When I think of his work during the next seven years, I could weep! Never was there a more admirable, extraordinary worker; never was any one more splendid-couraged and patient.
The seriousness of his illness in 1898 was never really known. He nearly died.
"I am still fearfully anxious about H," I wrote to my daughter at the time. "It will be a long time at the best before he gains strength.... But now I do hope for the best. I'm fairly well so far. All he wants is for me to keep my health, not my head. He knows I'm doing that! Last night I did three acts of Sans-Gêne and Nance Oldfield thrown in! That is a bit too much—awful work—and I can't risk it again.
"A telegram just came: 'Steadily improving.'... You should have seen Norman[I] as Shylock! It was not a bare 'get-through.' It was—the first night—an admirable performance, as well as a plucky one.... H. is more seriously ill than anyone dreams.... His look! Like the last act of Louis XI."
HENRY IRVING AS BECKET
THE PART IN WHICH IRVING MADE HIS LAST APPEARANCE ON OCTOBER 13, 1905, THE NIGHT OF HIS DEATH
In 1902, on the last provincial tour that we ever went together, he was ill again, but he did not give in. One night when his cough was rending him, and he could hardly stand up for weakness, he acted so brilliantly and strongly that it was easy to believe in Christian Science "treatment." Strange to say, a newspaper man noticed the splendid power of his performance that night and wrote of it with uncommon discernment—a provincial critic, by the way.
In London, at the time, they were always urging Henry Irving to produce new plays by new playwrights! But in the face of the failure of most of the new work, and of his departing strength—and of the extraordinary support given him in the old plays (during this 1902 tour we took £4,000 at Glasgow in one week!)—Henry took the wiser course in doing nothing but the old plays to the end of the chapter.