" which first filled
Daddy Howe with the desire to go on the stage. He saw the great actor
again when he was living in retirement at Richmond--in those last sad
days when the Baroness Burdett-Coutts (then the rich young heiress, Miss
Angela Burdett-Coutts), driving up the hill, saw him sitting huddled up
on one of the public seats and asked if she could do anything for him.
"Nothing, I think," he answered sadly. "Ah yes, there is one thing. You
were kind enough the other day to send me some very excellent brandy.
_Send me some more._"[1]
[Footnote 1: This was a favorite story of Henry Irving's, and for that
reason alone I think it worth telling, although Sir Squire Bancroft
assures me that stubborn dates make it impossible that the tale should
be true.]
Of Henry Irving as an actor Mr. Howe once said to me that at first he
was prejudiced against him because he was so different from the other
great actors that he had known.
"'This isn't a bit like Iago,' I said to myself when I first saw him in
'Othello.' That was at the end of the first act. But he had commanded my
attention to his innovations. In the second act I found myself deeply
interested in watching and studying the development of his conception.
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