How terribly I missed that face at Henry's own funeral! I kept on expecting to see it, for indeed it seemed to me that he was directing the whole most moving and impressive ceremony.... I could almost hear him saying "Get on! get on!" in the parts of the service that dragged. When the sun, such a splendid tawny sun, burst across the solemn misty gray of the Abbey, at the very moment when the coffin, under its superb pall of laurel leaves, was carried up to the choir, I felt that it was an effect which he would have loved.
I can understand any one who was present at Henry Irving's funeral thinking that this was his best memorial, and that any attempt to honour him afterwards would be superfluous and inadequate. But after all it was Henry Irving's commanding genius and his devotion of it to high objects, his personal influence on the English people, which secured him burial among England's great dead. The petition for the burial, presented to the Dean of the Chapter, and signed on the initiative of Henry Irving's leading fellow-actors by representative personages of influence, succeeded only because of Henry's unique position.
"We worked very hard to get it done," I heard said more than once. And I often longed to answer: "Yes, you worked for it between Henry's death and his funeral. He worked for it all his life!"
I have always desired some other memorial to Henry Irving than his honoured grave; not so much for his sake as for the sake of those who loved him, and would gladly welcome the opportunity of some great test of their devotion.
THE END
THE VALLEY OF MILLS
BY
H. G. DWIGHT
WITH A PAINTING BY F. BRANGWYN