IRVING AND TENNYSON.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 223, 13 June 1908, Page 12

IRVING AND TENNYSON.

'! * ; t ASSOCIATION OF TWO GREAT MINDS. | down by .the.10.30 train from Victoria and got to. Freshwater about four •* J ? dock, writes Mr. Bram Stoker, in deseribnig m hts "Reminiscences" the negotiations ° for the production of "Becket." Hallani ' wa's attending a meeting of the County. Conncil, but carno in about Jive. He and I went? carefully over some suggested changes in tho drama, in whose wisdom ho seemal to acquiesce. We arranged provisionally royalties and such matters, as Irving had wished to acquire for a term of years the whole ; rights of the play for both Britain and j America. We were absolutely at one on. all • j points. ! At a little boforo_ sis ho took me to see hin j father, v.'ho was lying on a sofa in his study. . The study was a fine room with big windows. , Tennyson was a little fretful at first, as he was ill with a really bad cold; but ho was very interested in my message, and cheered iUP once. At the beginning I asked if 1 he would allow Irving to alter "Becket," 'so far as cutting it as he thought necessary, j He answered at once: s • ';, IrdD g ma y do whatever ho pleases with g it I ' j "111 that case, Lord Tennyson," said I, "Irving will do the play within a yearl" . He seemed greatly gratified, and for a ions time w6 sat over the suggested i changes, he turning the manuscript over and j making a-running commentary as he went along. He knew well where the cuts were: he knew every word of the play,. and needea ' no reference to the fuller text. When he came to the end of the scene in Northampton Castlo, I piijEi before him In. i vingVs suggestion that he should,, if .ha thought well of it, introduce speech—or I rnthgf amplify the idea' conveyed in .the shout of the kneeling crowd: "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord I" .la I our discussion of (the play on the-night of i the, reading we had all agreed that something, was here wanting—something, which would, from 'a' dramatic point . of view, strengthen Becket's position. If he oould have the heart of the people behind | him.it would, manifestly give him a firmer : foothold ; ill. his struggle frith th 6 King. there was ail, opening for an im- ' passioned voicing of the old cry:"Vox popI uli, vox Dei." When I ventured to suggest this, he said in a doubting way. 1 "But where am Ito get such a speech?" j As we sat we were sheltered by the Downs •from the sea which thunders night aiid day under of the highest cliffs in England. I pointed out towards the Downs and said: | "There it is I In ,the.roar of the seal" The idea wa's. evidently already in. his mind; and when he sent up to Irving a . few days later ' the now material the mighty sound of the surgo'and the blast were in.his words. When Tennyson had run.roughly through tho altered play, he seemed much better and brighter. -He put the play aside and talked of other things. In the course.of conversation ;ho .mentioned the subject of anonymous_ letters from which he'had suffer- i ed.>. He said that one man had been writing such to ; him for forty-two years. He. also spoke of the unscrupulous or careless way in which some writers for the Press had treated him. That even Sir Edwin Arnold had written an interview without his knowledge or consent, and that it was full of lies—Tennyson never hesitated to use tha word when ho felt it—such as: "'Here I parted from General Gordon I* : And that I had 'sent a man on horseback after him.' General Gordon was never in the place I" This subject both in general and special he alluded to also at our last meeting in 1892; it seemed to have taken a hold on his memory. He also said: " Irving paid me a great compliment when he said that I would hkve made a fine actor 1" In the morning, Hallam and I walked in tho gardon before breakfast., Farringford is an old feudal farm, and some of the_ trees • are magnificent—ilex, pine, -cedar, primrose and wild parsley everywhere, and uilder--neath a great cedar a wilderness of trailing ivy. The garden gave me tho idea that'all the wild growth had been protected by a loving hand. ~ After breakfast Hallam and I walked in tho beautifjil wood behind the house, where. • beyond tho hedgerows and the little wood rose tho groat bare rolling Down, at the back of which is a groat sheer cliff five hundred feet high. We sat in the summerhouse whore Tennyson had written nearly all of "Enoch Arden." It had been lined with wood, which Alfred Tennyson himself had carved; but now the bare, bricks were risible in place's. Tho egregious relic : hunters had whittled away piecpmeol : the enrret! -v-"'. They, had also smashed the windows, which Tennyson had tainted; .... dragons; and had carried off the pieces 1 When we returned i was urougnt i: ; i to Tennyson's room. Ho was not feeling well. He sat in a groat chair with the cut nby on one finger between tho pages, as though to mark a place. He had been studying she alterations; and as ho did not look happy, i feared that thoro might be spmcthiivi; »<>t satisfactory with regard to ! some of the cuts. Presently he said to me suddenly: "Who is God, the Virgin?" " Who is what ? " I asked, bewildered as to his moaning; I feared I could not have heard aright. ' " God, the Virgin] _Th.it is what I want to know, too. Here it is I" As he spoke he opened tho play where his finger marked it. Ho, handed it to me, and there to my astonishment I read: _/ " I do commend my soul to God, the Virgin When Irving had been cutting the spreads lie had omitted to draw his pencil through the last two words. Tha tpeech as written ran thus: " I do commend my soul to God, the Virgin St. Denis of Franco, and 0 St. Alphegs of England, . And all tho tutelar)' saints of Canterbury." In doing the scissors-work he had been guidod by the pencil-marks, and 60 had mada the error.