"We worked very hard to get it done," I heard said--more than once. And
I often longed to answer: "Yes, and all honor to your efforts, but 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
honored 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.
Henry Irving's profession decided last year, after much belated
discussion, to put up a statue to him in the streets of London. I
believe that it is to take the form of a portrait statue in academic
robes. A statue can never at any time be a very happy memorial to an
actor, who does not do his work in his own person, but through his
imagination of many different persons. If statue it had to be, the work
should have had a symbolic character. My dear friend Alfred Gilbert, one
of the most gifted sculptors of this or any age, expressed a similar
opinion to the committee of the memorial, and later on wrote to me as
follows:
"I should never have attempted the representation of Irving as a
mummer, nor literally as Irving disguised as this one or that one,
but as _Irving_--the artistic exponent of other great artists'
conceptions--_Irving_, the greatest illustrator of the greatest
men's creations--he himself being a creator.
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