Irving was notoriously skilful in this kind of combat. He was patient in the endurance of any slight which he conceived to be passed upon his work as an actor, but his patience was never forgetful, and when the hour came, however long it might have been delayed, when he thought that he could claim his own, he was wont to strike mercilessly.
I remember an incident concerning myself, belonging to the earlier stages of our friendship. It was after the conclusion to a dinner of the Rabelais Club, when he invited several of us to adjourn to his rooms in Grafton Street for a final cigar. I was very cordially bidden to be of the company, little guessing that he had selected this particular occasion to single me out as the mark of his disapproval. When we were all comfortably seated round him, and he was reclining deep in his chair in an easy attitude that I afterwards learned to know was nearly always ominous, he threw out for our discussion a proposition in regard to which we could not fail to find ourselves unanimous.
“Now, talking among friends,” he said, “I suppose that you would all agree that criticism ought to be fair?”
With no possible exception we were all loudly enthusiastic in assent.
“Quite so,” replied Irving, in the same dispassionate and measured tones. “Well, then,” he continued, in a voice somewhat threateningly raised but still carefully controlled, “there is a criticism I have read in a magazine called The Theatre about a play of mine. Very clever!” And then with sudden vehemence, pointing to me, he added, “You wrote it!”
“Do you mean,” I inquired, “the article on Iolanthe?”—an adaptation by W. G. Wills of King Rene’s Daughter which had recently been presented at the Lyceum. “Yes, I wrote it!”
“Quite so,” returned Irving, his voice now rising in a tenser strain. “Well, nothing more unfair and more unjust has ever been written.”
I was young enough then not to be unmoved by this sudden and unexpected onslaught, but I summoned the courage to ask him, in reply, if the magazine was in the room. I saw as I spoke that it was lying on the table, and I asked him, as the article was short, if he would allow me to read it to those of my fellow-critics who were present, some of whom might fairly be supposed to be unaware of its import.
Irving could not, of course, but assent to my demand, but when I had concluded he appealed with even greater vehemence to those who were present in justification of what he had already said.
“You see! You see!” he cried. “Not one word about me!”