B 8! oi 01 81 3[ 01 51 Edwin Booth BY Laurence HuTTON LIBRARY ^ JNIV TY OF J ^ presented to the LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA • SAN DIEGO by FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY MR. JOHN C. ROSE donor //U ,^^^.^^A'Ji^/..^(^ y^^^-^ . EDWIN BOOTH LAURENCE BUTTON ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 189S Harper's "Black and White" Series. Illustrated, samo, Cloth, 50 cents each. Edwin Booth. By Laurence Hiitton. Phillips Brooks. By Rev. Arthur Brooks, D.D. Thb Unexpected Guests. A Farce. By William Deaii HoweEs. The Decision of the Court. A Comedy. By Brander Mat- thews. George William Curtis. Bv John White Clmdwick. Slavery AND the SlaveTradk IN Africa. By Henry M. Stanley. The Rivals. By Francois Coppee. The Japanese Bride. By Naomi Tamura. Whittier: Notes of his Life AND OF HIS Friendships. By Annie Fields. Giles Corey, Yeoman. By Mary E. Wilkius. Coffee and Repartee. By John Kcndrick Bangs. James Russell Lowell. An Address. By George William Curtis. Seen from the Saddle. By Isa Carrington Cabell. A Family Canoe Trip. By Florence Watters Snedeker. A Little Swiss Sojourn. By William Dean Howells. A Letter of Introduction. A I'arce. By William Dean Howells. In the Vestibule Limited, By Brander Matthews. The Albany Depot. A Farce. By William Dean Howells. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. For sale by all booksellers, or -will be sent by the publishers, ■tiostage prepaid, on receipt of price. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers. All rii;hts reservt ILLUSTRATIONS EDWIN BOOTH. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEX IX 1890 Frontispiece MR. BOOTH'S MOTHER Facing page 10 EDWIN BOOTH. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN ST. LOUIS IN 1856. ... " 18 MR. AND MRS. BOOTH AND DAUGHTER . . " 28 ON THE YACHT " ONEIDA " " 36 MR. BOOTH IN HIS ROOM AT " THE PL.iYERS" " 4i MR. BARRETT'S LIBRARY AT COHASSET . " 54 EDWIN BOOTH Wm ^^M.^ YOUNG man, the only son of ^^//'^'XM ^^^ mother and she a widow, ^^'^ sat alone with his dead one ^/ awful night a good many years ago, w^hen there entered the room a dear friend of them both. The new- comer, placing his warm hand upon the cold hands of her who was gone, laid his wet cheek against the wetter cheek of him who was left, and said simply, "My poor boy, my poor boy!" There were volumes of sym- pathy and affection in the words and in the action, and even a little comfort. They both knew that it was merely the natural, unaf- fected expression of a very warm feeling of pity for the mourner, and of genuine, almost filial, love for her whom they thus mourned together. The man of tender heart and more than kindl}^ nature was Edwin Booth ; "the poor boy " is the man who pens these lines. The friendship between them, of many years' standing, cemented if possible more strongly by what is here for the first time narrated, was never broken until Mr. Booth himself laid down the burden of his life, and went — by no means unprepared — to solve the great problem of the future ; car- rying with him, perhaps, a direct message to the mother from the son. Oidy those who have known Edwin Booth in trouble and in sorrow have known Edwin Booth at all ; and even his few intimate friends, and the members of his own im- mediate family, have not known of half the good he has done. He never made any pub- lic expression of his personal feeling. He gave lavishly with both hands, concealing from the left hand the gifts of the right ; and, if possible, keeping even the right hand itself ignorant of its own well-doing. I have known him to pay all the funeral expenses, and to attend the funeral, of a woman he had never seen, simply because her daugh- ter was a member of his company, and witli- out means or a friend. I have seen him re- ceive in his own home, and on a footing of perfect social equality, the black servant who had called to pay her respects to him, and deny himself, during her visit, to men and women of the highest social distinction, who were permitted only to leave their cards at his door. I have discovered accidentally, and from outside sources, of his unbounded generosity to superannuated actors, who had no claim upon him whatever, except that they were old and poor. I have heard him say that a certain worn-out comedian had a fixed income for life, and that a certain bro- ken-down tragedian's mortgage had been paid, without the expression of the slightest hint that he himself had taken up the mort- gage or had bought the annuity. I have seen him blush like a girl at the receipt of a letter of thanks, and run away like a cow- ard from the gratitude of those he had helped. A storj'- Avhicli Lawrence Barrett used to tell upon himself may not be out of place here, as illustrating what I have tried to say. The wreck of a brilliant actor came to Mr. Barrett once at the stage entrance of a West- ern theatre and asked for the loan of half a dollar. His miserable condition was entirely his own fault. He had lost his self-respect, if he had ever possessed any, and he was utterly ruined by liquor and by the results of a bad life. Mr. Barrett, who had by hard work, by untiring industr}'-, by close study, and by uniform good conduct raised himself from nothing, had but little patience with those who had fallen from high estates down to nothing because of their lack of the qual- ities which he himself possessed, and he re- fused the beggar money to buy the drink he craved. ' ' If Mr. Barrett could not and would not help him to a pittance, would Mr. Bar- rett cash the check in his ragged pocket, received that day, and useless to him where he was not known ?" The check was pro- duced, and bore the signature of Edwin Booth. "And so," said Mr. Barrett one evening in Mr. Booth's presence, and to Mr. Booth's great distress, " to the wretched creature to whom I had refused fifty cents Edwin had given fifty dollars!" It must not be inferred from this incident that Mr. Barrett was not himself a man of sincere soul and of large bounty. Few members of an ever-generous profession have been more ready and more willing to help those who could not help themselves. The long association existing between the two men was as intimate in a personal as it was in a business way. A few years Mr. Booth's junior upon the stage of the world, Mr. Bar- rett w^as his excellent support at the very outset of Mr. Booth's career as a star per- former, and for many seasons, and in many parts of the countr}'-, have they played to- gether, under all conditions, and in every variety of tragedy and comedy, going home together many hundreds of nights to a sim- ple supper of bread and milk in some pro- vincial hotel, or to an equally frugal repast of tea and toast in the grill-room of The Players, in New York. Mr. Barrett's affec- tionate care of his companion was touching and unceasing, not only during their pro- fessional engagements, but during the bright holiday seasons spent in Mr. Barrett's sum- mer house at Cohasset, on the Massachusetts coast, where they talked together for long hours of old times, and laid the plans for a long future together, upon the stage and off. Their reminiscences then related, grave and gay, could they have been preserved by the fortunate listeners, would have made a book of theatrical history and anecdote unrivalled in the whole literature of the drama. Mr. Barrett's death, for which Mr. Booth was en- tirely unprepared, was a terrible shock to the survivor, and a blow from which he never fully recovered. The gentle spirit of "The Man of Airlie" seemed to haunt, in the most pleasant way, his old apartments, adjoining those of Mr. Booth, at The Play- ers ; and more than once, after Mr. Barrett had passed away, when some heavy truck ill the street below had jarred the building, and caused the strings of the automatic harp upon his closed door "to play sweet music," Mr. Bootli has turned his sad face towards it, and has said, witli a half smile, "There comes poor Lawrence now!" Mr. Booth's great gift of a Club to tlie members of his profession, and to those who are in S3^mpathy with it, was the last crown- ing act of his life, and The Players, as was his own wish, is his most enduring monu- ment. He had long cherished the plan of founding a home for the more deserving of his fellow-workers, and the idea culminated, after much discussion, on the deck of the steam-yacht Oneida, sailing along the coast of Maine, in the summer of 1887, when The Players was conceived. The history of the association is part of the history of the great city in whicli it stands, and part of the his- tory of the drama in America, and therefore it need not be repeated here. Mr. Booth presented the building and its contents, in- cluding his own rich dramatic library and Lis own collection of rare dramatic portraits, to its members on the niglit of December 31, 1888, and thereafter it was his only home. He showed the greatest interest in ever}-- thing concerning it. When he was in town he never missed a business meeting of its governing body, of which he was president. He scanned carefully the list of candidates for membership, giving his vote always for the younger men upon the stage, who he felt would be a help to the organization, and gainers themselves by its quiet, healthful in- fluence ; and to the last The Players and their welfare were ever uppermost in his mind. It is not often that a man is wise enough and thoughtful enough to enjoy the results of his own beneficence. This was Mr. Booth's happy and well -merited lot. Upon Founder's Night, the anniversary of the club's inauguration, the foremost men in every walk of life gathered within its walls to do him honor. He was loved and re- spected by every man whose name w^as upon its rolls. "When he entered a room with a pleasant word of greeting to each person present, there was a universal stir and mur- mur of response. Many of the members rose unostentatiously, and remained stand- ing until he w^as seated, and even the few — very few — of the younger men who habitu- ally wore their hats in the building, instinc- tively uncovered at his approach. The pass- ing of the " loving-cup" — once the property of the elder Booth — upon Founder's Night, and on other rare and festive occasions, was a revival, or survival, of an old custom, beautiful in its observance, and very dear to Mr. Booth's own heart. After wetting his lips with its contents, he gave it with a bow to his nearest neighbor, and as it passed from hand to hand, each man in his turn rose in his place, no matter where he was or what his present occupation, and stand- ing, he bowed and drank to "The Founder." Alas ! and alas ! we can only drink to his memory now. Concerning Edwin Booth in his domestic relations — as sou, as husband, as brother, as 10 father — this is not the time nor the jDlace to speak. His sorrowing daughter, with whom all the world grieves to-da}^, knows well how tender and how perfect was his love for her, for her mother, and for her children. His devotion to the memory of his father he has himself put on record in enduring form, and his filial affection for the mother whom he buried only a few years ago was as sacred and intense as such affection can ever be. He was not a perfect man. He was only human, and very human at that. But he was a credit to humanity, an honor to his country, and the foremost figure in the whole history of the American stage. Edwin Booth was born on the 13th of Xo- vember, 1833, upon his father's farm, in Har- ford County, Maryland, a quiet, picturesque old place, full of mellow sunshine, but shut out from the world by miles of unbroken and primeval w^oodland. He was called Ed- win Thomas Booth, after two of his father's most intimate associates, Edwin Forrest and Thomas Flynn. MK. BOOTH'S MOTHER. (From an old painting.) ]\[rs. Asia Bootli Clarke, who has carried the life of her brother dowu to the date of his second visit to England, in 1880, tells us how on the night of that 18th of November the negroes of the neighborhood were so impressed by the brilliancy of a meteoric shower that they fell to making prophecies concerning the brilliant future of the new- comer, who was to be a see-er of ghosts all his days, and to be guided by a lucky star. One recalls this scene with curious interest — the dense woods, the ohl whitewashed cabin, still and spectral in the darkness, and those groups of awe-struck negroes, busy with por- tents for the new-born child's after-life. To the elder Booth, as his daughter has shown us, this old farm, buried as it was in the heart of the Maryhmd forest, had been, since its purchase in 1823, both a refuge and a pleasure. Though lying but twenty- five miles from Baltimore, it was almost in- accessible. The mounted post-boy passed by but once a week, tossing the mail-bags over the fence. Few travellers went that way. 12 From the gate that opened on the rough and stony higliroad a crooked horse -path led through a quarter of a mile of woodland to the primitive cottage, which once, to the great wonder of his neighbors, Mr. Booth had moved from a distant site to where, under massive trees, a spring of cool water bubbled all day. About this spring he had built granite ledges and steps, and, to the de- light of his children, a great green bull-frog w^as encouraged to dwell in peace and com- fort within its depths. oSTear the door of the cabin j\[r. Booth had planted a cheny-tree, which, as it grew and blossomed, lending its branches to the children in their romps, became, as years went by, more and more closely identified wuth their family traditions. Within-doors all was quaint, sweet, and primitive. There the hum of the spinning- wheel was a constant sound, it being "the farmer's pride that all his blankets and wool- len goods came from the backs of his own sheep, and were spun at home." Brass fen- ders, old-fashioned mirrors, and polished 13 pewter plates made up the details of its sim- ple furnishings, and Shelley, Coleridge, Tas- so, Racine, and Alighieri looked out from among the few books of the well-chosen li- brary. The earliest of Edwin Booth's recollec- tions, however, w^ere not of the cheer and charm of this quiet sunny life, but of his be- ing lifted late at night over a crooked snake- fence, Junius Brutus Booth, as he placed him upon the otlier side of it, exclaiming, "Your foot is on your native heath!" As the boy stood there in the dense darkness of over- hanging trees he could hear the dull sound made by the hoofs of the horses as they gal- loped away into the night, and the impres- sion made upon him he never afterwards forgot. Edwin and his father had travelled all day, reaching home at a late hour, for even at this early age, the mother's health being delicate, It was to this tender and dutiful child, grave beyond his years, that the guardian- ship of his father had been given. And so 14 was inaugurated for Edwin Booth those long ■wanderings by night and day, and that close and intimate companionship with that strange wild genius, which were to lend at once the gloom and radiance to his life. Edwin Booth's education began under a Miss Susan Hyde, who kept a school for boys and girls m the neighborhood of "Old Town." By her he was thoroughly ground- ed in all those rudiments which go to form the basis of a sound mental training. ]\Iiss Hyde, who afterwards became the secretary of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, never ceased to follow with affectionate interest the career of lier brilliant pupil, and between the two the old friendship was never broken. He was next placed by his father under the care of an old West-Indian officer, a French- man. Louis Dugas, who had about him a few young persons in their teens. He went also at one time to some university, the name of which Mrs. Clarke does not mention. He studied at intervals afterwards with a ]Mr. Kearney, a pedagogue, who wrote his own 15 school-books, and encouraged dramatic per- formances among liis pupils. It was in Mr. Kearney's crowded establishment that the elder Booth, entering once unobserved, saw Edwin on a platform, in black jacket and white trousers, playing with J. S. Clarke, who w\as similarly attired, the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius. These sudden and quiet appearances of his father were by no means infrequent in Edwin Booth's life, and the boy was able to recall many of them, although in all instances it was one of the father's peculiarities to ignore them and to have them ignored. A clever self-taught negro taught Edwin the banjo, and under Signor Picioli he be- came a proficient on the violin. But of other instruction he knew none, except the world as it schooled him, experience as it taught him, or as the brilliancy and charm of his father's daily conversation helped tfe guide and form his tastes. As to his personal appearance in those days, we have only this testimony from Mr. 16 John H. Jewett: "He was a comely lad, as I remember liim, dressed in a Spanish cloak (among the first to display that style), giving promise of the man he has turned out to be." Mr. Edwin Booth, according to Mrs. Clarke, made his first appearance on any stage on the night of September 10, 1849, and at the Bos- ton jNIuseum. He played on that occasion Tressel. The story of his undertaking it is an old one, but one that is much too charac- teristic of both father and son to be omitted here. Mr. Tlioman, prompter and actor, an- noyed at some detail, shouted to Edwin, standing near him, " This is too much work for one man ; you ought to play Tressel," which, after a little hesitation, the lad was persuaded to do. "On this eventful night the elder Booth, dressed for Richard III., was seated with his feet upon the table in bis dressing-room. Calling his son before him, like a severe pedagogue or inquisitor, he interrogated him in that hard laconic style he could at limes assume. " ' Who was Tressel?' IT " 'A messenger from the field of Tewkes- bury.' " ' "What was his mission?' " 'To bear the news of the defeat of the King's party?' " ' How did he make his journey?' " ' On horseback.' " 'Where are your spurs?' "Edwin glanced quickly down, and said he had not thought of them, " 'Here, take mine.' "Edwin unbuckled his father's spurs, and fastened them on his own boots. His part being ended on the stage, he found his father still sitting in the dressing-room, apparently engrossed in thought. " 'Have you done well?" he asked. " 'I think so,' replied Edwin. " ' Give me my spurs,' rejoined his father, and obediently young Tressel replaced the spurs upon Gloucester's feet." The very rare bill of this performance, perhaps the only copy in existence, for no one but the debutant would be likely to 18 preserve it, was given, among so many other treasures, by Mr. Booth to The Players, and it hangs in the dining-room there, one of the most cherished possessions of its mem- bers. In his beautiful and affectionate tribute to his father, published in the third volume of Actors and Actresses, Edwin wrote in 1885: "After my debut in the very small part of Tressel, he ' coddled ' me, gave me gruel (his usual meal at night when acting), and made me don his worsted nightcap, which, when his work was ended, he always wore as a pro- tection for his heated head, to prevent me from taking cold after my labors, which were doubtless very exhausting on that occasion, being confined to one brief scene at the begin- ning of the play! At that time there seemed to be a touch of irony in this over-care of me; but now, recalling the many acts of his large sympathy, it appears in its true charac- ter of genuine solicitude for the heedless boy who had drifted into that troublous sea, where, without talent, he would either sink, '^^^^l,. EDWIN BOOTH. (From a photograph taken m St. Louis iu 1856.) 19 or, buoyed perhaps by vanity alone, merely flounder in its uncertain waves. "To comprehend the peculiar tempera- ment with which my father charmed, roused, and subdued the keenest and tlie coarsest in- tellects of his generation, one should be able to understand that great enigma to the wisest —'Hamlet.' "To my dull thinking, Hamlet typifies uneven or unbalanced genius. But who can tell us what genius of any sort whatever means? The possessor, or rather the pos- sessed, if he is, as in Hamlet's case, more fre- quently its slave than its master, being irre- sistibly and often unconsciously swayed by its capriciousness. Great minds to madness closely are allied, Hamlet's mind, at the very edge of frenzy, seeks its relief in ribaldry. For a like reason w^ould my father open, so to speak, the safety-valve of levity in some of his most impassioned moments. At the instant of intense emotion, when the specta- tors were enthralled by his magnetic influ- ence, the tragedian's overwrought brain 20 ■would take refuge from its own threatening storm beneath the jester's hood, and, while turned from the audience, he would whisper some silliness, or 'make a face.' When he left the stage, however, no allusion to such seeming frivolity was permitted. His fellow- actors who perceived these trivialities igno- rantly attributed his conduct at such times to lack of feeling ; whereas it was extreme ex- cess of feeling which thus forced his brain back from the very verge of madness. Only those who have known the torture of severe mental tension can appreciate the value of that one little step from the sublime to the ridiculous. My close acquaintance with so fantastic a temperament as was my father's so accustomed me to that in him that much of Hamlet's 'mystery' seems to me no more than idiosyncrasy. " While not his favorite, my presence seemed necessary to him when at work, al- though at other times he almost ignored me, perhaps because his other children were more vivacious and amused him more. 21 " Reserved and diffident, almost bashful, when away from home, my father behind his locked doors and bolted shutters was as glee- ful as a child. Soon after sunrise he would dig in his garden, whistling as he worked. Contented within his family circle, he could not appreciate the necessity for any extraneous element there; hence his wife and children became isolated, and were ill at ease m the p>resence of other than their own im- mediate relatives." The young actor had made so successful a hit as Tressel that various managers tried to induce the elder Booth to allow his son's name to appear on programmes with his own. To every offer of this character Junius Booth held out a stubborn resistance. Law- rence Barrett has told this story of that time: " On one occasion an old friend, then manag- ing a Western theatre, asked Mr. Booth to allow him to bill Edwin with his father. He was met by the usual curt refusal, but, after a moment's pause, and without any sense of the humor of the suggestion, Booth said that 22 Edwin was a good ban jo-plaj'er, and he could be announced for a solo between the acts." With no greater encouragement from his father, and being, as lie was, still so much absorbed in unremitting care of him, it is hardly to be wondered that Edwin made so few of those early bows before the curtain of which the history of theatrical families is so fuU. His next public appearance, in fact, was not until Saturday, August 2, 1850, when he and J. S. Clarke gave by invitation a dra- matic reading in the court-house at Belair. The story of it is an old one, but well worth repeating. Mrs. Clarke shows us the ride of these two enthusiastic young fellows the day before over twenty-five miles of rough coun- try road and under a hot midsummer sun to order in Baltimore printed programmes for the 'performance; the eagerness of the rus- tics, who expected nothing less than a cir- cus; the pasting by an old negro, to whom the task had been intrusted, of all their bills upside down ; then the decorum of the au- dience, the men and women separating at 23 the door of the building ; and, finally, the unbroken calm and silence during their se- lections from Macbeth, RicMrcl III., the Mer- clinnt of Venice, during the quarrel scene from Julius Cmar, which had made the fame of the young striplings in their school- daj's, and even during the singing, with blackened faces, of negro melodies (not down on the programme) to the music of banjo and bones. A grim experience, sure- ly, but one, happily, in which the humor of the situation was all that was afterwards re- membered. Those printed programmes lay among their possessions for years. Probably nowhere on any stage was ever a more curious entrance seen than that made by Edwin Booth in Richard III. It was at the National Theatre in Chatham Street, New York, in February, 1851. The elder and the younger Booths were at that time housed in some dingy, inconvenient quarter of the town, the father having always a fondness for the old places he had known in his youth, those that had, through cir- 24 cumstance of poverty perhaps, slinmk from joining in the march of new improvements. Here on one occasion, when the stage trunli with its properties for Bichard III. had al- ready been strapped to the waiting carriage before the door, and w^hile the theatre, some distance awa}^ had been for some time astir, Junius Booth sudden!}^ announced that notli- ing w^ould induce him to phiy that night. All the entreaties, the arguments, the des- pair, of his son failed to move the obdurate father, "Go play it 3'ourself," w\as all he answered, in that quick curt way of his tliat was one of his strongest characteristics. Seeing the liopelessness of further effort, the boy drove to the theatre. " No matter," said John R Scott, the leading support, whom he met; "you act it," making the very sug- gestion which the elder Booth had made. While the audience that filled the house waited before the curtain, the company be- hind it, in the wildest excitement, hurried Edwin into his father's costume, one mem- ber listening during the process to his reci- talion of the soliloquy. These clothes hung like bags about Edwin, and the applause ■which greeted his appearance entirely died away when the audience, who had been in- formed of no change, suddenly found itself confronted with a stranger. Yet, in spite of the almost overwhelming difficulties, the young actor won from them all repeated ap- plause, and at the close of the performance a prolonged call. Mr, Scott then first made his explanation, introducing Edwin Booth as "the worthy scion of a noble stock," add- ing, under his breath, " I'll wager they don't know what that means." At the hotel, on his return, Edwin discovered his father in apparently the same position and mood as when he had left him, vouchsafing no re- mark, except a cold question in regard to how he had succeeded. Yet he always be- lieved that as his father had once before seen his performance of Trcssel, so now he had witnessed the entire tragedy of Pdcliard III., having been really yqvj much pleased with his success on both occasions. Edwin was at that time barclj' seventeen years of age. In his later life, in referring to those early days, he wrote: "Theuceforih he [the elder Booth] made no great objection to my acting occasionally with him, although he never gave me iu- struction, professional advice, or encourage- ment in any form. He had doubtless re- solved to make me work my way unaided; and though his seeming indiiference Avas painful then, it compelled me to exercise my callow wits; it made me think T' Under Theodore Barton, of Baltimore, at a salary of six dollars a week, Edwin played, shortly after, an unimportant engagement in still more unimportant roles. And it is a curious fact that this young actor, who was able to satisfy in Richard III. an audience awaiting his father, should have utterly failed in minor parts, Madame Ciocca, with whom he essayed pantomime, openly abus- ing him for his gaudier ie. It was about this time — he was uncertain of the date — that Edwin, as he was in after- 27 years very foud of telling, played Titus to his father's Brutus one night iti Washing- ton, and in the presence of the author, John Howard Payne. During the same engage- ment, in the same city, he remembered play- ing Young Norval — the Old Norval of his father — in a gown borrowed from the lead- ing lady's costume of Helen Macgregor, using the skirts as a kilt, and wearing tho bodice, as he expressed it, "hind side be- fore." These are but poor examples of the curious and interesting experience of his early life which his friends have so often heard him relate. In 1852 the father and son undertook that memorable journey to California which brought so many changes into their lives. They crossed the Isthmus on mules. Each man as he slept held a pistol in his hand. To. the one lady of the party a hammock was given. The men lay on wine casks and barrels, over which blankets had been thrown. Edwin kept silent watch through the long hours, hearing but not understand- ing the low whispers of the natives, who sat sharpening great knives near by, while rats, undisturbed by the intruders, ran about the hut. After two weeks in San Francisco the Booths went to Sacramento, but affairs in California were at that time in so deplorable a condition that the elder Booth insisted on returning East, and on leaving Edwin be- hind him to gain an experience which the father felt would be of inestimable value to him. It had been at the solicitation of Jun- ius Brutus Booth, Juu., that the journey was originally planned. Brilliant results had been hoped for, but a period of great de- pression had begun in California for those early settlers, who, a few months before, had been elated beyond measure by belief in the prospects of enormous wealth. The promised theatre in San Francisco had not even been started, and men were too fright- ened or too poor to make serious financial ventures of any kind. There certainly could hardl}' have been a J 29 less propitious time for a young and inex- perienced actor to face the world alone. And there now began for Edwin Booth a long and strange series of vicissitudes, such as would have tried the nerve of manj'- a veteran, and which can hardly be repeated in the life of the newer generation of to-day. It was not alone that he was absolutely pen- niless, but that, being penniless, he had to carve his way to success through almost in- surmountable difficulties, in mining camps, in half-settled and wholly new communities, and this in the cold of winter nights, and after having been snow-bound upon the mountain roads sometimes for days to- gether. It was in one of the dreariest of all these places, as Mrs. Clarke tells us, that the news of his father's death reached him. " There is a mail, and a letter ioryou," said some one wiio recognized him by the light of a lan- tern, as he walked in the slush and mud of a miserable little town, where gold diggers had undermined the houses, and left deep and yawning courier, long dela3'ed by the snows, had at last broken through the great banks and brought the mail. "What news is there?" Edwin had asked, but knew in a moment what his old friend Spear was afraid to tell him. The blow was crushing ; and this loyal, hypersensitive son found it difficult to forgive himself for what lie imagined to be the desertion of his father. Financial straits of greater severitj' settled down upon this sorrowing youth and his friends. They walked for fifty miles through snow-drifts for engagements, oul}^ to dis- band at their destination — Marysville. With a borrowed ten dollars in his pocket, Edwin started for Sacramento, to find when he reached there that fire and flood had nearly destro3'ed the town. From Sacramento he went at once to San Francisco, with no pros- pects and in utter despair. There some friend returned him twenty dollars, lent and forgotten long before, and for the first, last, and only time in his life he "svalked into one of the gambling saloons, too common in those daj^s, and lost it, all! It may be lilting in this connection to say a word here concerning a very serious charge, the public discussion of which caused the subject of it much unhappiness. Edwin Booth was not a drinking man. During a long and intimate friendship witli liim of nearly twenty years' standing, in all kinds of society and under all circumstances, some of them the most trying that man can en- dure, I have never seen him touch brandy, whiskey, or spirits of any kind, and I do not remember his drinking even the lightest of table wines half a dozen times during all that period. And in this I will be heartily supported b}' the testimony of those who have been associated with him in any way. He was subject to attacks of vertigo long before his first slight stroke of paralysis upon the stage at Rochester in 1889, and his occasional feebleness and unsteadiness of speech and of movement were entirely at- tributable to that cause. It is safe to assert 32 that any temperate man willi an ordinarily strong head for such things could drink at a single sitting, and without showing or feel- ing its effects, all the wine and liquor put to- gether which Mr. Booth consumed during the last five years of his life. But to return to those early days in Cali- fornia. About this time, Fairchild, a scene- painter in San Francisco, induced Booth to play Richard III. at his (Fairchild's) benefit, which he did with such success that the managers, departing from their original in- tention — that of devoting their theatre to comedy— proposed to Booth the production of certain tragedies. He then plaj^ed Sir Ed- ward Mortimer, Shylock, Richard III., and Othello. At his own benefit, which followed, he assumed the part of Hamlet for the first time. According to Mrs. Clarke, Booth's choice of Hamlet on this occasion was made for reasons he held sacred. Long before, dur- ing that unproductive stay at Sacramento, Edwin, playing Jaffler to his father's Pierre, bad, while in the black dress of that charac- 33 ter, come suddenly upon his father on the steps of his dressing-room, to be greeted by him in his characteristic way: "You look like Hamlet. Why did you not do it for your benefit?" and Edwin had answered, "If I ever have another benefit, I will." After his father's death these words, though carelessly spoken, had assumed for him the solemnity of a promise. And his promise he always kept. He did not remem- ber in after-years the date of this memorable first performance of Hamlet, and the bill of that night was lost, unfortunately, with his other treasured Penates, at the time of the destruction of the Winter Garden Theatre in New York. This benefit was followed by precarious days. Booth found himself gradually forced into the position of a stock star on a miser- able salary. His name was used to draw when the names of others failed. He played secondary parts to Mrs. Catherine Sinclair, who had come to open the new theatre. James Murdock followed, and then came 5 34 Laura Keene, who ascribed her failure to "Edwin Booth's bad acting"! Mr. D. C. Anderson and Booth at that time were liv- ing in a little hut on the outskirts of San Francisco, cooking their own meals, and washing and mending their own clothes. Booth was persuaded by Mr. Anderson to go with him to Australia, actors returning from that countryhaving given glowing ac- counts of the prospects and possibilities there. He played, when at Sydney, Shylock to Miss Keene's Portia. His Richard III. was received with great applause. But the un- favorable conditions existing at Melbourne induced this wandering band of players to return home. On their way to California their vessel stopped at Honolulu, where Booth put all his money, fifty dollars, into the rent for one month of the Royal Hawai- ian Theatre, and where Mr. Roe, a short, thick-set German, doubling his parts, played both the Duke and the Duchess of York. The Hawaiian court was at that time in mourning. The King of the Sandwich Isl- 35 ands as a child had seen the elder Booth as Richard III. in New York, and not "wish- ing to miss the performance of the son in this same role, he went to the theatre, at- tended by two escorts, and sat on an arm- chair in the wings. When in the coronation scene this chair was needed as a throne, the King, with perfect amiability, yielded it to the uncrowned monarch of the stage. Another benefit was given him before sailing, when he played King Lear for the first time. On his return to San Francisco, Booth played, at the Metropolitan Theatre, Bene- dick to Mrs. Sinclair's Beatrice. A short and successful engagement followed at the American Theatre, and then once more Booth went to Sacramento, where the man- ager, for economical reasons, dismissed him. With Mr. Sedley, Mrs. Sinclair, and a Mr. Venua, he then leased a shabby theatre, and for the first time in America The Ilarhle Heart was produced, Booth creating the part of Raphael. The success of this play was enormous there, but on the road it proved so great a failure that the company disbanded ; and Booth was again obliged to make new overtures. He -went next to San Francisco, and from there, with eight or ten persons, he started on a tour through the mining towns— Booth on horseback ; the manager, his wife, and the stage properties in a large covered wagon. Stops were made at settle- ments of only a few huts, and The Iron Chest and Eathcrine and Petruchio were on the standard bill. The profits from this journey were not great ; and Booth, having left his horse in payment for a debt, arrived in a penniless condition in Sacramento. Here meeting Mr. Butler, an architect, he was made by that gentleman to see the importance of his re- turn to the East, where other men were trying to fill the place left vacant by his fa- ther. Two benefits having been arranged by Mr. Butler, Booth left Sacramento free from debt, and carrying with him various testimonials from the public. '^^""^f^ 3T Those who welcomed his return to his old home in Maryland found few changes in his appearance. "He had comeback older in experience only," says Mrs. Clarke, "for he looked like a boy still, and very fragile; his wild black eyes and long locks gave him an air of melancholy. He had the gentle dig- nity and inherent grace that one attributes to a young prince, yet he was merry, cheer- ful, and boyish in disposition, as one can imagine Hamlet to have been in the days before the tragedy was enacted in the or- chard." Booth opened at the Front Street Theatre Baltimore, in the ^character of Richard IH. Under J. T, Ford he played a short engage- ment in Washington, and at Richmond, Vir- ginia, where Joseph Jefferson was at that time stage - manager. It was here that he met Miss Mary Devlin, who afterwards be- came his wife, and who was then a member of Mr. Jefferson's personal and dramatic family. In the spring of 1857, Booth, having ac- cepted an offer from Thomas Barry, played Sir Giles Overreach at the Boston Theatre. His success was instantaneous. He followed this character with a round of others, and on May 4th he made his bow before a New York audience as Richard III., at the Me- tropolitan Theatre, afterwards the Winter Garden, and then managed by William E. Burton. It had been entirely in opposition to the expressed wishes of the star that an- nouncements of his appearance as Eichard III. had been made. A character so closely identified with the great successes of his father was hardly the one in which this son cared to present himself. Everything in his sensitive nature was offended at the whole proceeding. It was with a feeling of out- raged mortification and indignation that on his arrival in New York he read the flaming posters announcing him as "The Hope of the Living Drama!" " Son of the Great Tra- gedian!" and adding, "Richard's himself again!" The actors who played with him, to whom 39 rumors of his fame had come, were not alto- gether prepared for the manner of man he was. Lawrence Barrett, who was Tressel on that opeuhig night, thus describes his first appearance at rehearsal: "A slight pale youth, with black flowing hair, soft brown eyes full of tenderness and gentle timidity, a manner mixed with shyness and quiet re- pose. He took his place with no air of con- quest or self-assertion, and gave his direc- tions with a grace and courtesy which have never left him." In the company on this occasion were many famous players — John Gilbert, Daniel Setchell, Mark Smith, Charles Fisher, and Lawrence Barrett. During the next few years Booth played in Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, Savan- nah, Memphis, Mobile, Montgomery, St. Louis, and Louisville. In the winter of 1857 he was at the Howard Athenaeum, in Boston, under the management of E. L. Davenport, with Lawrence Barrett and John McCul- lough in the company. While in Boston he began that careful revision of his plays 40 which finally resulted in the Echcin Bootli's Prompt-Books, edited by William Winter in 1878. In 1860 Booth married Miss Devlin, who had retired from the stage the year before. During this year (1860) he played at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, under the management of Whealley and Clarke, giving for the first time his new interpre- tation of Bertuccio, in Tom Taylor's FooVs Revenge. On December 10, 1860, Booth and Miss Charlotte Cushman began ten performances at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, playing Wolsey and Queen Katharine in Henry VIII., Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Shylock and Portia, Katherine and Petru- chio. Booth's Macbeth, full as it was of fine intellectual quality, failed to please Miss Cushman, who begged him to remember that " Macbeth was not the father of all the Bow- ery villains !" In September, 1861, Mr. and Mrs. Booth sailed for England. A series of accidents and misunderstandings made their visit al- most a failure. In London he was met with what bordered closely upon open hostility. He opened at the Haymarket Theatre as Shylock, and played during this engagement Sir Giles Overreach. BicJiard III. was pro- duced at the request of E. H. Sothern, but the support was so bad that the perform- ance became almost a farce. After much hesitation, Mr. Buckstone, Booth's manager, consented to his appearance as Richelieu. Groups of men had gathered before and be- hind the curtain to hiss the performance, but the spell of Booth's magnetic acting roused the house to the wildest pitch of ex- citement, and adverse demonstration was impossible. Unfortunately, just at this mo- ment, when his triumph was complete. Booth was obliged to leave Loudon. He played for three weeks at Manchester, Henry Irving being a member of the stock company. He afterwards went to Paris, where the sword worn by Frederic Lemaitre in Buy Bias, now the property of The Players, was pre- 42 sented to him. On his return to England, finding that Fechter was monopolizing the Shakespearian drama, Booth sailed for America. During the early part of his visit to England his only daughter was horn, at Fulham, in the month of December, 1861. On September 2. 1863, he began a success- ful engagement at the Winter Garden The- atre, Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Conway supporting him. In Philadelphia he played Macbeth to Miss Cushman's Lady Macbeth, for the benefit of the Woman's Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission. On February 9, 1863, his wife, Mary Devlin Booth, died at Dorchester, Massachusetts, where she had gone in failing health. Booth did not appear before the public again for some months after the death of his wife, that loyal friend Lawrence Barrett playing for him Richard III. and Buy Bias. With Mr. J. S. Clarke, the friend of his school