XI

The autumn tour of that year, 1905, was fixed for ten weeks and a half, to commence at Sheffield on 2nd October. The tour commenced very well. There were fine houses despite the fact that it was the week of the Musical Festival. On Tuesday, 3rd, the Lord Mayor, Sir Joseph Jonas, gave a great luncheon for him in the Town Hall. Irving was in good form and spoke well. There was nothing noticeable in his playing or regarding his health all that week. On Saturday night there was a big house and much enthusiasm. Irving seemed much touched as he said farewell. From Sheffield we went on to Bradford.

The Monday and Tuesday night at Bradford went all right. Irving did not seem ill or extremely weak. We had by now been accustomed to certain physical feebleness—except when he was on the stage. On Wednesday the Mayor, Mr. Priestley, was giving a big lunch for him in the Town Hall, at which he was to be presented with a Public Address. I joined him at his hotel at a little past one o’clock and we went together to the Town Hall. He seemed very feeble that morning, and as we went slowly up the steep steps he paused several times to get his breath. He had become an adept at concealing his physical weakness on such occasions. He would seize on some point of local or passing interest and make inquiries about it, so that by the time the answer came he would have been rested. There was a party of some fifty gentlemen, all friends, all hearty, all delightful. On the presentation of the Address he spoke well, but looked sadly feeble.

That night we played Louis XI. He got through his work all right, but was very exhausted after it. The bill of the next night was the one we dreaded, The Bells. I had been with him at his hotel for an hour in the morning and we had got through our usual work together. He seemed feeble, but made no complaint. There was a great house that night. When Irving arrived he seemed exceedingly feeble though not ill. In his dressing-room I noticed that he did that which I had never known him do before: sit down in a listless way and delay beginning to dress for his part. He seemed tired, tired; tired not for an hour but for a lifetime. He played, however, just as usual. There was no perceptible diminution of his strength—of his fire. But when the play was over he was absolutely exhausted. Whilst he was dressing I went in and sat with him, having previously given instructions to the Master Machinist to send The Bells back to London. When I told Irving what I had done he acquiesced in it and seemed relieved. He had played The Bells against the strong remonstrances of Loveday and myself. Knowing him as I did, I came to the conclusion that his doing so was to prove himself. He had felt weak but would not yield to the suspicion; he wanted to know.

It may be wondered at or even asked why Henry Irving was allowed to play at all, being in his then state of weakness.

In the first place, Irving was his own master, and took his own course entirely. He was of a very masterful nature and took on his own shoulders the full responsibility of his acts. He would listen to the advice of those whom he trusted naturally, or had learned to trust; but he was, within the limits of possibility, the final arbiter of matters concerning himself in which there was any power of choice. The forces of a strong nature have to be accepted en bloc; these very indomitable forces of resolution and persistence—of the disregard of pain or weariness to himself which had given him his great position—ruled him in weakness as in strength. His will was the controlling power of his later as of his earlier days.

Moreover, he could not stop. To do so would have been final extinction. His affairs were such that it was necessary to go on for the sake of himself in such span of life as might be left to him, and for the sake of others. The carrying out of his purpose of going through his farewell tours would mean the realisation of a fortune; without such he would begin the unproductive period of age in poverty. Accustomed as he had been now for many years to carry out his wishes in his own way: to do whatever he had set his heart on and to help his many friends and comrades, to be powerless in such matters would have been to him a never-ending pain of chagrin. All this, of course over and above the ties and duties of his family and his own personal needs. He was a very proud man, and the inevitable blows to his pride would have been to him worse than death—especially when such might be obviated by labour, howsoever arduous or dangerous the same might be. We who knew him well recognised all this. All that we could do was to keep our own counsel, and to help him to the best of our respective powers.