19th Century Actor Autobiographies | Page 5

the resolve, my mind dwelt upon
my vision, and I still indulged in day-dreams of the future.
During these delightful reveries it came up before me that in acting Asa
Trenchard I had, for the first time in my life on the stage, spoken a
pathetic speech; and though I did not look at the audience during the
time I was acting--for that is dreadful--I felt that they both laughed and
cried. I had before this often made my audience smile, but never until
now had I moved them to tears. This to me novel accomplishment was
delightful, and in casting about for a new character my mind was ever
dwelling on reproducing an effect where humour would be so closely
allied to pathos that smiles and tears should mingle with each other.
Where could I get one? There had been many written, and as I looked
back into the dramatic history of the past a long line of lovely ghosts
loomed up before me, passing as in a procession: Job Thornberry, Bob
Tyke, Frank Ostland, Zekiel Homespun, and a host of departed heroes
"with martial stalk went by my watch." Charming fellows all, but not
for me, I felt I could not do them justice. Besides, they were too human.
I was looking for a myth--something intangible and impossible. But he
would not come. Time went on, and still with no result,
During the summer of 1859 I arranged to board with my family at a
queer old Dutch farmhouse in Paradise Valley, at the foot of Pocono
Mountain, in Pennsylvania. A ridge of hills covered with tall hemlocks
surrounds the vale, and numerous trout-streams wind through the
meadows and tumble over the rocks. Stray farms are scattered through
the valley, and the few old Dutchmen and their families who till the soil
were born upon it; there and only there they have ever lived. The valley
harmonised with me and our resources. The scene was wild, the air was
fresh, and the board was cheap. What could the light heart and purse of
a poor actor ask for more than this?

On one of those long rainy days that always render the country so dull I
had climbed to the loft of the barn, and lying upon the hay was reading
that delightful book "The Life and Letters of Washington Irving." I had
gotten well into the volume, and was much interested in it, when to my
surprise I came upon a passage which said that he had seen me at Laura
Keene's theater as Goldfinch in Holcroft's comedy of "The Road to
Ruin," and that I reminded him of my father "in look, gesture, size, and
make." Till then I was not aware that he had ever seen me. I was
comparatively obscure, and to find myself remembered and written of
by such a man gave me a thrill of pleasure I can never forget. I put
down the book, and lay there thinking how proud I was, and ought to
be, at the revelation of this compliment. What an incentive to a
youngster like me to go on.
And so I thought to myself, "Washington Irving, the author of 'The
Sketch-Book,' in which is the quaint story of Rip Van Winkle." Rip
Van Winkle! There was to me magic in the sound of the name as I
repeated it. Why, was not this the very character I wanted? An Ameri
can story by an American author was surely just the theme suited to an
American actor.
In ten minutes I had gone to the house and returned to the barn with
"The Sketch-Book." I had not read the story since I was a boy. I was
disappointed with it; not as a story, of course, but the tale was purely a
narrative. The theme was interesting, but not dramatic. The silver
Hudson stretches out before you as you read, the quaint red roofs and
queer gables of the old Dutch cottages stand out against the mist upon
the mountains; but all this is descriptive. The character of Rip does not
speak ten lines. What could be done dramatically with so simple a
sketch? How could it he turned into an effective play?
Three or four bad dramatisations of the story had already been acted,
but without marked success, Yates of London had given one in which
the hero dies, one had been acted by my father, one by Hackett, and
another by Burke. Some of these versions I had remembered when I
was a boy, and I should say that Burke's play and performance were the
best, but nothing that I remembered gave me the slightest

encouragement that I could get a good play out of any of the existing
materials. Still I was so bent upon acting