His death as Matthias--the death of a strong, robust man--was different
from all his other stage deaths. He did really almost die--he imagined
death with such horrible intensity. His eyes would disappear upwards,
his face grow gray, his limbs cold.
No wonder, then, that the first time that the Wolverhampton doctor's
warning was disregarded, and Henry played "The Bells" at Bradford, his
heart could not stand the strain. Within twenty-four hours of his last
death as Matthias, he was dead.
What a heroic thing was that last performance of Becket which came
between! I am told by those who were in the company at the time that
he was obviously suffering and dazed this last night of life. But he
went through it all as usual. All that he had done for years, he did
faithfully for the last time.
Yes, I know it seems sad to the ordinary mind that he should have
died in the entrance to an hotel in a country town, with no friend,
no relation near him; only his faithful and devoted servant, Walter
Collinson, whom--as was not his usual custom--he had asked to drive
back to the hotel with him that night, was there. Do I not feel the
tragedy of the beautiful body, for so many years the house of a
thousand souls, being laid out in death by hands faithful and devoted
enough, but not the hands of his kindred either in blood or in
sympathy?...
I do feel it, yet I know it was more appropriate to such a man than
the deathbed where friends and relations weep. Henry Irving belonged
to England, not to a family. England showed that she knew it when she
buried him in Westminster Abbey.
Years before I had discussed, half in joke, the possibility of this
honour. I remember his saying to me with great simplicity, when I asked
him what he expected of the public after his death: "I should like them
to do their duty by me. And they will--they will!"
There was not a touch of arrogance in this, just as I hope there was
no touch of heartlessness in me because my chief thought during the
funeral in Westminster Abbey was: "How Henry would have liked it!"
The right note was struck, as I think was not the case at Tennyson's
funeral thirteen years earlier.
"Tennyson is buried to-day in Westminster Abbey," I wrote in my diary
October 12th, 1892. "His majestic life and death spoke of him better
than the service.... The music was poor and dull and weak while he was
_strong_. The triumphant should have been the sentiment expressed.
Faces one knew everywhere. Lord Salisbury looked fine. His massive head
and sad eyes were remarkable. No face there, however, looked anything
by the side of Henry's.... He looked very pale and slim and wonderful!"
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.