At the
present day I consider him the only actor on the stage who can play
Shakespeare's fools as they should be played.
Among the girls "walking on" was Kate Rorke. This made me take a special
interest in watching what she did later on. No one who saw her fine
performance in "The Profligate" could easily forget it, and I shall
never understand why the London public ever let her go.
It was during the run of "Olivia" that Henry Irving became sole lessee
of the Lyceum Theater. For a long time he had been contemplating the
step, but it was one of such magnitude that it could not be done in a
hurry. I daresay he found it difficult to separate from Mrs. Bateman and
from her daughter, who had for such a long time been his "leading lady."
He had to be a little cruel, not for the last time, in a career devoted
unremittingly and unrelentingly to his art and his ambition.
It was said by an idle tongue in later years that rich ladies financed
Henry Irving's ventures. The only shadow of foundation for this
statement is that at the beginning of his tenancy of the Lyceum, the
Baroness Burdett-Coutts lent him a certain sum of money, every farthing
of which was repaid during the first few months of his management.
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