... Do you wonder, then, that I
should rather elect to regard Irving in the abstract, when called
upon to suggest a fitting monument, than to promise a faithful
portrait?... Let us be grateful, however, that a great artist is to
be commemorated at all, side by side with the effigies of great
Butchers of mankind, and ephemeral statesmen, the instigators of
useless bloodshed...."
ALFRED GILBERT AND OTHERS
Alfred Gilbert was one of Henry's sincere admirers in the old Lyceum
days, and now if you want to hear any one talk of those days
brilliantly, delightfully, and whimsically, if you want to live first
nights and Beefsteak Room suppers over again--if you want to have Henry
Irving at the Garrick Club recreated before your eyes, it is only Alfred
Gilbert who can do it for you!
He lives now in Bruges, that beautiful dead city of canals and Hans
Memlings, and when I was there a few years ago I saw him. I shall never
forget his welcome! I let him know of my arrival, and within a few hours
he sent a carriage to my hotel to bring me to his house. The seats of
the _fiacre_ were hidden by flowers! He had not long been in his house,
and there were packing-cases still lying about in the spacious, desolate
rooms looking into an old walled garden.
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