Life and Letters of Robert Browning [47]
stated already by more than one qualified person,
and if I have been willing to let the poor matter drop,
surely there is no need that it should be gone into now
when Macready and his Athenaeum upholder are no longer able
to speak for themselves: this is just a word to you, dear Mr. Hill,
and may be brought under the notice of your critic if you think proper --
but only for the facts -- not as a communication for the public.
Yes, thank you, I am in full health, as you wish -- and I wish you
and Mrs. Hill, I assure you, all the good appropriate to the season.
My sister has completely recovered from her illness, and is grateful
for your enquiries.
With best regards to Mrs. Hill, and an apology for this long letter,
which however, -- when once induced to write it, -- I could not well shorten,
-- believe me,
Yours truly ever
Robert Browning.
==
I well remember Mr. Browning's telling me how, when he returned
to the green-room, on that critical day, he drove his hat
more firmly on to his head, and said to Macready, `I beg pardon, sir,
but you have given the part to Mr. Phelps, and I am satisfied
that he should act it;' and how Macready, on hearing this,
crushed up the MS., and flung it on to the ground. He also admitted
that his own manner had been provocative; but he was indignant
at what he deemed the unjust treatment which Mr. Phelps had received.
The occasion of the next letter speaks for itself.
==
December 21, 1884.
My dear Mr. Hill, -- Your goodness must extend to letting me have
the last word -- one of sincere thanks. You cannot suppose
I doubted for a moment of a good-will which I have had abundant proof of.
I only took the occasion your considerate letter gave me,
to tell the simple truth which my forty years' silence is a sign
I would only tell on compulsion. I never thought your critic
had any less generous motive for alluding to the performance as he did
than that which he professes: he doubtless heard the account of the matter
which Macready and his intimates gave currency to at the time; and which,
being confined for a while to their limited number, I never chose to notice.
But of late years I have got to READ, -- not merely HEAR, --
of the play's failure `which all the efforts of my friend the great actor
could not avert;' and the nonsense of this untruth gets hard to bear.
I told you the principal facts in the letter I very hastily wrote:
I could, had it been worth while, corroborate them by others in plenty,
and refer to the living witnesses -- Lady Martin, Mrs. Stirling,
and (I believe) Mr. Anderson: it was solely through the admirable loyalty
of the two former that . . . a play . . . deprived of every advantage,
in the way of scenery, dresses, and rehearsing -- proved --
what Macready himself declared it to be -- `a complete success'.
SO he sent a servant to tell me, `in case there was a call for the author
at the end of the act' -- to which I replied that the author
had been too sick and sorry at the whole treatment of his play
to do any such thing. Such a call there truly WAS,
and Mr. Anderson had to come forward and `beg the author to come forward
if he were in the house -- a circumstance of which he was not aware:'
whereat the author laughed at him from a box just opposite. . . .
I would submit to anybody drawing a conclusion from one or two facts
past contradiction, whether that play could have thoroughly failed
which was not only not withdrawn at once but acted three nights
in the same week, and years afterwards, reproduced at his own theatre,
during my absence in Italy, by Mr. Phelps -- the person most completely aware
of the untoward circumstances which stood originally in the way of success.
Why not enquire how it happens that, this second time,
there was no doubt of the play's doing as well as plays ordinarily do?
for those were not the days of a `run'.
. . . . .
. . . This `last word' has indeed been
and if I have been willing to let the poor matter drop,
surely there is no need that it should be gone into now
when Macready and his Athenaeum upholder are no longer able
to speak for themselves: this is just a word to you, dear Mr. Hill,
and may be brought under the notice of your critic if you think proper --
but only for the facts -- not as a communication for the public.
Yes, thank you, I am in full health, as you wish -- and I wish you
and Mrs. Hill, I assure you, all the good appropriate to the season.
My sister has completely recovered from her illness, and is grateful
for your enquiries.
With best regards to Mrs. Hill, and an apology for this long letter,
which however, -- when once induced to write it, -- I could not well shorten,
-- believe me,
Yours truly ever
Robert Browning.
==
I well remember Mr. Browning's telling me how, when he returned
to the green-room, on that critical day, he drove his hat
more firmly on to his head, and said to Macready, `I beg pardon, sir,
but you have given the part to Mr. Phelps, and I am satisfied
that he should act it;' and how Macready, on hearing this,
crushed up the MS., and flung it on to the ground. He also admitted
that his own manner had been provocative; but he was indignant
at what he deemed the unjust treatment which Mr. Phelps had received.
The occasion of the next letter speaks for itself.
==
December 21, 1884.
My dear Mr. Hill, -- Your goodness must extend to letting me have
the last word -- one of sincere thanks. You cannot suppose
I doubted for a moment of a good-will which I have had abundant proof of.
I only took the occasion your considerate letter gave me,
to tell the simple truth which my forty years' silence is a sign
I would only tell on compulsion. I never thought your critic
had any less generous motive for alluding to the performance as he did
than that which he professes: he doubtless heard the account of the matter
which Macready and his intimates gave currency to at the time; and which,
being confined for a while to their limited number, I never chose to notice.
But of late years I have got to READ, -- not merely HEAR, --
of the play's failure `which all the efforts of my friend the great actor
could not avert;' and the nonsense of this untruth gets hard to bear.
I told you the principal facts in the letter I very hastily wrote:
I could, had it been worth while, corroborate them by others in plenty,
and refer to the living witnesses -- Lady Martin, Mrs. Stirling,
and (I believe) Mr. Anderson: it was solely through the admirable loyalty
of the two former that . . . a play . . . deprived of every advantage,
in the way of scenery, dresses, and rehearsing -- proved --
what Macready himself declared it to be -- `a complete success'.
SO he sent a servant to tell me, `in case there was a call for the author
at the end of the act' -- to which I replied that the author
had been too sick and sorry at the whole treatment of his play
to do any such thing. Such a call there truly WAS,
and Mr. Anderson had to come forward and `beg the author to come forward
if he were in the house -- a circumstance of which he was not aware:'
whereat the author laughed at him from a box just opposite. . . .
I would submit to anybody drawing a conclusion from one or two facts
past contradiction, whether that play could have thoroughly failed
which was not only not withdrawn at once but acted three nights
in the same week, and years afterwards, reproduced at his own theatre,
during my absence in Italy, by Mr. Phelps -- the person most completely aware
of the untoward circumstances which stood originally in the way of success.
Why not enquire how it happens that, this second time,
there was no doubt of the play's doing as well as plays ordinarily do?
for those were not the days of a `run'.
. . . . .
. . . This `last word' has indeed been