Joe
Evans had done a lovely picture by way of frontispiece of a group of
eager heads hanging over the gallery's edge, his own and Taber's among
them. Eventually Taber came to England and acted with Henry Irving in
"Peter the Great" and other plays.
Like his friend Joe, he too was heroic. His health was bad and his life
none too happy--but he struggled on. His career was cut short by
consumption, and he died in the Adirondacks in 1904.
I cannot speak of all my friends in America, or anywhere, for the matter
of that, _individually_. My personal friends are so many, and they are
all wonderful--wonderfully staunch to me! I have "tried" them so, and
they have never given me up as a bad job.
My first friends of all in America were Mr. Bayard, afterwards the
American Ambassador in London, and his sister, Mrs. Benoni Lockwood, her
husband and their children. Now after all these years they are still my
friends, and I can hope for none better to the end.
William Winter, poet, critic and exquisite man, was one of the first to
write of Henry with whole-hearted appreciation. But all the criticism in
America, favorable and unfavorable, surprised us by the scholarly
knowledge it displayed. In Chicago the notices were worthy of the
_Temps_ or the _Journal des Debats_.
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