Reminiscences of J.L. Toole; Related by Himself, and Chronicled By
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v^ -~ f i^\mcE^. or J.LTOOLE n E LAI E D BY H I M SELF ^^!0CHRONICl.LD 3N / 1 ;C?^ ,« •••''> >;ii.. y / y H V. REMINISCENCES J. L. TOOLE. VOL. I. : REMINISCENCES r E. TOOLE RELATED BY HIMSELF, AND CHRONICLED BY JOSEPH HATTON Author of '' Clytie," '' Cmel London,'" " The Gay World,'' " Christopher Kenr-ick^'' " yournalistic London" cr'r. ILLUSTRATED BY ALFRED BRYAN AND W. H. MARGETSON IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. ^--s^ LONDON "T/?'^ HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1889. -• All Rights Reset ved. OOP i2 f PREFACE. What a different thing talking is compared with this writing ! I am on tour when I jot down profound reflection. My dear friend Joseph Hatton has been on my track since we parted in town, a month or two ago, with this one message, by post and telegram—"You ought to write the Preface, every word of it!" As it is my own Preface of course I ought, and of course I have done so. But while the writing of it has been a labour of love, it has bothered me a good deal more than a labour of love is supposed to do. Many times I have admired the skill with which my collaborator has written, in these pages, stories which seemed to me to require, for a complete narration, the point one puts into an anecdote when acting it. I am occasionally called upon to make a speech in public. Well, I get along now and then pretty well, thanks to the inspiration that seems to come to me from the friendly sym- is inspiration pathy of my audience ; but there no Vlll PREFACE. in a blank sheet of paper, and there is no applause in pens and ink. When one makes a speech one seeks kindly faces around one, and it is wonderful what assistance there is in a little applause. You of a in a newspaper take up the report speech ; you see that it is peppered with "Laughter," " " Applause," Loud cheers," and so on ; that sets you reading it, and carries you on to the end. It is very much the same with a speaker ; he makes his little joke, and there is a laugh, which helps him to his next ; then he says a nice thing about the occasion, and gets a round of applause ; that helps him on his road to the climax, when he hopes to finish up, and mostly does—with a burst of enthusiasm. What I am coming to is an em- phasis of my original point—the tremendous difference between speaking and writing. Sitting down in cold blood, as it were, to intro- duce these Reminiscences, I feel that I can only be more or less formal in my expressions of diffi- dence, hoping I don't intrude, and so on. Hatton says, " Make the Preface a speech, if you like." But how can I make a speech to an audience whom I cannot see ? It would be like speaking into a phonograph. If there were any applause, one would have to make it oneself. That would be the worst kind of claque imaginable. If our public speaking of the future is to be done in this way. PREFACE. IX what is to become of the personal magnetism of the orator ? Nevertheless, I am told by scientific forecasters that fifty years hence a public speaker will simply address his phonograph, and send the cylinders to be reeled off on the platform of St. James's Hall, or wherever the great meeting may be held, while he remains comfortably at home or spends the evening at his club, to read in due course a full report of his speech in the newspapers. It will be a curious change in the administration of public affairs. There will, how- his ever, be one great advantage—to a speaker ; remarks will assuredly be correctly reported, be- cause, of course, his phonographic cylinders will be handed to the Press, and the printers will set up their types from the voice itself. This may be a little awkward where other speeches are being set up into type. The noise of a lot of phono- grams being reeled off at the same time must be if is so, they rather confusing ; but, of course, that will invent something to meet the case. As long as they don't invent phonographic theatres, with all the good actors and good plays of an entire season thrown into the purchase of a fireside instrument, it does not much matter. But I am diverging. Let us get back to the point where the phonograph interrupted us. It was Hatton's last resort to follow me up with ; PREFACE. the suggestion, " Make it a speech." I was having a holiday at Aix, but the shadow of the Preface fell upon me even at the Kursaal. I went to Lucerne, where our friend Irving was staying, and the thought of this address to the reader added a deeper shadow, in my estimation, to the natural reflections of the lake. I had to go to Lucerne to give Irving my ideas upon some new readings in Macbeth. I am bound to say they were not received with the gravity one is accustomed to in tragedians. But that is neither here nor there, and I fear I am again digressing. It is astonishing what you can do under pressure. It was not my idea to write these Reminiscences it was not Hatton's idea ; it was the outcome of a request from Mr. Tillotson, the great Literary " Syndic " who supplies the Newspaper Press with the works of Wilkie Collins, William Black, Miss Braddon, Rider Haggard, Mrs. Oliphant, Walter Besant, and the other leading novelists of the day. It was Tillotson who said to my collaborator, "Why not the Reminiscences of Toole for a change?" And Hatton of course said. "Why not ? " —as well he might, seeing that he had already been making a few notes about me, in, however, such a vague kind of way that they would have come to nothing but for the stimulus of Tillotson's desire to introduce into his ; PREFACE. XI literary wares the truth that is " stranger than fiction ;" a stimulus which fixed Hatton to dates of production, and which made me the slave of Hatton the willing slave, I am ready to admit, for we are old friends, we have sympathies in common; and it has been a great and novel delight to me to see these chapters grow under the expert's hand, to read the proofs, and to have my words and anec- dotes, my ideas and notions photographed in type. If the readers only enjoy the story that follows as much as I have enjoyed telling it to my collaborator, and as much as he says he has enjoyed writing it, we shall be a happy family of authors and readers. You know how it is when you make a speech you often think of the clever ; things you could have said after you have sat down. It is similar with Reminiscences, as you will discover when you come to tell your own story, as of course you will tell it. Everybody is relating his reminiscences nowadays, and a capital form of literature it is. "How do you do ? " When are your reminiscences coming out ? will, I expect, become a regular form of social salutation always beginning- soon ; very much better too than conversations with the weather. I am continually thinking of something I ought to have said in the chapters that are closed, and I hope those of my Xll PREFACE, friends who expect me to relate all the incidents in which they are interested will forgive me if they are disappointed. I have had many letters pointing out things I ought to have mentioned during the run of the Reminiscences, and I have made additions and corrections here and there, and with much satisfaction ; but I cannot remem- ber every boy who was at school with me, nor every man I have met since ; nor is it necessary to record all the circumstances under which I have written orders for the play. Moreover, I have not had it quite all my own way in these records, and I offer this fact as an additional explanation and apology for sundry omissions. It was not merely with a desire to tell my story that Hatton donned his literary gear ; but to interest and amuse the public. If he had settled down into the regular groove of biographical narrative, with all its solemnities of dates, with its records of school- days, its early ambitions, its little battles, and its big disappointments, its diary notes and its copies of letters from celebrities and others, you would not have been coaxed through six hundred pages as you will now, nor would you have had as cha- racteristic a sketch of a career in which so many of you, my good and kind friends, have shown so much generous and tender interest. There are plenty of shortcomings in these pages. PREFACE. XI 11 Hatton frequently speaks of them. But he is always very modest about his work. I have one feeling in regard to this book we have produced together, which I think the reader and the critic will endorse; our volumes are not pretentious, and they are not dull. Our united object has been to try and consider the readers more than ourselves. We both hope that critics and readers will take the work for what it professes to be, not what they think it should have been.