wful
work--and I can't risk it again."

"A telegram just come: 'Steadily improving....' You should have
seen Norman[1] 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."

[Footnote 1: Mr. Norman Forbes-Robertson.]

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 from weakness, he acted so brilliantly
and strongly that it was easy to believe in the triumph of mind over
matter--in Christian Science, in fact!

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 L4,000
at Glasgow in one week!), Henry took the wiser course in doing nothing
but the old plays to the end of the chapter.

I realized how near, not only the end of the chapter but the end of the
book was, when he was taken ill at Wolverhampton in the spring of 1905.

We had not acted together for more than two years then, and times were
changed indeed.

I went down to Wolverhampton when the news of his illness reached
London. I arrived late and went to an hotel. It was not a good hotel,
nor could I find a very good florist when I got up early the next day
and went out with the intention of buying Henry some flowers. I wanted
some bright-colored ones for him--he had always liked bright
flowers--and this florist dealt chiefly in white flowers--_funeral_
flowers.

At last I found some daffodils--my favorite flower. I bought a bunch,
and the kind florist, whose heart was in the right place if his flowers
were not, found me a nice simple glass to put it in. I knew the sort of
vase that I should find at Henry's hotel.

I remembered, on my way to the doctor's--for I had decided to see the
doctor first--that in 1892 when my dear mother died, and I did not act
for a few nights, when I came back I found my room at the Lyceum filled
with daffodils. "To make it