a happy one."
+
+Sounds are heard that indicate the pirates' approach. The police conceal
+themselves, and soon the intruders enter, armed with all kinds of
+burglarious tools, and with a cat-like tread (they say so, at least,
+though they are singing their loudest). They are interrupted, not by the
+police, but by the appearance of General Stanley. He has had a sleepless
+night, the effect of a tortured conscience, and he comes in in a
+dressing-gown and carrying a light. Soon his daughters also appear in
+their night-caps. The General is seized and ordered to prepare for
+death. Frederic, even on Mabel's entreaties, cannot save him, for is he
+not himself a pirate again?
+
+Eventually the police, having passively watched the situation so long,
+summon up courage and tackle the pirates, but they are soon overcome.
+The sergeant, who with the rest of his men is held prostrate under drawn
+swords, then calls upon the ruffians to surrender in the name of the
+Queen. The command acts like magic. Loyally the pirates kneel to their
+captives, for it transpires from Ruth's lips that they are really "no
+members of the common throng; they are all noblemen who have gone
+wrong." All ends happily. The Pirates of Penzance promise to return
+forthwith to their legislative duties in the House of Lords and, in
+doing so, they are to share their coronets with the beautiful daughters
+of old General Stanley.
+
+
+"PATIENCE."
+_Produced April 23rd, 1881._
+
+There is satire in the very name of this opera. The craze for
+æstheticism against which it was directed must have placed a strain on
+the patience of so brilliant an exponent of British commonsense as Sir
+William Gilbert.
+
+Shortly before the play opens, twenty of the maidens of the village
+adjoining Castle Bunthorne had fallen in love with the officers of the
+35th Heavy Dragoons. But when Reginald Bunthorne, a fleshly poet and a
+devotee of the æsthetic cult, arrived at the castle, they had fallen out
+of love with their Dragoons and united with Lady Jane (of uncertain age)
+in worshipping him. When the curtain rises the "twenty love-sick
+maidens" are lamenting that Bunthorne is "ice-insensible." Lady Jane
+tells them that he loves Patience, the village milkmaid, who is seen
+regarding them with pity. Lady Angela tells Patience that if she has
+never loved she can never have known true happiness. Patience replies
+that "the truly happy always seem to have so much on their minds," and
+"never seem quite well." Lady Jane explains that it is "_Not_
+indigestion, but æsthetic transfiguration." Patience informs the ladies
+that the 35th Dragoon Guards have arrived. Lady Ella declares, "We care
+nothing for Dragoon Guards." "But," exclaims Patience, "You were all
+engaged to them." "Our minds have been etherealised, our perceptions
+exalted," answers Lady Angela, who calls on the others to lift up their
+voices in morning carol to "Our Reginald."
+
+The 35th Dragoons arrive and the Colonel gives us in song:--
+
+    "A receipt for that popular mystery
+    Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon."
+
+One of them who arrives later looks miserable, but declares "I'm as
+cheerful as a poor devil can be, who has the misfortune to be a Duke
+with a thousand a day." His wretchedness is not relieved by the entrance
+of Bunthorne, followed by the maidens, who ignore the Dragoons. The Poet
+pretends to be absorbed in the composition of a poem, but he slyly
+observes, "I hear plainly all they say, twenty love-sick maidens they."
+Lady Jane explains to the soldiers that Bunthorne has idealised them.
+Bunthorne meanwhile is to be seen writhing in the throes of composition.
+"Finished!" he exclaims and faints in the arms of the Colonel. When he
+recovers, the love-sick maidens entreat him to read the poem. "Shall I?"
+he asks. Fiercely the Dragoons shout "No!" but bidding the ladies to
+"Cling passionately to one another," he recites "Oh, Hollow! Hollow!
+Hollow!" When the Colonel reminds the ladies that they are engaged to
+the Dragoons, Lady Saphir says, "It can never be. You are not Empyrean,"
+while Lady Jane sneers at the crudity of their red and yellow uniforms.
+The Dragoons resent this "insult" to a uniform which has been "as
+successful in the courts of Venus as in the field of Mars," and lament
+that "the peripatetics of long-haired æsthetics" should have captured
+the ladies' fancy. Angrily they return to their camp.
+
+Bunthorne, left "alone and unobserved," confesses to being an "æsthetic
+sham." "In short," he says, "my mediævalism's affectation, born of a
+morbid love of admiration." Then Patience enters, and he makes love to
+her. She repulses him, and tragically he bids her farewell. Lady Angela
+implores her to "Try, try, try to love." She dilates upon the "Ennobling
+and unselfish passion" until Patience declares, "I won't go to bed until
+I'm head over ears in love with somebody." Patience soliloquises, "I had
+no idea love was a duty. No wonder they all look so unhappy. I'll go at
+once and fall in love with--" but stops, startled by a figure almost as
+grotesque as Bunthorne, and exclaims, "A stranger!" The stranger is
+Archibald Grosvenor, an idyllic poet, who plunges boldly into a
+declaration of love with his "Prithee pretty maiden, will you marry me."
+Patience replies, "I do not know you and therefore must decline." He
+reveals that he was her sweetheart in childhood's days. Grosvenor begs
+Patience imagine "The horror of his situation, gifted with unrivalled
+beauty, and madly loved at first sight by every woman he meets." When
+Patience enquires why he does not disfigure himself to escape such
+persecution, he replies, "These gifts were given to me for the enjoyment
+and delectation of my fellow creatures. I am a trustee for beauty."
+Grosvenor and Patience plight their troth, but as she remembers that
+love must be unselfish, and that Grosvenor is so beautiful that there
+can be no unselfishness in loving him, they bid each other "Farewell."
+Just as they are parting it occurs to Patience that it cannot be selfish
+for Grosvenor to love her, and he promises, "I'll go on adoring."
+
+Bunthorne, crowned and garlanded with roses, returns accompanied by his
+solicitor and the ladies. The Dragoons arrive also, and ask Bunthorne
+why he should be so arrayed. He explains that, heart-broken by
+Patience's rejection, and on the advice of his solicitor, he has put
+himself up to be raffled for by his admirers. The Dragoons make a
+fruitless appeal to the ladies in a song by the Duke. The drawing is
+about to take place when Patience enters, craves Bunthorne's pardon, and
+offers to be his bride. When Bunthorne rejoices that this is due to the
+fact that she loves him fondly, Patience tells him that it is because "A
+maiden who devotes herself to loving you, is prompted by no selfish
+view."
+
+This scene leads to a temporary reconciliation between the Dragoons and
+the ladies, who embrace each other and declare that "Never, oh never,
+this heart will range from that old, old love again." Then Grosvenor
+enters. He walks slowly, engrossed in reading. The ladies are strangely
+fascinated by him and gradually withdraw from the arms of their martial
+admirers. Lady Angela asks:--
+
+    "But who is this, whose god-like grace
+    Proclaims he comes of noble race."
+
+Grosvenor replies: "I'm a broken-hearted troubadour.... I am æsthetic
+and poetic." With one voice the ladies cry "Then we love you," and
+leaving their Dragoons they kneel round Grosvenor, arousing the fury of
+Bunthorne and the horror not only of the Dragoons, but of Grosvenor
+himself, who declares that "Again my cursed comeliness spreads hopeless
+anguish and distress."
+
+The curtain falls on this scene, and when it rises again Lady Jane is
+discovered soliloquising upon the fickle crew who have deserted
+Bunthorne and sworn allegiance to Grosvenor. She alone is faithful to
+Bunthorne. Grosvenor enters, followed by the twenty love-sick maidens,
+pleading for "A gentle smile." He reads them two decalets, and wearying
+of their worship, he tells them that his heart is fixed elsewhere, and
+bids them remember the fable of the magnet and the churn.
+
+Bunthorne and Lady Jane return. The poet is indignant that Grosvenor has
+cut him out. Lady Jane assures him that she is still faithful, but
+promises to help him to vanquish his rival, and to achieve this purpose
+they concert a plan.
+
+Then the Duke, the Colonel and the Major appear. They have discarded
+their uniforms and adopted an æsthetic dress and make-up, and they
+practise the attitudes which they imagine will appeal to the ladies.
+When two of these appear, it is evident that the plan is succeeding, for
+Lady Angela exclaims, "See! The immortal fire has descended upon them."
+The officers explain they are doing this at some personal inconvenience
+to show their devotion, and hope that it is not without effect. They are
+assured that their conversion to the æsthetic art in its highest
+development has touched the ladies deeply.
+
+In due course the officers and ladies disappear and give place to
+Grosvenor. Looking at his reflection in a hand mirror, he declares, "Ah!
+I am a veritable Narcissus." Bunthorne now wanders on, talking to
+himself, and declaring that he cannot live without admiration. He
+accuses Grosvenor of monopolising the attentions of the young ladies.
+Grosvenor assures him that they are the plague of his life, and asks how
+he can escape from his predicament. Bunthorne orders him completely to
+change his appearance, so as to appear absolutely commonplace. At first
+Grosvenor declines, but when Bunthorne threatens to curse him, he yields
+cheerfully, and Bunthorne rejoices in the prospect that:--
+
+    "When I go out of door
+    Of damozels a score,
+    All sighing and burning,
+    And clinging and yearning
+    Will follow me as before."
+
+Patience enters to find him dancing, and he tells her that, in future,
+he will be a changed man, having modelled himself upon Grosvenor. She
+expresses joy, but then recoils from him as she remembers that, as he is
+now to be utterly free from defect of any kind, her love for him cannot
+be absolutely unselfish.
+
+Just as Bunthorne is offering to relapse, Grosvenor enters, followed by
+the ladies and the Dragoons. Grosvenor has assumed an absolutely
+commonplace appearance. They all dance cheerfully round the stage, and
+when Bunthorne asks the ladies "What it all means," they tell him that
+as Grosvenor or "Archibald the All-right cannot be all wrong," and as he
+has discarded æstheticism, "It proves that æstheticism ought to be
+discarded." Patience now discovers that she is free to love Grosvenor.
+Bunthorne is disappointed, but Lady Jane, who is still æsthetic tells
+him to cheer up, as she will never forsake him. They have scarcely time
+to embrace before the Colonel announces that the Duke has determined to
+choose a bride. He selects Lady Jane, greatly to the disgust of
+Bunthorne, who, finding himself the odd man out, declares, "I shall have
+to be contented with a tulip or lily."
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "BUNTHORNE" IN "PATIENCE."]
+
+
+"IOLANTHE."
+_Produced November 25th, 1882._
+
+Iolanthe was a Fairy--the life and soul of Fairyland. She wrote all the
+fairy songs and arranged the fairy dances. For twenty-five years
+Iolanthe has been in banishment. She had transgressed the fairy law by
+marrying a mortal, and it was only the Queen's love which saved her from
+death.
+
+When the curtain rises we witness a gathering of fairies, hear them sing
+one of Iolanthe's songs, and see them trip her measures. They lament her
+absence and plead for her pardon. Compassion allied to curiosity impels
+the Queen to recall Iolanthe. For Iolanthe had chosen to dwell at the
+bottom of a stream, on whose banks we see the fairies disporting
+themselves. Rising from the pool, clad in water-weeds, Iolanthe receives
+the Royal pardon. Compassion having been exercised, curiosity demands
+satisfaction. The Queen enquires why Iolanthe should have chosen to live
+at the bottom of a stream. Iolanthe then reveals her secret. She has a
+son who was born shortly after her banishment, and she wished to be near
+him. The Queen and the other fairies are deeply interested, and just as
+the Queen is expressing her desire to see the "half-fairy, half-mortal"
+Arcadian shepherd, Strephon, he dances up to Iolanthe, and with song and
+pipe urges her to rejoice because "I'm to be married to-day." Iolanthe
+tells Strephon that she has been pardoned, and presents Strephon to the
+Queen and to her fairy sisters. "My aunts!" exclaimed Strephon with
+obvious delight.
+
+Strephon explains the peculiar difficulties consequent on being only
+half a fairy, and the Queen promises that henceforward the fairies will
+always be ready to come to his aid should be he in "doubt or danger,
+peril or perplexitee." Strephon is now joined by Phyllis--a beautiful
+ward of Chancery and his bride-elect. In the prelude to one of the most
+delightful love-songs ever written, Phyllis reveals her fear of the
+consequences which may fall upon Strephon for marrying her without the
+consent of the Lord Chancellor, and Strephon demonstrates that his fairy
+ancestry has not freed him from the pangs of jealousy.
+
+We now witness the entrance and march of the peers in their gorgeous
+robes, to the strains of magnificent music, ending with a chorus which
+is assumed to embody the traditional attitude of the peers to the
+people:--
+
+    "Bow, bow ye lower middle classes,
+    Bow, bow ye tradesmen, bow ye masses."
+
+The Lord Chancellor enters at the conclusion of this chorus, and after a
+song upon his responsibilities as "The constitutional guardian I, of
+pretty young wards in Chancery," he announces that the business before
+the House concerns the disposal of the hand of Phyllis, a Ward of Court.
+All the peers have fallen in love with her and wish the Lord Chancellor
+to bestow her upon the one whom she may select. The Lord Chancellor
+confesses to being "singularly attracted by this young person" and
+laments that his judicial position prevents him from awarding her to
+himself. Phyllis arrives, and after being proposed to by Lord Tolloller
+and Lord Mount-Ararat, the whole of the peers invite her acceptance of
+their coronets and hearts. Phyllis tells them that already "her heart is
+given." The Lord Chancellor indignantly demands the name of her lover.
+Before Phyllis can reply, Strephon opportunely enters the "House" and
+claims "his darling's hand." The peers depart, dignified and stately,
+with haughty and disdainful glances upon the lovers.
+
+The glee with which Strephon and Phyllis have regarded their departure
+is suddenly ended by the wrathful "Now, sir!" of the Lord Chancellor,
+who separates the lovers and bids Phyllis depart. His severe and
+sarcastic admonitions leave Strephon lamenting. Iolanthe returns to find
+her son in tears. As she tenderly consoles him, Phyllis stealthily
+re-enters escorted by the peers. Knowing nothing of her lover's fairy
+origin, and seeing him embracing one who appears equally young and
+beautiful as herself, she breaks from the hands of the peers just as
+Iolanthe and Strephon are parting, and accuses the latter of shameless
+deceit. Strephon's explanation that "this lady's my mother" is
+disbelieved by Phyllis and greeted with derision by the peers, who
+decline to admit that "a maid of seventeen" can be the mother of "a man
+of four or five-and-twenty."
+
+Believing herself to have been deceived by Strephon, Phyllis now
+ruefully offers to accept either Tolloller or Mount-Ararat, but doesn't
+care which. Just as she has placed the noble lords in this quandary,
+Strephon reappears, and invokes the aid of the Fairy Queen.
+Instantaneously the fairy band are seen "tripping hither, tripping
+thither" among the amazed peers, while the slender Lord Chancellor
+encounters a rude shock when he collides with the massive form of the
+Queen. Strephon tells his tale of woe, and there follows an amazing and
+amusing exchange of reproach and ridicule. The infuriated Queen
+determines to punish the peers. Strephon shall go into Parliament to
+wreak vengeance on them. The recital of the measures which he is to
+carry through Parliament alarms the peers, and the first Act ends, after
+a pretence at defiance, in their vainly suing for mercy.
+
+The second Act of "Iolanthe" is staged in the Palace Yard at
+Westminster. A solitary sentry is discovered moralising upon the
+proceedings in "that House." He has observed that if the members have--
+
+    "A brain and cerebellum, too,
+    They've got to leave that brain outside
+    And vote just as their leaders tell 'em to."
+
+Presently the fairies reappear and rejoice over Strephon's success as a
+member of Parliament. Then the peers enter and reveal their annoyance
+with Strephon, whom they describe as "a Parliamentary Pickford--he
+carries everything." A heated argument ensues between the fairies and
+the peers. It is ended by a song from Mount-Ararat in praise of the
+House of Peers, which sparkles with satire on the members of that
+ancient institution, who make "no pretence to intellectual eminence or
+scholarship sublime."
+
+Having pleaded in vain that the fairies should prevent Strephon from
+doing further mischief, they depart in anger, and the Queen enters to
+find her band gazing wistfully after them. Scenting danger, the Queen
+calls upon them to subdue this "weakness," Celia retorts that "the
+weakness is so strong." The Queen replies by protesting that, although
+she herself is not "insensible to the effect of manly beauty" in the
+person of the stalwart Guardsman still on sentry-go, she is able to
+subdue her feelings, though in the famous "Captain Shaw" song which
+follows she asks:--
+
+    "Could thy Brigade
+    With cold cascade
+    Quench my great love, I wonder?"
+
+Phyllis now re-appears, seeming very unhappy, and is presently joined by
+Tolloller and Mount-Ararat, who wrangle as to which shall yield her to
+the other. Phyllis implores them not to fight for her. "It is not worth
+while," she declares, and after a moment's reflection they agree that
+"the sacred ties of friendship are paramount." Following the departure
+of the trio there enters the Lord Chancellor looking dejected and very
+miserable. He, too, it will be remembered, had fallen in love with
+Phyllis, and he now mourns aloud that "love unrequited robs him of his
+rest." Mount-Ararat and Tolloller join him and express their concern at
+his woebegone appearance. He explains, and they persuade him to make
+another application to himself for permission to marry Phyllis. Then
+Phyllis and Strephon encounter each other in the Palace Square. Taunted
+by a reference to his "young" mother, Strephon discloses that she is a
+fairy. This leads to a reconciliation. Iolanthe joins them, and when
+they ask her to appeal to the Lord Chancellor for his consent to their
+marriage, she reveals the secret of her life. The Lord Chancellor is her
+husband! He thinks her dead, and she is bound under penalty of death not
+to undeceive him. The Lord Chancellor enters exclaiming "Victory!
+victory!" In the highest spirits he relates how he had wrested from
+himself permission to marry Phyllis. Then Iolanthe, still hiding her
+identity, pleads Strephon's cause. When he refuses her plea, she
+determines to gain happiness for her son even at the cost of her own
+life. Despite the warning song of her fairy sisters, Iolanthe shocks the
+Chancellor with the words, "It may not be--_I am thy wife_."
+
+The Fairy Queen breaks in upon this tragic episode with the threat of
+Iolanthe's doom, but ere it can be pronounced the Fairy Leila tells the
+Queen that if Iolanthe must die so must they all, for all have married
+peers. Bewildered by this dilemma the Fairy Queen is greatly relieved
+when the Lord Chancellor suggests that instead of the fairy law reading
+"Every fairy must die who marries a mortal" it should be "Every fairy
+must die who don't marry a mortal." Accepting the suggestion the Queen
+finds her own life in peril. She proposes to the stalwart Grenadier
+still on duty, who gallantly accepts. The peers also agree to exchange
+the "House of Peers for House of Peris." Wings spring from their
+shoulders and away they all fly, "Up in the sky, ever so high," where
+"pleasures come in endless series."
+
+
+"PRINCESS IDA."
+_Produced January 5th, 1884._
+
+Princess Ida was the daughter of King Gama, and when but twelve-months'
+old, she had been betrothed to Prince Hilarion, the two-year-old son of
+King Hildebrand. The opening scene presents King Hildebrand and his
+courtiers awaiting the arrival of King Gama and Princess Ida for the
+celebration of the nuptials in accordance with the marriage contract.
+Some doubt exists as to whether this will be honoured, for Prince
+Hilarion has heard that his bride has "forsworn the world." It is
+presently announced that Gama and his train are approaching. His
+appearance is preceded by that of three bearded warriors clad in armour,
+who declare that they are "Sons of Gama Rex," and naïvely add, "Like
+most sons are we, masculine in sex." They are followed by Gama, who fits
+in appearance Hildebrand's description of him as "a twisted
+monster--all awry." In a three-verse song Gama describes his own
+character in detail, each verse ending:--
+
+    "Yet everybody thinks I'm such a disagreeable man
+    And I can't think why."
+
+Gama proceeds to justify the universal opinion by his venomous remarks
+to Hildebrand's courtiers, and when Hildebrand demands the reason for
+Ida's absence, he becomes insulting. Later, he relates that Ida has
+established and rules a Woman's University in Castle Adamant, from which
+all males are excluded. Gama tells Hilarion that if he addresses the
+lady most politely she may deign to look on him. Hildebrand bids
+Hilarion to go to Castle Adamant and claim Ida as his wife, but adds
+that if she refuses, his soldiers will "storm the lady." King Gama is
+detained as hostage, with the warning that "should Hilarion disappear,
+we will hang you, never fear, most politely, most politely." Gama and
+his three sons are then marched off to their prison cell.
+
+In the second act, we are transported to Castle Adamant, and behold, in
+the gardens, Lady Psyche surrounded by girl graduates. Lady Blanche
+arrives, and reads to them the Princess Ida's list of punishments. One
+student is expelled for bringing in a set of chessmen, while another is
+punished for having sketched a perambulator. Then Princess Ida herself
+enters, and is hailed by the students as a "mighty maiden with a
+mission." Her address to the students is intended to demonstrate woman's
+superiority over man. Then Lady Blanche, in announcing a lecture by
+herself on abstract philosophy, reveals that the exclusion of the male
+sex from the university has not banished jealousy. Ida and the students
+enter the castle. Hardly have they gone, when Hilarion, accompanied by
+Cyril and Florian, are seen climbing the garden wall. They don some
+collegiate robes which they discover, and are appropriately jocular
+regarding their transformation into "three lovely undergraduates."
+Surprised by the entry of Princess Ida, they determine to present
+themselves as would-be students, and she promises them that "if all you
+say is true, you'll spend with us a happy, happy time." The Princess
+leaves them alone, but as she goes Lady Psyche enters unobserved. She
+overhears their conversation, and is amazed by it, but not more so than
+Florian when he finds that Lady Psyche is his sister. The men entrust
+her with their secret. She warns them that discovery may mean death, and
+sings them a song which sums up the Princess Ida's teaching to the
+effect that man "at best is only a monkey shaved." Melissa now enters.
+She learns that the visitors are men and loyally promises secrecy.
+Whilst they are heartily enjoying themselves Lady Blanche, who is the
+mother of Melissa, has observed them, and as all five are leaving the
+gardens, she calls Melissa and taxes her with the facts. Melissa
+explains the situation, and persuades her mother to assist Hilarion's
+plan.
+
+In the next scene the Princess Ida and the students are seen at an
+alfresco luncheon. Cyril becomes tipsy, discloses the secret of the
+intruders, and scandalises the Princess by singing an "old kissing
+song":--
+
+    "Would you know the kind of maid
+    Sets my heart aflame--a?"
+
+In her excitement at this revelation the Princess falls into the stream
+which flows through the gardens. Hilarion rescues her, but this gallant
+feat does not shake the lady's resolution, and she orders their arrest.
+As they are marched away Melissa brings news of an armed band without
+the castle. Speedily Hildebrand, at the head of his soldiers, confronts
+Ida. The three sons of Gama, still clad in armour, warn her that refusal
+to yield means death. Hildebrand gives Ida until the next day to "decide
+to pocket your pride and let Hilarion claim his bride." The curtain
+falls upon the Princess hurling defiance at Hildebrand.
+
+When the curtain rises for the third time, we discover that the outer
+walls and courtyard of Castle Adamant are held by Princess Ida's
+students, who are armed with battle-axes, and who sing of "Death to the
+invader." The Princess comes attended by Blanche and Psyche, and warns
+them that "we have to meet stern bearded warriors in fight to-day." She
+bids them remember that they have to show that they "can meet Man face
+to face on his own ground, and beat him there." But as she reviews her
+forces, she meets with disappointment. The lady surgeon declares that,
+although she has often cut off legs and arms in theory, she won't cut
+off "real live legs and arms." The armourer explains that the rifles
+have been left in the armoury "for fear ... they might go off." The
+band-mistress excuses the absence of the band who "can't come out
+to-day." Contemptuously, Ida bids them depart. Lamenting the failure of
+her plan, she is surprised by the arrival of her father, who announces
+that he is to give a message from Hildebrand, and then return to "black
+captivity." The message is that, being loth to war with women,
+Hildebrand wishes Ida to consent to the disposal of her hand being
+settled by combat between her three brothers and three of Hildebrand's
+knights. Ida demands of her father what possesses him that he should
+convey such an offer. Gama replies: "He tortures me with torments worse
+than death," and in pity she yields to the proposal.
+
+While the girls mount the battlements, Hildebrand and his soldiers
+enter, and there is a fight between Gama's sons and Hilarion, Cyril and
+Florian. The latter are victorious. Seeing her brothers lying wounded,
+Ida cries "Hold--we yield ourselves to you," and resigns the headship of
+the University to Lady Blanche. Sadly Ida admits the failure of her
+scheme. She had hoped to band all women together to adjure tyrannic man.
+To Hildebrand she says that if her scheme had been successful "at my
+exalted name posterity would bow." Hildebrand retorts, "If you enlist
+all women in your cause--how is this posterity to be provided?" Ida
+turns to Hilarion, admitting her error to him, and the opera ends with
+the company declaring:--
+
+    "It were profanity for poor humanity
+    To treat as vanity the sway of love.
+    In no locality or principality
+    Is our mortality its sway above."
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "KING GAMA" IN "PRINCESS IDA."]
+
+
+"THE MIKADO."
+_Produced March 14th, 1885._
+
+Although this opera is entitled "The Mikado" very little is seen of that
+great potentate, which is quite in accordance with Japanese custom, so
+vastly different to ours in matters of Royalty. The opera concerns much
+more closely the adventures of Nanki-Poo, the Mikado's son and heir, who
+has fled in disguise from the Court to escape from Katisha, an elderly
+lady whom the Mikado had ordered him to marry within a week or perish.
+
+Immediately after the opening chorus by the gentlemen of Japan the
+disguised Crown Prince enters. He is labouring under great excitement,
+and begs for information as to the dwelling of "a gentle maiden,
+Yum-Yum." One of the Japanese nobles asks, "Who are you?" and he replies
+in a delightful song--
+
+    "A wandering minstrel I,
+    A thing of shreds and patches,
+    Of ballads, songs and snatches,
+    And dreamy lullaby."
+
+In reply to a further question as to his business with the maiden,
+Nanki-Poo takes the gentlemen of Japan partly into his confidence. He
+explains that a year before he had fallen in love with Yum-Yum, who
+returned his affection. As, however, she was betrothed to her guardian
+Ko-Ko, a cheap tailor, he had left Titipu in despair. Learning that
+Ko-Ko has been condemned to death for flirting, he now hoped to find
+Yum-Yum free. Alas! for Nanki-Poo's hopes, they inform him that not only
+has Ko-Ko been reprieved, but that he has been elevated to the highest
+rank a citizen can attain, and is now Lord High Executioner. Pish Tush
+explains that, in order to circumvent the Mikado's decree making
+flirtation a capital offence, they have appointed Ko-Ko as Lord High
+Executioner, because, being under sentence of death himself, he cannot
+cut off anybody else's head until he has cut off his own.
+
+Expressing his sense of the condescension shown to him by Pooh-Bah,
+that portly personage explains that although "a particularly haughty
+and exclusive person" who can trace his ancestry back to "a
+protoplasmic, primordial, atomic globule," he mortifies his family
+pride. In proof of this he points out that, when all the other high
+officers of State had resigned because they were too proud to serve
+under an ex-tailor, he had accepted all their posts (and the salaries
+attached) at once, so that he is now First Lord of the Treasury, Lord
+Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the
+Buckhounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop, and Lord Mayor.
+
+Pooh-Bah informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum is arriving from school that
+very day to be married to Ko-Ko. Ko-Ko enters, preceded by a chorus of
+nobles, and Pooh-Bah refers Nanki-Poo to him for any further information
+concerning Yum-Yum. This is Ko-Ko's first public appearance as Lord High
+Executioner, and after thanking the nobles for their welcome, he
+promises strict attention to his duties. Happily, he remarks, "there
+will be no difficulty in finding plenty of people whose loss will be a
+distinct gain to society at large." He proceeds to mention in a song
+that he's got "a little list" of possible victims and "they'll none of
+'em be missed."
+
+So far the opera has been an exclusively masculine affair, but Yum-Yum
+now arrives escorted by a bevy of dainty schoolfellows, who sing of
+their "Wondering what the world can be." This little chorus contains two
+exquisite verses--
+
+    "Is it but a world of trouble
+    Sadness set to song?
+    Is its beauty but a bubble,
+    Bound to break ere long?"
+
+    "Are its palaces and pleasures
+    Fantasies that fade?
+    And the glory of its treasures
+    Shadows of a shade?"
+
+Yum-Yum and her bridesmaids, Peep-bo and Pitti Sing, introduce
+themselves by the delicious trio, "Three Little Maids." Ko-Ko and
+Pooh-Bah enter, and Yum-Yum reluctantly permits Ko-Ko to kiss her. At
+this moment, Nanki-Poo arrives and the "three little maids" rush over to
+him and welcome him with great effusion. Ko-Ko's jealousy is aroused,
+and he asks to be presented. Right boyishly Nanki-Poo blurts out to
+Ko-Ko that he loves Yum-Yum. He expects Ko-Ko to be angry, but instead
+Ko-Ko thanks him for agreeing with him as to the lady's charms.
+Presently Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum manage to get the Courtyard to
+themselves. During their _tête-a-tête_ Nanki-Poo reveals his secret to
+Yum-Yum. They are interrupted by the appearance of Ko-Ko and escape in
+different directions. As Ko-Ko soliloquises upon his beloved, he is
+interrupted by Pooh-Bah with a letter from the Mikado. This is an
+intimation that, as no executions have taken place in Titipu for a year,
+the office of Lord High Executioner will be abolished and the city
+reduced to the rank of a village unless somebody is beheaded within one
+month. As this would involve the city in ruin, Ko-Ko declares that he
+will have to execute someone. Pooh-Bah, pointing out that Ko-Ko himself
+is under sentence of death, suggests that he should execute himself.
+This leads to an acrimonious discussion, which is ended by Ko-Ko
+appointing Pooh-Bah, who is already holding all the other high offices
+of State, to be Lord High Substitute (for himself as a victim of the
+headsman). But Pooh-Bah declares "I must set bounds to my insatiable
+ambition." He draws the line at his own death.
+
+Whilst Ko-Ko is lamenting the position as "simply appalling" he is
+disturbed by the entrance of Nanki-Poo with a rope in his hands. He has
+made up his mind to commit suicide because Ko-Ko is going to marry
+Yum-Yum. Finding "threats, entreaties, prayers all useless" Ko-Ko is
+struck with a brilliant idea. He suggests that Nanki-Poo should at the
+end of a month's time "be beheaded handsomely at the hands of the Public
+Executioner." To this Nanki-Poo agrees on condition that Ko-Ko permits
+him to marry Yum-Yum. Reluctantly Ko-Ko accepts the condition, and when
+Pooh-Bah returns to enquire what Ko-Ko has decided to do in regard to an
+execution, he replies, "Congratulate me! I've found a volunteer." Whilst
+the townsfolk of Titipu are bantering Nanki-Poo on the prospect of
+marriage and death, their revelry is interrupted by the arrival of the
+lady who was the cause of Nanki-Poo's wandering. Katisha discovers
+Nanki-Poo and calls upon him to "give me my place." When he refuses she
+would have revealed his identity, but every time she tries to say "He is
+the son of your Mikado" her voice is drowned by the singing of
+Nanki-Poo, Yum-Yum and the chorus. Eventually Katisha rushes away
+threatening furious vengeance.
+
+When the curtain rises again the scene is the garden of Ko-Ko's palace.
+We see Yum-Yum decked by her bridesmaids for the wedding, while they
+sing of her loveliness, and Pitti-Sing bids her "Sit with downcast eye;
+let it brim with dew." Pitti-Sing tells her also that "modesty at
+marriage tide well becomes a pretty bride," but this admonition seems
+lost upon a bride who, when her adornment is complete, frankly revels in
+her beauty. In "The Sun whose rays," a song of entrancing melody, she
+declares, "I mean to rule the earth as he the sky."
+
+But her rapture is marred by the reminder from Peep-Bo that her
+bridegroom has only a month to live. Nanki-Poo finds her in tears, and
+has much difficulty in comforting her, their feelings being aptly
+expressed in that wonderful madrigal, which although it begins so
+joyfully with "Brightly dawns our wedding day," yet ends in tears. Ko-Ko
+now joins the wedding party, and although the sight of Yum-Yum in
+Nanki-Poo's arms is "simple torture," he insists on remaining so that he
+may get used to it. When Yum-Yum says it is only for a month, he tells
+of his discovery that when a married man is beheaded his wife must be
+buried alive. Naturally, Yum-Yum demurs to a wedding with such a hideous
+ending to the honeymoon, and Nanki-Poo declares that, as he cannot live
+without Yum-Yum, he intends to perform the "happy dispatch." Ko-Ko's
+protest is followed by the entry of Pooh-Bah to announce the approach of
+the Mikado and his suite. They will arrive in ten minutes. Ko-Ko,
+believing that the Mikado is coming to see whether his orders regarding
+an execution have been obeyed, is in great alarm. Nanki-Poo invites
+Ko-Ko to behead him at once, and Pooh-Bah agitatedly urges Ko-Ko to
+"chop it off," but he declares that he can't do it. He has "never even
+killed a blue-bottle." Ko-Ko decides that the making of an affidavit
+that Nanki-Poo has been executed, witnessed by Pooh-Bah in each of his
+capacities as Lord Chief Justice, etc., etc., will satisfy the Mikado.
+Pooh-Bah agrees on condition that he shall be "grossly insulted" with
+"cash down."
+
+Then as Commissionaire Pooh-Bah is ordered to find Yum-Yum, Ko-Ko orders
+her to go along with the Archbishop (Pooh-Bah), who will marry her to
+Nanki-Poo at once. Waving aside all questions, Ko-Ko urges them off just
+as the procession heralding the Mikado and Katisha enters the garden to
+the strains of "Miya sama, miya sama." The Mikado extols himself as "a
+true philanthropist" and declares "my object all sublime, I shall
+achieve in time; to let the punishment fit the crime." His list of
+social crimes and the penalties prescribed for each class of offender
+are equally amusing. Ko-Ko, Pooh-Bah and Pitti-Sing now kneel in the
+presence, and Ko-Ko informs the Mikado that "the execution has taken
+place" and hands in the coroner's certificate signed by Pooh-Bah. Then
+the three proceed to describe an event which had happened only in their
+imaginations.
+
+The Mikado seems bored, and explains that though all this is very
+interesting, he has come about a totally different matter. He asks for
+his son, who is masquerading in Titipu under the name of Nanki-Poo.
+Ko-Ko and his associates are visibly disturbed, but he stammers out that
+Nanki-Poo has gone abroad. The Mikado demands his address.
+"Knightsbridge" is the reply. (At the time this opera was originally
+produced there was a Japanese colony in Knightsbridge.) Just then
+Katisha, reading the coroner's certificate, discovers that it contains
+the name of Nanki-Poo and shrieks her dismay. Pooh-Bah, Ko-Ko, and
+Pitti-Sing grovel at the Mikado's feet, and apologise abjectly. The
+Mikado urges them not to distress themselves, and just as they are
+feeling that it doesn't really matter, the Mikado turns to Katisha with
+"I forget the punishment for compassing the death of the heir-apparent."
+The three culprits learn with horror that it is "something humorous, but
+lingering, with either boiling oil or molten lead in it." The Mikado
+appoints "after luncheon" for the punishment which "fits their crime."
+
+When the Mikado has departed Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah decide that Nanki-Poo
+must "come to life at once." At this moment he and his bride cross the
+garden--leaving for their honeymoon. Ko-Ko explains that the Mikado
+wants Nanki-Poo, and Pooh-Bah ironically adds, "So does Katisha." But
+Nanki Poo fears that, in her anger at his marriage, Katisha will
+persuade the Mikado to order his execution, thus involving Yum-Yum in a
+worse fate. He therefore refuses to re-appear until Ko-Ko has persuaded
+Katisha to marry him. Then "existence will be as welcome as the flowers
+in spring." As this seems to be the only way of escape, Ko-Ko seeks
+Katisha. At first she repulses him, but after he has told her in song
+the story of the little tom-tit that committed suicide because of
+blighted affection, she relents.
+
+Now the Mikado returns from luncheon, and asks if "the painful
+preparations have been made." Being assured that they have, he orders
+the three culprits to be produced. As they again grovel at his feet,
+Katisha intercedes for mercy. She tells the Mikado that she has just
+married "this miserable object," indicating Ko-Ko. The Mikado is
+remarking "But as you have slain the heir-apparent" when Nanki-Poo
+enters saying "the heir-apparent is not slain." He is heartily welcomed
+by the Mikado, while Katisha denounces Ko-Ko as a traitor. Ko-Ko then
+explains everything to the Mikado's satisfaction, and the opera ends
+with the joyous strains of Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum uniting in "the
+threatened cloud has passed away and fairly shines the dawning day,"
+whilst the entire company help them--
+
+    "With joyous shout and ringing cheer,
+    Inaugurate our new career."
+
+
+"RUDDIGORE."
+_Produced January 22nd, 1887._
+
+In the days of long, long ago there live the wicked Sir Rupert
+Murgatroyd, baronet of Ruddigore. He spent all his leisure and his
+wealth in the persecution of witches, and the more fiendish his
+cruelties, the more he enjoyed the ruthless sport. But there came a day
+when he was roasting alive an old witch on the village green. The hag
+uttered a terrible curse both on the baronet and on all his descendants.
+Every lord of Ruddigore was doomed to commit one crime a day, and if he
+attempted to avoid it or became satiated with guilt, that very day he
+should die in awful agony. The prophecy came true. Each heir to the
+title inherited the curse and came in the end to a fearful death.
+
+Upon this plot Gilbert wrote his clever burlesque on the transpontine
+drama--the drama of the virtuous peasant girl in the clutches of the
+bold and bad baronet--and amongst his characters is a tragic figure not
+unlike Shakespeare's Ophelia. The first scene is laid in the pretty
+Cornish fishing village of Rederring. This village, by the way, has a
+quaint institution in the form of a troop of professional bridesmaids,
+who are bound to be on duty from ten to four o'clock every day, but
+whose services have of late been in little request. The girls can only
+hope that they may soon be able to celebrate the betrothal of Rose
+Maybud, the belle of Rederring, a precise little maid whose every action
+is regulated by a book of etiquette, written by no less an authority
+than the wife of a Lord Mayor. Should an utter stranger be allowed to
+pay her pretty compliments? "Always speak the truth," answers the book.
+It tells her that "in accepting an offer of marriage, do so with
+apparent hesitation," and this same guide and monitor declares that, in
+similar circumstances, "a little show of emotion will not be misplaced."
+Rose, indeed, has had very many suitors, but as yet her heart is free.
+
+Early in the opera Dame Hannah, who was herself once wooed by the last
+baronet in disguise, relates the story of the terrible curse on the
+house of Murgatroyd. She is Rose's aunt, and she talks to the girl about
+Robin Oakapple, a young man who "combines the manners of a Marquis with
+the morals of a Methodist." Now, this same Robin Oakapple, we afterwards
+learn, is himself the real owner of Ruddigore, but ten years ago he so
+dreaded the thought of becoming the victim of the witch's malediction
+that he fled from his ancestral home, assumed the style and name of a
+simple farmer, and lived unsuspected in Rederring. In the belief that he
+was dead his younger brother succeeded to the baronetcy and all its
+obligations to a life of infamy. Only two know the secret--Robin's
+faithful servant, Old Adam, and his sailor foster-brother, Richard
+Dauntless.
+
+Robin is such a shy fellow that he cannot summon up the pluck to propose
+to Rose Maybud. She, it seems, would not be unwilling to return his
+affections if he declared them, and she gives more than a broad hint to
+her bashful lover in a delightful duet, "Poor Little Man." But Robin has
+to do his love-making by proxy. Luckily or otherwise, Richard has just
+returned from the sea, and this hearty British tar sings a rollicking
+song in the Dibdin manner about how his man-o'-war, the "Tom-Tit," met a
+little French frigate, and how they had "pity on a poor Parley-voo."
+When "Ruddigore" was produced, this number gave grave offence to the
+French people, and there were critics at home who held that it reflected
+also on the British Navy. The storm, however, never led then and never
+would lead now to international complications, and what questions of
+taste there may be in the lyric are soon forgotten in the engaging
+hornpipe which follows the song.
+
+Richard, who talks in nautical phrases and declares that he always acts
+strictly as his heart dictates, promises to help Robin in securing the
+hand of Rose Maybud. He at least is not afflicted with too much
+diffidence, and Robin himself sings the lines, which have now passed
+into a proverb, that if in the world you wish to advance "you must stir
+it and stump it and blow your own trumpet." But Richard, when he sees
+the girl, acts as his heart dictates and falls in love with her himself,
+the courtship scene being delightfully quaint. Robin returns to claim
+his bride, but when he finds that his foster-brother has played him
+false, he is not loath to praise his good qualities. Yet, in a trio, the
+fickle Rose, having the choice between a man who owns many acres and a
+humble sailor, gives herself to Robin Oakapple.
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS "ROBIN OAKAPPLE" IN "RUDDIGORE."]
+
+This incident is followed by the appearance of Mad Margaret, a crazy
+figure in white who lost her reason when she was jilted by the reigning
+baronet, Sir Despard Murgatroyd. The poor, distracted girl is still
+seeking for her faithless lover, and as she toys with her flowers she
+sings a plaintive and haunting ballad "To a garden full of posies."
+Following this strange scene, there arrive the Bucks and Blades--all
+wearing the regimental uniforms of Wellington's time, the period to
+which the opera is supposed to belong--and after them the gloomy Sir
+Despard. The crowd shrink from him in horror, while he, poor man, tells
+how he has really the heart of a child, but how a whole picture gallery
+of ancestors threaten him with death if he hesitates to commit his daily
+crime. Then Richard re-enters. Either because of his anger that Robin
+has claimed Rose's hand or because, at whatever cost, he must do as his
+heart dictates, he makes known to the baronet that his missing brother
+is none other than Robin Oakapple. When, a little later, the nuptial
+ceremony of the happy couple is about to begin, the festivities are
+interrupted by Sir Despard dramatically declaring Robin's real identity,
+and poor Robin has to forfeit Rose, who once more turns to Richard, and
+face a fateful existence as Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd.
+
+For the second act the scene moves to the haunted Picture Gallery of
+Ruddigore Castle. Sir Ruthven, otherwise Robin, now wears the haggard
+aspect of a guilty roué, while the once-benevolent Old Adam acts the
+part of the wicked "confidential adviser of the greatest villain
+unhung." They discuss a likely crime for the day. It concerns Richard
+and Rose, who have arrived to ask for the baronet's consent to their
+marriage, and he retorts by threatening to commit them to a dungeon.
+This the sailor thwarts by waving a Union Jack. Then Rose prevails upon
+the wicked relative to relent. Left alone, the unhappy man addresses the
+portraits of his ancestors, bidding them to remember the time when they
+themselves welcomed death at last as a means of freedom from a guilty
+existence, and urging them to let the thought of that repentance "tune
+your souls to mercy on your poor posterity." The stage darkens for a
+moment, and then it is seen that the pictures have become animated and
+that the figures, representing the long line of the accursed race, and
+garbed magnificently according to the times in which each of the
+ancestors lived, have stepped from their frames. Sir Roderic, the last
+of the baronets to die, sings a spectral song about the ghostly
+revelries by night.
+
+Now the ancestors remind their degenerate successor that it is their
+duty to see that he commits his daily crimes in conscientious and
+workmanlike style. They are not impressed with his record of the crimes
+he has so far committed. "Everybody does that," they tell him, when he
+declares that he has falsified his income-tax return, and they are also
+unmoved when he says that, on other days, he forged his own will and
+disinherited his unborn son. They demand that he must at least carry off
+a lady, and when he refuses they torture him until, in agony, he has to
+accept their command. When the ghosts have returned to their frames Old
+Adam is accordingly ordered to bring a maiden--any maiden will do--from
+the village.
+
+Once more we meet Sir Despard and Mad Margaret. They are prim of manner,
+they wear black of formal cut, and in every way their appearances have
+changed. They are married and conduct a National School. The ex-baronet
+has become expert at penny readings. Margaret, now a district visitor,
+has recovered her sanity, though she has occasional lapses. The quaint
+duet between them is followed by a meeting with Robin, who hears that
+his record of infamy includes not only the crimes he has committed
+during the week, but all those perpetrated by Despard during the ten
+years he reigned at Ruddigore. He decides, even at the cost of his life,
+to bid his ancestors defiance. But now Old Adam returns, not with a
+beautiful maiden, but with old Dame Hannah. She is a tiger cat indeed,
+and despite the baronet's declaration that he is reforming and that his
+intentions towards her are honourable, she seizes a formidable dagger
+from one of the armed figures and declares for a fight to the finish.
+The episode is interrupted by the re-appearance of the ghostly Sir
+Roderic. What is more, he and Dame Hannah recognise themselves as old
+lovers, and a whimsical love-scene leads up to a tender little ballad
+about the "flower and the oak tree."
+
+The end comes swiftly. Robin, accompanied by all the other characters,
+rushes in to declare his happy discovery. He argues that a baronet can
+die only by refusing to commit his daily crime, and thus it follows that
+a refusal to commit a crime is tantamount to suicide, which is in itself
+a crime. The curse will thus not stand logical analysis! Sir Roderic
+concurs, and as the natural deduction is that he himself ought never to
+have died at all, he and Dame Hannah are able at last to bring joy and
+laughter within the grim walls of Ruddigore. Robin, having found a week
+as holder of a title ample enough, determines to earn a modest
+livelihood in agricultural employment, and this time he both claims and
+keeps the hand of Rose Maybud. Richard, robbed of his intended bride,
+soon replaces her from amongst the troup of professional bridesmaids,
+while Despard and Margaret leave to pass a secluded existence in the
+town of Basingstoke.
+
+
+"THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD."
+_Produced October 3rd, 1888._
+
+Jack Point was a poor strolling player in the days of old Merrie
+England. With pretty Elsie Maynard he tramped through the towns and
+villages, and everywhere the two entertained the good folk with their
+songs and their dances, their quips and their cranks. Jack Point could
+have been no ordinary jester. Some years before he had been in the
+service of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he mortally offended his
+Grace by his conundrum that the only difference between the two of them
+was that "whereas his Grace was paid £10,000 a year for being good, poor
+Jack Point was good--for nothing." "Twas but a harmless jest," the
+Merry-man sadly reflected, but the Archbishop had him whipped and put in
+the stocks as a rogue, and Jack Point was in no humour to "take a post
+again with the dignified clergy."
+
+Then began the vagabondage of the strolling player. Jack and Elsie made
+but a poor living, though they looked forward to the time when the
+smiles of fortune, the rewards of honest mirth, would allow them to
+marry. Certainly Jack Point had a pretty wit, and beneath the motley
+there beat a true heart of gold, too soon to be broken by tragedy. It
+was the old, old story of the jester who to the world's eye was a merry
+and boisterous fellow, though in his inner being he was suffering all
+the while the tortures of anguish. But list ye now to the story's
+unfolding!
+
+The curtain rises on a faithful picture of the Tower of London, that
+picturesque and historic old fortress indissolubly connected with some
+of the brightest, and the darkest, annals of England. Soon we see the
+Yeomen of the Guard, clad in their traditional garb and carrying their
+halberds, and amongst them is old Sergeant Meryll. He has a daughter
+named Phoebe, whose heart and hand is being sought in vain by the grim
+and repulsive-looking Wilfred Shadbolt, who links the office of head
+jailor with the "assistant tormentorship." It is part of this uncouth
+fellow's duty to twist the thumbscrew and turn the rack to wring
+confessions from the prisoners. So far from Phoebe being attracted to
+Shadbolt, her thoughts are turned towards a young and handsome officer,
+Colonel Fairfax, who lies under sentence of death in the Tower by the
+evil designs of his kinsman, Sir Charles Poltwhistle, a Secretary of
+State. Fairfax has been condemned on a charge of sorcery, though his
+cousin's craft is really to secure the succession to his rich estate,
+which falls to him if he dies unmarried.
+
+Some hopes linger that the soldier may yet be reprieved. Leonard Meryll,
+the old sergeant's son, is coming from Windsor that day after the Court
+has honoured him for his valour in many martial adventures, and it is
+possible that he may bring with him the order that will save Colonel
+Fairfax. He does not bring the reprieve. Sergeant Meryll, whose life the
+condemned man has twice saved, and who would now readily give his own
+life for him, thereupon schemes a deception. Leonard's future career is
+to be with the Yeomen of the Guard, but as his arrival is unknown, it
+is arranged that he shall hide himself for a while and his place be
+filled by the imprisoned Fairfax. Just after this the Colonel himself
+comes into view, under an escort commanded by the Lieutenant, and on his
+way to the Cold Harbour Tower "to await his end in solitude." He treats
+death lightly--has he not a dozen times faced it in battle?--but he has
+one strange last request. Could he, as a means of thwarting his
+relative, be allowed to marry? The lady would be a bride but for an
+hour, and her legacy would be his dishonoured name and a hundred crowns,
+and "never was a marriage contracted with so little of evil to the
+contracting parties." The Lieutenant, who admires the brave fellow,
+believes that the task of finding him a wife should be easy.
+
+Now we meet Jack Point and Elsie Maynard. Not a little terrified, they
+are chased in by the crowd, who bid them "banish your timidity and with
+all rapidity give us quip and quiddity." The choice of the wandering
+minstrels is their duet, "I have a song to sing, O!" Never was there a
+more enchanting ditty, and very significantly it tells of a merry-man's
+love of a maid, and of the humble maid--
+
+    "Who loved a lord, and who laughed aloud,
+    At the moan of the merry-man, moping mum
+    Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
+    Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
+    As he sighed for the love of a ladye!"
+
+Scarcely have the crowd finished applauding this offering than the
+Lieutenant enters, clears the rabble from the green, and inquires the
+history of Jack and Elsie. Jack tells him of their humble means of
+livelihood. Elsie is still unmarried, "for though I'm a fool," quoths
+the jester, "there is a limit to my folly." The Lieutenant then outlines
+his plan to make her a bride for an hour, and as the bargain seems a
+sound one and money is scarce, the two agree to the subterfuge, and
+Elsie is led into the Tower cell, blindfolded, to be wedded to Fairfax.
+Jack Point meanwhile tries on the officer some of his best conundrums
+and his incorrigible talent for repartee.
+
+Shortly after this Phoebe wheedles the keys of the prison from
+Shadbolt, her "sour-faced admirer," and Fairfax is thus restored to
+liberty in the guise of a Yeoman of the Guard. Fairfax, of course, is
+taken for Leonard and complimented on his successful campaigns. And then
+there tolls the bell of St. Peter's. The crowd enter, the executioner's
+block is brought on, and the masked headsman takes his place. But when
+the Yeomen go to fetch the prisoner they find that the cell is empty,
+and that he has escaped. Shadbolt the jailer is arrested, and the people
+rush off in confusion, leaving Elsie insensible in the arms of her
+unknown husband, Fairfax. With this the curtain falls.
+
+When it ascends once more on the same scene, the old housekeeper of the
+Tower, Dame Carruthers, chides the Yeomen on their failure both to keep
+and to re-capture Fairfax. Then Point and Shadbolt appear in very low
+spirits. For the Merry-man's dolefulness there is ample cause, and he
+himself laments how ridiculous it is that "a poor heart-broken man must
+needs be merry or he will be whipped." Shadbolt, envious of his
+companion's gifts, confesses to a secret yearning of his own to follow
+the jester's vocation, and the lugubrious fellow tells how deft and
+successful are his own delicate shafts of wit in the torture chamber and
+cells! Jack Point agrees, for a consideration, to teach Shadbolt "the
+rules that all family fools must observe if they love their profession."
+The consideration is that the jailor must declare that he shot Fairfax
+with an arquebus at night as he was attempting to swim over the Thames.
+The bargain is struck, and in a short time a shot is heard, and the
+jailor re-enters to declare that the escaped prisoner has been shot and
+drowned in the river. Fairfax himself has been lamenting that, although
+free from his fetters grim, he is still bound for good and ill to an
+unknown bride, a situation that leads up to the first of those
+delightful quartettes, "Strange Adventure." He meets Elsie, is attracted
+at once by her beauty, and learns the secret of her perplexity, though
+how can he proclaim his real self while he is still Leonard Meryll?
+
+It is told us in a tuneful trio that "a man who would woo a fair maid
+should 'prentice himself to the trade and study all day in methodical
+way how to flatter, cajole and persuade." Certainly Fairfax knows these
+arts much better than Point. Before the jester's eyes he begins to
+fascinate the girl with sweet words and tender caresses, and the utter
+disillusionment of poor Jack Point, a victim of the fickleness of
+womankind and outwitted in love, is reflected in that haunting number,
+"When a wooer goes a wooing." Events now race towards their end--an end
+that to two at least has all the joyous warmth of romance, but to the
+one pathetic figure in his motley the blackness of despair. Leonard
+hastens in with the belated reprieve, and Elsie soon learns with
+happiness that the gallant Yeoman who has captured her heart is, in
+truth, her own strangely-wed husband, Fairfax. For her the hardship of
+the stroller's life has passed. So also has it for the broken Merry-man.
+Sadly he kneels by the girl who has forsaken his arms for another's,
+gently fondles and kisses the hem of her dress, bestows on her the sign
+of his blessing, and in the last tremor of grief falls at her
+feet--dead!
+
+
+"THE GONDOLIERS."
+_Produced December 7th, 1889._
+
+"The Gondoliers" tells of the strange and romantic fortunes of two
+sturdy Republicans who are called upon jointly to assume the
+responsibilities of Monarchy. They are Marco and Guiseppe Palmieri, who
+ordinarily follow the calling of Venetian gondoliers, and who hold
+staunchly to the doctrine that "all men are equal." Kingship does,
+indeed, seem rather less abhorrent to their ideas when they are summoned
+to fill that exalted office themselves, but at the same time they do
+concede that neither their courtiers nor their menials are their
+inferiors in any degree. Indeed, when they rise in the scale of social
+importance they see that their subjects rise too, and perhaps it is not
+surprising that in this quaint court of Barataria are functionaries
+basking in the splendour of such titles as the Lord High Coachman and
+the Lord High Cook. Even in the heart of the most democratic of mankind
+does the weakness for titles eternally linger!
+
+It is in Venice, with a picturesque canal in the background, that the
+opera begins. The girls, their arms laden with roses white and roses
+red, are waiting for the most handsome and popular of all the
+gondolieri, who are coming to choose their brides from amongst this
+comely throng. So that, amidst such a bevy of loveliness, fate itself
+may select whom their partners shall be, the brothers decide to be
+blindfolded and to undertake to marry whichever two girls they catch. In
+this way Gianetta is claimed by Marco and Tessa by Guiseppe. And both
+were the very girls they wanted! Singing and dancing like the lightsome,
+joyous people they are, the couples hasten to the altar without more
+ado.
+
+A Spanish grandee, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, now arrives by gondola with
+his Duchess and his daughter, Casilda. With them are their suite--the
+drummer-lad Luiz. The Duke is a celebrated, cultivated, underrated
+nobleman of impecunious estate, shabby in attire but unquestionably
+gentle in breeding. He laments that his entry into the town has not been
+as imposing as his station requires, but the halberdiers and the band
+are mercenary people, and their services were not available without
+pre-payment in cash. Luiz is sent to announce the arrival of the ducal
+party to the Grand Inquisitor. While he is absent the Duke and Duchess
+tell their daughter the reason of their visit to Venice. She was married
+when only six months old to the infant heir to the Baratarian Throne.
+For State reasons the secret could not be told her before, and it seems
+that when her husband's father, then the reigning King, became a
+Wesleyan Methodist and was killed in an insurrection, the baby
+bridegroom was stolen by the Inquisition.
+
+Casilda takes no pleasure in this sudden accession to Queenship. She has
+nothing to wear, and besides that, the family is penniless. That fact
+does not disturb the Duke. He has anticipated the problem already.
+Seeing that his social prestige is enormous, he is having himself
+floated as a company, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, Limited. He does not
+regard the proceeding as undignified. This Duke never did follow the
+fashions. He has made it his business to lead them, and he recalls how
+"in enterprise of martial kind" when there was any fighting, he "led"
+his regiment from behind, because "he found it less exciting," Such was
+this unaffected, undetected, well-connected warrior, the Duke of
+Plaza-Toro.
+
+[Illustration: HENRY A. LYTTON AS
+"THE DUKE OF PLAZA-TORO" IN "THE GONDOLIERS."]
+
+Left alone, Luiz and Casilda show themselves to be secretly in love with
+each other, and they bemoan the miserable discovery that has ruined the
+sweet dreams of the future. The Duke and Duchess in the meanwhile have
+gone to pay their respects to the Grand Inquisitor. They return with
+this lugubrious personage, garbed all in black, and present to him the
+little lady who, as he says, is so unexpectedly called upon to assume
+the functions of Royalty. Unfortunately he cannot introduce her to her
+husband immediately. The King's identity is a little uncertain, though
+there is no probable, possible shadow of doubt that he is one of two men
+actually in the town and plying the modest but picturesque calling of
+the gondolier. It seems that, after the little prince was stolen, he was
+placed in the charge of a highly-respectable gondolier who had,
+nevertheless, an incurable weakness for drink, and who could never say
+which of the two children in his home was his own son and which was the
+prince. That matter can be solved by their nurse, Luiz's mother, who is
+being brought from the mountains and whose memory will be stimulated, if
+need be, by the persuasive methods of the Inquisition.
+
+The gondoliers now return with their brides. Tessa tells in a beautiful
+number how, when a merry maiden marries, "every sound becomes a song,
+all is right and nothing's wrong." It was too sanguine a thought! The
+Grand Inquisitor, a gloomy figure amidst these festivities, finds the
+fact that Marco and Guiseppe have been married an extremely awkward one,
+and no less awkward their declaration that they are heart and soul
+Republicans. He does not tell them that one is married already--married
+to Casilda in infancy--but he does startle them by the news that one of
+them is a King. Sturdy Republicans as they are, they are loath to accept
+the idea of immediate abdication, and it is agreed that they shall leave
+for their country straightaway and, until the rightful heir is
+established, jointly hold the reins of government. The Grand Inquisitor
+for good reasons will not let their wives accompany them, but the
+separation may not be a long one, and the four speculate on the thrills
+of being a "right-down regular Royal Queen." With a fond farewell the
+gondoliers then set sail for their distant dominion.
+
+When in the second act we see the Pavilion of the Court of
+Barataria--there in one corner is the double-seated throne--we see also
+the happy workings of a "monarchy that's tempered with Republican
+equality." Courtiers and private soldiers, officers of high rank and
+menials of every degree are enjoying themselves without any regard to
+social distinctions, and all are splendidly garbed. The Kings neither
+expect nor receive the deference due to their office, but they try to
+make themselves useful about the palace, whether by polishing their own
+crowns, running little errands for their Ministers, cleaning up in the
+kitchens, or deputising for sentries who go "in search of beer and
+beauty." It gives them, as Guiseppe sings, the gratifying feeling that
+their duty has been done, and in some measure it compensates for their
+two solitary grievances. One of these is that their subjects, while
+maintaining the legal fiction that they are one person, will not
+recognise that they have independent appetites. The other is--the
+absence of their wives. Marco is moved to describe the great specific
+for man's human happiness:--
+
+    "Take a pair of sparkling eyes,
+        Hidden ever and anon,
+            In a merciful eclipse.
+    Do not heed their mild surprise,
+        Having passed the Rubicon.
+            Take a pair of rosy lips,
+    Take a figure trimly planned--
+        Such as admiration whets
+            (Be particular in this);
+    Take a tender little hand,
+        Fringed with dainty fingerettes.
+            Press it--in parenthesis--
+    Take all these, you lucky man--
+    Take and keep them if you can!"
+
+No sooner has he finished than the contadine enter, having braved the
+seas at the risks of their lives, for existence without their menfolk
+was dull and their womanly sense of curiosity strong. The re-union is
+celebrated by a boisterous dance (the cachucha). It is interrupted by
+the arrival of another unexpected visitor--the Grand Inquisitor.
+
+The Grand Inquisitor, left alone with his _protégés_, first of all
+expresses his doubts whether the abolition of social distinctions is a
+workable theory. It had been tried before, and particularly by a jovial
+old King who, in moments of tipsy benevolence, promoted so many
+favourites to the top of the tree that "Lord Chancellors were cheap as
+sprats, and Bishops in their shovel hats were plentiful as tabby
+cats--in point of fact, too many." The plain conclusion was that "when
+everyone is somebodee, then no one's anybody." Then he tells them of the
+marriage of one of them in infancy. It is certainly an awkward
+predicament. Two men are the husbands of three wives! Marco, Guiseppe,
+Tessa and Gianetta try to solve the complicated plot.
+
+Soon afterwards the ducal party arrive attired in the utmost
+magnificence. The Plaza-Toro issue has been most successful, and the
+Duke proceeds to describe how his money-making devices include those of
+securing small titles and orders for Mayors and Recorders, and the
+Duchess's those of chaperoning dubious ladies into high-class society.
+The Duke ceremoniously receives the two gondoliers, but he has to take
+exception to the fact that his arrival has been marked by no royal
+salutes, no guard of honour, and no triumphal arches. They explain that
+their off-handed people would not tolerate the expense. His Grace
+thereupon advises them to impress their court with their importance, and
+to the strains of a delightful gavotte he gives the awkward fellows a
+lesson in the arts of deportment.
+
+Luckily, the tangled plot is swiftly and very happily solved on the
+appearance of the old foster mother, who declares that the missing
+Prince is none other than Luiz. He promptly ascends the throne and
+claims the hand of Casilda, while Marco and Guiseppe, their days of
+regal splendour completed, are glad enough to return with their wives to
+beautiful Venice, there to become "once more gondolieri, both skilful
+and wary."
+
+
+"UTOPIA, LIMITED."
+_Produced October 7th, 1893._
+
+"Utopia Limited" is the story--and a very diverting story it is--of a
+remote country that is desperately anxious to bring itself "up-to-date."
+Utopia is somewhere in the Southern Pacific, and its inhabitants used to
+idle in easy, tropical langour amidst their picturesque palm groves.
+Idlers they were, that is to say, until they first heard of the wonders
+of England, for then it was that they determined that their land must be
+swiftly and completely Anglicised. The reformation was undertaken with
+the utmost zest. King Paramount's eldest daughter, the beautiful
+Princess Zara, has spent five years in England and taken a high degree
+as a "Girton Girl." She is due home once more at the time that the story
+of the opera begins, but already her people have heard of the wise and
+powerful country overseas, and already they have done much to re-model
+upon it their own manners, customs and forms of government.
+
+Existence could never have been altogether dull in Utopia. It is ruled
+by a monarch, a despot only in theory, for the constitution is really
+that of a dynasty tempered by dynamite. This may seem a hard saying. The
+explanation of it is that the King, so far from being an autocrat, is
+watched over day and night by two Wise Men, and on his first lapse from
+political or social propriety he is to be denounced to the Public
+Exploder. It would then be this Court official's duty to blow him up--he
+always has about him a few squibs and crackers--and doubtless he would
+discharge this function with greater alacrity because he is himself
+Heir-apparent. Clearly the King's lot is not a happy one, and no less so
+because the Wise Men insist that all sorts of Royal scandals and
+indiscretions shall be written by himself, anonymously, for the spicy
+columns of the "Palace Peeper." Generally his Majesty's agents contrive
+to buy each edition up, but isolated copies do occasionally get into
+unfriendly hands, and one of these contained his stinging little
+paragraph about his "goings-on" with the Royal Second Housemaid.
+
+The King has two younger daughters, the Princesses Nekaya and Kalyba,
+who are being "finished" by a grave English governess, the Lady Sophy.
+Exceedingly modest and demure, with their hands folded and their eyes
+cast down, they are to be exhibited in the market place as patterns of
+what "from the English standpoint is looked upon as maidenly
+perfection." In particular they are to reveal the arts of courtship,
+showing how it is proper for the young lady to be coy and interestedly
+agitated in turn, and how she must always rehearse her emotions at home
+before the looking-glass. In the meanwhile the King, very deferential in
+manner, has an interview with his two Wise Men, Scaphio and Phantis.
+Notwithstanding that he seems a little hurt about the outrageous attacks
+on his morality which he has to write and publish at their command, he
+at least sees the irresistible humour of the strange situation, and he
+proceeds to sing a capital song about what a farce life is, alike when
+one's born, when one becomes married, and when one reaches the
+disillusioned years.
+
+Zara now arrives from her long journey. She is escorted by Captain
+Fitzbattleaxe, together with four troopers of the 1st Life Guards, whose
+resplendent bearing immediately impress the maids of Utopia. She brings
+with her, moreover, six representatives of the principal causes which,
+she says, have tended to make England the powerful, happy and blameless
+country it is, and their gifts of reorganisation are to work a miracle
+in her father's realm. The King and his subjects are then and there
+introduced to these six "Flowers of Progress." One of them, Captain
+Fitzbattleaxe himself, is to re-model the Utopian Army. Sir Bailey
+Barre, Q.C., M.P., is a logician who, according to his brief, can
+demonstrate that black is white or that two and two make five, just as
+do the clever people of England. Then there is Lord Dramaleigh, a Lord
+High Chamberlain, who the Princess says is to "cleanse our court from
+moral stain and purify our stage." A County Councillor, Mr. Blushington,
+has come with a mind packed with civic improvement schemes, and the
+wicked music-halls he also intends to purify. Mr. Goldbury is a company
+promoter. He floats anything from stupendous loans to foreign thrones to
+schemes for making peppermint-drops. Last of all comes Captain Sir
+Edward Corcoran, R.N., to show King Paramount how to run an invincible
+Navy.
+
+Joyously do the inhabitants hail these "types of England's power, ye
+heaven-enlightened band." The King is impressed most of all with the
+idea of a "company limited." Goldbury explains just what this means, and
+how one can start the biggest and rashest venture on a capital, say, of
+eighteen-pence, and yet be safe from liability. "If you succeed," he
+declares, "your profits are stupendous," whereas "if you fail pop goes
+your eighteen-pence." It strikes the King as rather dishonest, but if it
+is good enough for England, the first commercial country in the world,
+it is good enough for Utopia. What is more, he decides to go down to
+posterity as the first Sovereign in Christendom who registered his Crown
+and State under the Joint Stock Company's Act, 1862. It is with this
+brilliant scheme that the first act comes to a close.
+
+The second act is set in the Throne Room of the Palace. Fitzbattleaxe is
+with the Princess Zara, and he is lamenting how a tenor in love, as he
+is with her, cannot in his singing do himself justice. The two then
+discuss the remarkable changes that have come about since the country
+determined to be Anglicised. The King, when he enters soon afterwards,
+wears the dress of a British Field Marshal. He is to preside, according
+to the articles of association, over the first statutory Cabinet Council
+of Utopia (Limited). For this gathering the "Flowers of Progress" also
+arrive, and after they have ranged their chairs round in Christy
+Minstrel fashion, the proceedings open with a rollicking song by the
+King. This is the chorus:--
+
+        "It really is surprising
+        What a thorough Anglicising,
+    We have brought about--Utopia's quite another land
+        In her enterprising movements
+        She is England--with improvements
+    Which we dutifully offer to our motherland!"
+
+Following the meeting comes the courtly ceremonial of the Drawing Room.
+All the ladies are presented in due form to his Majesty. Then, after a
+beautiful unaccompanied chorus, the stage empties.
+
+Scaphio and Phantis, dressed as judges in red and ermine robes, now
+enter to storm and rage over the new order of things. All their
+influence has gone. The sundry schemes they had for making provision for
+their old age are broken and bankrupt. Even the "Palace Peeper" is in a
+bad way, and as to the clothes they have imported to satisfy the
+cravings for the English fashions, their customers plead liability
+limited to a declared capital of eighteen-pence. The King, whom they
+used to bully to their hearts' content, is no longer a human being, but
+a corporation. Once he doffed his Crown respectfully before speaking to
+them, but now he dances about in lighthearted capers, telling them that
+all they can do is to put their grievances in writing before the Board
+of Utopia (Limited). The two call into their counsels the Public
+Exploder. Between them they work out a plot. By a revolution the Act of
+1862 must be at all costs repealed.
+
+Shortly after the trio have departed to scheme out the details, there is
+a delightful scene between Lord Dramaleigh and Mr. Goldbury, and the two
+coy Princesses, Nekaya and Kalyba. The "shrinking sensitiveness" of
+these young ladies is held by themselves to be most thoroughly English.
+So far from that, the men have to tell them, the girls in the country
+they come from are blithe, frank and healthy creatures who love the
+freshness of the open air and the strenuous exertions of sport, and who
+are "in every pure enjoyment wealthy." (Gilbert, by the way, wrote this
+opera in the early 'nineties.) Loyally does Goldbury chant their
+eulogy:--
+
+    "Go search the world and search the sea.
+      Then come you home and sing with me,
+    There's no such gold and no such pearl
+      As a bright and beautiful English girl."
+
+Nekaya and Kalyba are quickly converted to the idea that to be her
+natural self is woman's most winsome quality. Then follows an interlude
+between the Lady Sophy, whose primness is merely a cloak for ambition,
+and the King. Compromising paragraphs in the society paper having been
+explained away, the two declare their mutual love, and soon they are
+caught by other couples in the act of dancing and kissing. No excuses
+are attempted and all engage in a wild festive dance.
+
+Enter, now, the revolutionary band under the command of Scaphio, Phantis
+and the Public Exploder. They relate how the prosperity of Utopia has
+been brought to naught by the "Flowers of Progress." Suddenly the
+Princess Zara remembers that, in her great scheme of reform, the most
+essential element of all has been forgotten, and that was--party
+government! Introduce that bulwark and foundation of Britain's greatness
+and all will be well! Legislation will thus be brought to a standstill,
+and then there will be "sickness in plenty, endless lawsuits, crowded
+jails, interminable confusion in the Army and Navy, and, in short,
+general and unexampled prosperity." The King decrees that party
+government and all its blessings shall be adopted, and the opera ends
+with a song of homage to a brave distant isle which Utopia is
+henceforward to imitate in her virtues, her charities and "her
+Parliamentary peculiarities."
+
+    "Great Britain is that monarchy sublime
+    To which some add (but others do not) Ireland."
+
+
+
+
+A SAVOYARD BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+The literature about Savoy Opera forms a regular library. A great deal
+of it has been contributed to newspapers and magazines. For the latter
+the reader should consult Poole's "Index to Periodical Literature" and
+its successor, "The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature." The
+following list contains the chief books about the Savoyards.
+
+
+GILBERT.
+
+W. S. GILBERT: By Edith A. Browne. Stars of the Stage Series. London:
+John Lane, 1907.
+
+    8vo: pp. xii+96+15 plates, one of them showing Gilbert in a kilt
+    as a (3rd) Gordon Highlander (1868-78): gives a list of
+    Gilbert's plays. The operas are dealt with by themselves (pp.
+    55-84). There is a photograph of H. A. Lytton in "Patience"
+    (facing p. 58).
+
+SIR WILLIAM S. GILBERT: A study in modern satire: a handbook on Gilbert
+and the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. By Isaac Goldberg, M.A., Ph.D.
+(Harvard.) Boston: Stratford Publishing Co., 1913.
+
+    8vo. pp. 156. The operas are discussed pp. 83-146. "The
+    character of Pooh-Bah is perhaps the greatest single creation of
+    Gilbert's."
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF GILBERT. By G. W. Smalley. _McClure's Magazine_
+(January 1903), xx, 302-304.
+
+REAL CONVERSATION WITH GILBERT. By William Archer. _Critic_, New York
+(September 1901), xxxix, 240-240.
+
+    Mr. Archer's article on Gilbert as a dramatist in the _St.
+    James's Magazine_, London, in 1881 (xlix, 287), was one of the
+    first critical appreciations of Gilbert on a big scale.
+
+GILBERT'S HUMOUR. By Max Beerbohm. _Saturday Review_, xcvii, 619; xcix,
+696.
+
+THE GENIUS OF GILBERT. _Blackwood's Magazine_ (July 1911), cxcix,
+121-128.
+
+THE ENGLISH ARISTOPHANES. By Walter Sichel. _Fortnightly Review_
+(October 1911), xciv, 681-704.
+
+THE LIBRETTOS OF W. S. GILBERT. By G. H. Powell. _Temple Bar_, cxxv, 36.
+
+MR. GILBERT AS A LIBRETTIST. By J. M. Bulloch. _Evening Gazette_,
+Aberdeen (June 16, 17, 1890).
+
+    This was originally an address delivered to the Aberdeen
+    University Literary Society, November 16, 1888. J. M. Bulloch
+    also dealt with "The Pretty Wit of Mr. Gilbert" in the _Sketch_,
+    June 12, 1898; "Mr. Gilbert's Majority as a Savoyard," in the
+    _Sketch_, Sept. 9, 1898; and "The work of W. S. Gilbert,"
+    illustrated in the _Bookbuyer_, New York, January, 1899.
+
+GILBERT'S PROFITS FROM LIBRETTO. By G. Middleton. _Bookman_, New York
+(October, 1908), xxviii, 116-123.
+
+SIR W. S. GILBERT. Leading article and biography in _The Times_, May 30,
+1911, pp. 11-12.
+
+PORTRAITS. Ten reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A. Portrait
+Index_ (Washington, 1908: p. 378) including those by Rudolf Lehman and
+"Spy" in _Vanity Fair_ (1881: xiii., plate 13.).
+
+
+SULLIVAN.
+
+SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN, HIS LIFE AND MUSIC. By B. W. Findon, London: James
+Nisbet and Company, 1904.
+
+    8vo. pp. viii+214+[2]: portrait of Sullivan. Dedicated to Mr.
+    Findon's aunt, Mary Clementina Sullivan, 1811-82, mother of Sir
+    Arthur. List of Sullivan's works (pp. 204-214): section
+    specially devoted to the Savoy Opera (pp. 94-126). This book was
+    reprinted by Sisley's, Ltd. [1908] as "Sir Arthur Sullivan and
+    his Operas."
+
+SULLIVAN. By Sir George Grove. _Dictionary of Music_ (1908), iv,
+743-747.
+
+SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN: Life story, letters, and reminiscences. By Arthur
+Lawrence; with critique by B. W. Findon; and bibliography by W. Bendall
+London: James Bowden, 1899.
+
+    8vo. pp. xvi.+360+11 plates+[8]. There are 19 illustrations,
+    showing Sullivan at the ages of 12, 15, 25, 44, 52 and 57, with
+    eight facsimiles of letters or scores. M. Findon's critique
+    occupies pp. 288-326 and the bibliography, pp. 327-360.
+
+SOUVENIR OF SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN, Mus. Doc, M.V.O.; a brief sketch of his
+life. By Walter J. Wells. London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1901.
+
+    8vo. pp. viii. + 106 with 49 illustrations. Contains "Sullivan
+    and Gilbert" (pp. 15-31): "D'Oyly Carte" (pp. 32-46): "American
+    Success" (pp. 47-54.) List of his works (pp. 98-104).
+
+ARTHUR SULLIVAN. By H. Saxe Wyndham. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903.
+
+    8vo. pp. x+80, with eight illustrations. Dedicated "to my wife
+    through whose skill as a musician the never ending delights of
+    Sullivan's music were first unfolded to me." One of Bell's
+    Miniature Series of Musicians.
+
+PORTRAITS. Twenty-one reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A.
+Portrait Index_ (Washington, 1908: p. 1405) including those by Millais
+and by "Ape" in _Vanity Fair_ (1874: vi, plate 81).
+
+
+CARTE.
+
+The starting of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas: a letter written by R.
+D'Oyly Carte in 1877 to "My Lord" (unnamed), apropos of a proposal to
+form a small company to produce the operas. Printed in the _Pall Mall
+Gazette_, May 1, 1907.
+
+The petition by the Savoy Theatre and Operas, Ltd., and Reduced, for the
+approval of the Court to the reduction of the capital from £75,000 to
+£41,250 was heard before Mr. Justice Walton, August 26, 1903 (_Times_,
+August 27). This led to a very interesting letter from Gilbert in the
+_Times_ (Aug. 28) and one in the _Telegraph_ by Mrs. Carte (Aug. 29).
+
+PORTRAITS. Four reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A. Portrait
+Index_ (Washington, 1908: p. 259), including that by "Spy" in _Vanity
+Fair_ (1891: xxiii, plate 498).
+
+
+THE SAVOY OPERAS.
+
+GILBERT, SULLIVAN, AND D'OYLY CARTE: Reminiscences of the Savoy and the
+Savoyards. By Francois Cellier and Cunningham Bridgeman. London: Isaac
+Pitman and Sons, 1914.
+
+    8vo. pp. xxiv+443: with 63 portraits and other illustrations and
+    six facsimile letters; and a complete set of casts at the Savoy
+    (pp. 425-435). The collaboration between Mr. Cellier and Mr.
+    Bridgeman (pp. 3-163) was ended by the former's death, January
+    5, 1914. The rest of the book (pp. 164-422) was done by Mr.
+    Bridgeman.
+
+THE SAVOY OPERA AND THE SAVOYARDS. By Percy Fitzgerald, M.A., F.S.A.;
+with six illustrations. London: Chatto and Windus, 1894.
+
+    8vo. pp. xvi, 248. Most of the illustrations are pen and ink
+    drawings.
+
+GILBERT AND SULLIVAN OPERA: a history and a comment. By H. M. Walbrook:
+with a foreword by Sir Henry Wood. London: F. V. White and Co., Ltd.,
+1920.
+
+    8vo. pp. 155+[3]+4 plates, including two drawings by H. M.
+    Bateman and a reproduction of the Sullivan Memorial in the
+    Victoria Embankment Gardens; with 42 pen and ink sketches in the
+    text: Short bibliography (p. 155).
+
+GILBERT AND SULLIVAN JOTTINGS. By Shelford Walsh [Harrogate?] coach to
+the principal operatic societies in the United Kingdom [1903].
+
+    16 mo.: pp. 24+cover. Contains little stories about the operas.
+    Price 4d.
+
+SAVOYARDS ON TOUR: a description of the various companies on the road.
+_Sketch_, June 13, 1894.
+
+SAVOYARD DINNER, given by the O.P. Club in the Hotel Cecil, December 30,
+1906.
+
+    Gilbert's historical speech on this occasion was printed
+    verbatim in the _Daily Telegraph_, December 31, 1906.
+
+
+BARRINGTON.
+
+RUTLAND BARRINGTON: a record of thirty-five years' experience on the
+English stage. By Himself; with a preface by Sir William S. Gilbert,
+London: Grant Richards, 1908.
+
+    8vo. pp. 270+31 illustrations and coloured portrait on the
+    cover. Printed at Plymouth. Dedicated to "My good friend, Mrs.
+    D'Oyly Carte." The Savoy is dealt with pp. 25-86.
+
+MORE RUTLAND BARRINGTON. By Himself. London: Grant Richards, 1911.
+
+    8vo. pp. 233+[1]+15 illustrations, including one of H. A. Lytton
+    as the Pirate King. Printed in Edinburgh.
+
+
+GROSSMITH.
+
+A SOCIETY CLOWN: reminiscences. By George Grossmith. Bristol: J. W.
+Arrowsmith, 1888.
+
+    8vo. pp. iv+182. Forming vol. 31 of Arrowsmith's Bristol
+    Library. Chapter on Gilbert and Sullivan pp. 91-125. In "Piano
+    and I" (1910), he describes (pp. 11-18) why he left the Savoy.
+    See also "The Diary of Nobody" (1892).
+
+
+LYTTON.
+
+MEMORIES OF A MERRYMAN. By H. A. Lytton. _Graphic_, Nov. 19, 26; Dec. 3,
+10, 17, 1921.
+
+This consists of some extracts from the present volume.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON PRODUCTIONS OF THE SAVOY OPERAS.
+
+      Opera.        Theatre.    Produced.       Withdrawn.    Per.
+
+    Trial by Jury   Royalty   Mar. 25, 1875   Dec. 18, 1875   --
+
+    The Sorcerer    Opera     Nov. 17, 1877   May 22, 1878    175
+                    Comique
+      "             Savoy     Oct. 11, 1884   Mar. 12, 1885   150
+      "               "       Sep. 22, 1898   Dec. 31, 1898   102
+
+    H.M.S.          Opera
+
+    Pinafore        Comique   May 25, 1878    Feb. 20, 1880}
+      "               "       Dec. 16, 1879   Mar. 20, 1880}  700
+      "             Savoy     Nov. 12, 1887   Mar. 10, 1888   120
+      "               "       June 6, 1889    Nov. 25, 1889   174
+      "               "       July 14, 1908   Repertory        61
+                                                Season
+    The Pirates     Opera     Apl. 3, 1880    Apl. 2, 1881    363
+    of Penzance     Comique
+      "             Savoy     Mar. 17, 1888   June 6, 1888     80
+      "               "       June 30, 1900   Nov. 3, 1900    127
+      "               "       Dec. 1, 1909    Repertory        43
+                                                Season
+    Patience        Opera     Apl. 23, 1881   Oct. 8, 1881    170
+                    Comique
+      "             Savoy     Oct. 10, 1881   Nov. 22, 1882   448
+      "               "       Nov. 7, 1900    Apl. 20, 1901   150
+      "               "       Apl. 4, 1907    Repertory        51
+                                                Season
+    Iolanthe        Savoy     Nov. 25, 1882   Jan. 1, 1884    398
+      "               "       Dec. 7, 1901    Mar. 29, 1902   113
+      "               "       June 11, 1907   Repertory        42
+                                                Season
+      "               "       Oct. 19, 1908       "            38
+
+    Princess Ida   Savoy      Jan. 5, 1884    Oct. 9, 1884    246
+
+    The Mikado       "        Mar. 14, 1885   Jan. 19. 1887   672
+      "              "        Jan. 7, 1888    Sept. 29, 1888  116
+      "              "        Nov. 6, 1895    Mar. 4, 1896    127
+      "              "        July 11, 1896   Feb. 17, 1897   226
+      "              "        Apl. 28, 1908   Repertory       142
+                                                Season
+    Ruddigore      Savoy      Jan. 22, 1887   Nov. 5, 1887    288
+
+    The Yeoman
+    of the
+    Guard          Savoy      Oct. 3, 1888    Nov. 30, 1889   423
+      "              "        May 5, 1897     Nov. 20, 1897   186
+      "              "        Dec. 8, 1906    Repertory        90
+                                                Season
+      "              "        Mar. 1, 1909        "            28
+
+    The            Savoy      Dec. 7, 1889    June 20, 1891   554
+    Gondoliers
+      "              "        Mar. 22, 1898   May 21, 1898     62
+      "              "        July 18, 1898   Sep. 17, 1898     63
+      "              "        Jan. 22, 1907   Repertory        76
+                                                Season
+      "              "        Jan. 18, 1909       "            22
+
+
+
+
+    PRINTED AT
+    RIVERSIDE PRINTING WORKS
+    32-36, FLEET LANE,
+    LONDON, E.C.4
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Hyphen removed: "bull[-]dog(s)" (p. 35), "high-water[-]mark" (p. 111),
+"school[-]boy" (p. 63), "yester[-]year" (p. 139).
+
+Hyphen added: "Mount[-]Ararat" (p. 156).
+
+The following words appear both with and without hyphens and have not
+been changed: "light[-]hearted", "Merry[-]man", "Mount-Ararat" /
+"Mountararat", "re[-]appear(s)".
+
+P. 15: "waistcoast" changed to "waistcoat" (my striped waistcoat and
+green apron).
+
+P. 45: "caste" changed to "cast" (When George Grossmith returned to the
+cast).
+
+P. 53: "minature" changed to "miniature" (experiments on a miniature
+stage).
+
+P. 73: "once" changed to "one" (and in one case actually before).
+
+P. 73, 108: "occured" changed to "occurred" (there occurred an incident,
+thought had occurred to me).
+
+P. 82: "Guiseppi" changed to "Guiseppe".
+
+P. 97 "arn't" changed to "aren't" (I'm an ugly blighter, aren't I?).
+
+P. 110: "CHAPTER" removed from title for consistency.
+
+P. 123: "disfigurnig" changed to "disfiguring" (hit the mark without
+disfiguring it).
+
+P. 125: "playright" changed to "playwright" (master mind as a
+playwright).
+
+P. 142: "confesess" changed to "confesses" (She confesses that).
+
+P. 149: "affection" changed to "affectation" (my mediævalism's
+affectation).
+
+P. 151: "Janes" changed to "Jane" (Lady Jane assures him).
+
+P. 170: "hers" changed to "her" (his intentions towards her are
+honourable).
+
+P. 174: "to to" changed to "to" (go to fetch the prisoner).
+
+P. 179: "Plazo-Toro" changed to "Plaza-Toro".
+
+P. 180: "propropriety" changed to "propriety" (political or social
+propriety).
+
+P. 189: "Sullvian" changed to "Sullivan".
+
+P. 190: "Nov. 17, 1877" restored from the context.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Secrets of a Savoyard, by Henry A. Lytton
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRETS OF A SAVOYARD ***
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