Russian Discipline Undermined by the Revolutionists

Stereograph copyrighted by Underwood & UnderwoodJAPANESE ARMY TRANSPORTATION CORPS MOVING ONE OF THE GREAT SIEGE GUNS WHICH WERE USED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF PORT ARTHUR

Stereograph copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood

JAPANESE ARMY TRANSPORTATION CORPS MOVING ONE OF THE GREAT SIEGE GUNS WHICH WERE USED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF PORT ARTHUR

The strength of Japan was in the complete union of her people, army, and government, and it was this union that gave her the victory. We carried on the contest with our army alone, and even the army was weakened by the unfavorable disposition of the people toward all things military. Our aims in the Far East were not understood by our officers and soldiers, and, furthermore, the general feeling of discontent which already prevailed in all classes of our population made the war so hateful that it aroused no patriotism whatever. Many good officers hastened to offer their services—a fact that is easily explained—but all ranks of society remained indifferent. A few hundreds of the common people volunteered, but no eagerness to enter the army was shown by the sons of our high dignitaries, of our merchants, or of our scientific men. Out of the tens of thousands of students who were then living in idleness,[F]many of them at the expense of the Empire, only a handful volunteered,[G]while at that very time, in Japan, sons of the most distinguished citizens—even boys fourteen and fifteen years of age—were striving for places in the ranks. Japanese mothers, as I have already said, killed themselves through shame, when their sons were found to be physically unfit for military service.

The indifference of Russia to the bloody struggle which her sons were carrying on—for little understood objects and in a foreign land—could not fail to discourage even the best soldiers. Men are not inspired to deeds of heroism by such an attitude toward them on the part of their country. But Russia was not merely indifferent. Leaders of the revolutionary party strove, with extraordinary energy, to multiply our chances of failure, hoping thus to facilitate the attainment of their own dark objects. There appeared a whole literature of clandestine publications, intended to lessen the confidence of officers in their superiors, to shake the trust of soldiers in their officers, and to undermine the faith of the whole army in the Government. In an "Address to the Officers of the Russian Army," published and widely circulated by the Social Revolutionists, the main idea was expressed as follows:

"The worst and most dangerous enemy of the Russian people—in fact, its only enemy—is the present Government. It is this Government that is carrying on the war with Japan, and you are fighting under its banners in an unjust cause. Every victory that you win threatens Russia with the calamity involved in the maintenance of what the Government calls 'order,' and every defeat that you suffer brings nearer the hour of deliverance. Is it surprising, therefore, that Russians rejoice when your adversary is victorious?"

But persons who had nothing in common with the Social Revolutionary party, and who sincerely loved their country, gave aid to Russia's enemies by expressing the opinion, in the press, that the war was irrational, and by criticizing the mistakes of the Government that had failed to prevent it. In a brochure entitled "Thoughts Suggested by Recent Military Operations," M. Gorbatoff referred to such persons as follows:

"But it is a still more grievous fact that while our heroic soldiers are carrying on a life-and-death struggle, these so-called friends of the people whisper to them: 'Gentlemen, you are heroes, but you are facing death without reason. You will die to pay for Russia's mistaken policy, and not to defend Russia's vital interests.' What can be more terrible than the part played by these so-called friends of the people when they undermine in this way the intellectual faith of heroic men who are going to their death? One can easily imagine the state of mind of an officer or soldier who goes into battle after reading, in newspapers or magazines, articles referring in this way to the irrationality and uselessness of the war. It is from these self-styled friends of the people that the revolutionary party gets support in its effort to break down the discipline of our troops."

Soldiers of the reserves, when called into active service, were furnished by the anti-Government party with proclamations intended to prejudice them against their officers, and similar proclamations were sent to the army in Manchuria. Troops in the field received letters apprising them of popular disorders in Russia, and men sick in hospitals, as well as men on duty in our advanced positions, read in the newspapers articles that undermined their faith in their commanders and their leaders. The work of breaking down the discipline of the army was carried on energetically, and, of course, it was not altogether fruitless. The leaders of the movement, in striving to attain their well defined objects, took for their motto: "The worse things are, the better"; and the ideal at which they aimed was the state of affairs brought about by the mutinous sailors on the armor-clad warship "Potemkin." These enemies of the army and the country were aided by certain other persons who were simply foolish and unreasonable. One can imagine the indignation that the Menchikoffs, the Kirilloffs and the Kuprins would feel, if they were told that they played the same part in the army that was played by the persons who incited the insubordination on the "Potemkin"; yet such was the case. It would be difficult, indeed, to imagine anything that could have been said to the sailors of the armor-clad for the purpose of exciting them against their officers that would have been worse than the language of Menchikoff, when, in writing of our army officers, he referred to their "blunted conscience, their drunkenness, their moral looseness, and their inveterate laziness." Firm in spirit though Russians might be, the indifference of one class of the population, and the seditious incitement of another, could hardly fail to have upon many of them an influence that was not favorable to the successful prosecution of war.

Copyrighted by Underwood & UnderwoodSCENE IN SHIBA PARK, TOKIO, WHERE TOGO'S NAVAL VICTORY WAS CELEBRATED WITH WILD ENTHUSIASM

Copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood

SCENE IN SHIBA PARK, TOKIO, WHERE TOGO'S NAVAL VICTORY WAS CELEBRATED WITH WILD ENTHUSIASM

The party opposed to the Government distributed among our troops, especially in the West, hundreds of thousands of seditious proclamations exhorting the soldiers to work for defeat rather than for victory. Writers for newspapers and magazines, even though they did not belong to the anti-Government party, contributed to its success by lavishing abuse upon the army and its representatives. War correspondents, who knew little about our operations and still less about those of the Japanese, and whobased their statements, not upon what they had seen, but upon what they had heard from untrustworthy sources, increased the disaffection of the people by exaggerating the seriousness of our failures. Even army officers, writing from the theatre of war, or after returning to Russia for reasons that were not always creditable to them, sought to gain reputation by means of hasty criticism which was often erroneous in its statements of fact and generally discouraging or complaining in tone. On the fighting line, heroic men without number faced and fought the enemy courageously for months, without ever losing their faith in ultimate victory; butfrom that part of the field little trustworthy news came. Brave soldiers, modest junior officers, and the commanders of regiments, companies, squadrons, and batteries in our advanced positions, did not write and had no time to write of their own labors and exploits, and few of the correspondents were willing to share their perils for the sake of being able to observe and describe their heroic deeds. There were among the correspondents some brave men who sincerely wished to be of use; but their lack of even elementary training in military science made it impossible for them to understand the complicated problems of war, and their work therefore was comparatively unproductive. The persons best qualified to see and judge, and to give information to the reading public, were the foreign military observers, who were attached to our armies in the field and who, in many cases, were extremely fortunate selections. These officers felt a brotherly affection for the soldiers whose perils and hardships they shared, and were regarded by the latter with love and esteem. Their reports, however, are very long in coming to us.

Stereograph copyrighted by the H. C. White Co.JAPANESE ARTILLERY TRANSPORTING A 7½ C. M. MOUNTAIN GUN ACROSS THE HILLS

Stereograph copyrighted by the H. C. White Co.

JAPANESE ARTILLERY TRANSPORTING A 7½ C. M. MOUNTAIN GUN ACROSS THE HILLS

Some of our correspondents, who lived in the rear of the army and saw the seamy side of the war, wrote descriptions of drunkenness, revelry, and profligacy (at Kharbin, for example) which distressed our reading public and gave a one-sided view of army life. Our press might have made our first defeats a means of rousing the spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice; it might have exhorted the people to redouble their efforts as the difficulties of the war increased; it might have helped the Government to fill the gaps in our thinned ranks; it might have encouraged the faint-hearted, called forth the country's noblest sons, and opened to the army new sources of material and spiritual strength. But instead of doing any of these things, it played more or less into the hands of our foreign and domestic enemies; made the war hateful to the great mass of the population; depressed the spirits of soldiers going to the front, and undermined, in every way, the latter's faith in their officers and their rulers. This course of procedure did not rouse in the nation a determination to increase its efforts and to win victory at last, in spite of all difficulties. Quite the contrary! The soldiers who went to the front to fill up or reinforce our army carried with them seditious proclamations and the seeds of future defeats. Commanding officers in the Siberian military districts reported, as early as February, that detachments of supernumerary troops and reservists had plundered several railway stations, and at a later time regular troops, on their way to the front, were guilty of similar bad conduct. The drifting to the rear of large numbers of soldiers—especially the older reservists—while battles were in progress, was due not so much to cowardice as to the unsettling of the men's minds and to a disinclination on their part to continue the war. I may add that the opening of peace negotiations in Portsmouth, at a time when we were preparing for decisive operations, affected unfavorably the morale of the army's strongest elements.

Mr. E. Martinoff, in an article entitled "Spirit and Temper of the Two Armies," points out that "even in time of peace, the Japanese peoplewere so educated as to develop in them a patriotic and martial spirit. The very idea of war with Russia was generally popular, and throughout the contest the army was supported by the sympathy of the nation. In Russia, the reverse was true. Patriotism was shaken by the dissemination of ideas of cosmopolitanism and disarmament, and in the midst of a difficult campaign the attitude of the country toward the army was one of indifference, if not of actual hostility."

This judgment is accurate, and it is evident, of course, that with such a relation between Russian society and the Manchurian army, it was impossible to expect from the latter any patriotic spirit, or any readiness to sacrifice life for the sake of the fatherland. In an admirable article entitled "The Feeling of Duty and the Love of Country," published in the "Russian Invalid" in 1906, Mr. A. Bilderling expressed certain profoundly true ideas as follows:

"Our lack of success may have been due, in part, to various and complicated causes; to the misconduct of particular persons, to bad generalship, to lack of preparation in the army and the navy, to inadequacy of material resources, and to misappropriations in the departments of equipment and supply; but the principal reason for our defeat lies deeper, and is to be found in lack of patriotism, and in the absence of a feeling of duty toward and love for the fatherland. In a conflict between two peoples, the things of most importance are not material resources, but moral strength, exaltation of spirit, and patriotism. Victory is most likely to be achieved by the nation in which these qualities are most highly developed. Japan had long been preparing for war with us; all of her people desired it; and a feeling of lofty patriotism pervaded the whole country. In her army and her fleet, therefore, every man, from the commander-in-chief to the last soldier, not only knew what he was fighting for and what he might have to die for, but understood clearly that upon success in the struggle depended the fate of Japan, her political importance, and her future in the history of the world. Every soldier knew also that the whole nation stood behind him. With us, on the other hand, the war was unpopular from the very beginning. We neither desired it nor anticipated it, and, consequently, we were not prepared for it. Soldiers were hastily put into railway trains, and when, after a journey that lasted a month, they alighted in Manchuria, they did not know in what country they were, nor whom they were to fight, nor what the war was about. Even our higher commanders went to the front unwillingly and from a mere sense of duty. The whole army, moreover, felt that it was regarded by the country with indifference; that its life was not shared by the people; and that it was a mere fragment, cut off from the nation, thrown to a distance of nine thousand versts, and there abandoned to the caprice of fate. Before decisive fighting began, therefore, one of the contending armies advanced with the full expectation and confident belief that it would be victorious, while the other went forward with a demoralizing doubt of its own success."

Generally speaking, the man who conquers in war is the man who is least afraid of death. We were unprepared in previous wars, as well as in this, and in previous wars we made mistakes; but when the preponderance of moral strength was on our side, as in the wars with the Swedes, the French, the Turks, the Caucasian mountaineers and the natives of Central Asia, we were victorious. In the late war, for reasons that are extremely complicated, our moral strength was less than that of the Japanese; and it was this inferiority, rather than mistakes in generalship, that caused our defeats, and that forced us to make tremendous efforts in order to succeed at all. Our lack of moral strength—as compared with the Japanese—affected all ranks of our army, from the highest to the lowest, and greatly reduced our fighting power. In a war waged under different conditions—a war in which the army had the confidence and encouragement of the country—the same officers and the same troops would have accomplished far more than they accomplished in Manchuria. The lack of martial spirit, of moral exaltation, and of heroic impulse, affected particularly our stubbornness in battle. In many cases we did not have dogged resolution enough to conquer such antagonists as the Japanese. Instead of holding, with unshakable tenacity, the positions assigned them, our troops often retreated, and, in such cases, our commanding officers of all ranks, without exception, lacked the power or the means to set things right. Instead of making renewed and extraordinary efforts to wrest victory from the enemy, they either permitted the retreat of the troops under their command, or themselves ordered such retreat. The army, however, never lost its strong sense of duty; and it was this that enabled many divisions, regiments, and battalions to increase their power of resistance with every battle. This peculiarity of the late war, together with our final acquirement of numerical preponderance and a noticeable decline of Japanese ardor, gave us reason to regard the future with confidence, and left no room for doubt as to our ultimate victory.

Among other reasons for the success of the Japanese, I may mention the following.

The leading part in the war was to have been taken by our fleet. In the General Staff of the navy, as well as in that of the army, a detailed account was kept of all Japan's ships of war; but the directors of naval affairs in the Far East reckoned only tonnage, guns, and calibers, and when, in 1903, they found that the arithmetical totals of our Far Eastern fleet exceeded those of the entire Japanese fleet, they adopted, as a basis for our plan of operations, the following conclusions:

1. "The relation that the strength of the Japanese fleet bears to the strength of our fleet is such that the possibility of the defeat of the latter is inadmissible."

2. "The landing of the Japanese at Yinkow, or in Korea Bay, is not to be regarded as practicable."

The strength of the land force that a war with Japan would require depended upon three things: (1) the strength of the army that the Japanese could put into Manchuria, or across our boundary; (2) the strength of our fleet; and (3) the transporting capacity of the railway upon which our troops would have to depend in concentration. If our fleet could defeat the fleet of the Japanese, military operations on the main land would be unnecessary. And even if the Japanese were not defeated in a general naval engagement, they would either have to obtain complete mastery of the sea, or leave a considerable part of their army at home for the protection of their own coast. Without command of the sea, moreover, they could not risk a landing on the Liao-tung peninsula, but would have to march through Korea, and that would give us time for concentration. By their desperate night attack upon our fleet at Port Arthur, before the declaration of war,[H]they obtained a temporary superiority in armored vessels, and made great use of it in getting command of the sea. Our fleet—especially after the death of Admiral Makaroff at the most critical moment in the execution of the Japanese plan of campaign—offered no resistance to the enemy whatever. Even when they landed in the immediate vicinity of Port Arthur, we did not make so much as an attempt to interfere with them. The results of this inaction were very damaging to our army. The Japanese, instead of finding it impossible to land troops in Korea Bay, as our naval authorities anticipated, were able to threaten us with a descent along the whole coast of the Liao-tung peninsula, beginning at Kwang-tung. Notwithstanding our weakness on land, Admiral Alexeieff thought it necessary to authorize a wide scattering of our troops, so we prepared to meet the Japanese on the Yalu, at Yinkow, and in the province of Kwang-tung. He had also permitted a dispersal of our naval forces, so that we were weak everywhere.

Instead of making a landing in Korea only,—as was anticipated in the plan worked out at Port Arthur,—the Japanese, with their immense fleet of transports, landed three armies on the Liao-tung peninsula and a fourth in Korea. Then, leaving one army in front of Port Arthur, they pushed the other three forward toward our forces, Which were slowly concentrating on the Haicheng-Liaoyang line in southern Manchuria. Thus, having taken the initiative at sea, they obtained the same advantage on land. Their command of the sea enabled them to disregard the defence of their own coast and move against us with their entire strength. In this way—contrary to our anticipations—they were able, in the first stage of the war, to put into the field a force that was superior to ours. Command of the sea, moreover, made it possible for them to supply their armies quickly with all necessary munitions, and to transport to the field, in a few days, masses of heavy supplies, which we, with our feeble railroad, were hardly able to get in months. But command of the sea, and the almost complete inactivity of our fleet, gave them another advantage, not less important, and that was the possibility of bringing safely to their ports and arsenals quantities of commissary and military stores, weapons, horses, and cattle, which had been ordered in Europe andAmerica. Their line of communications, furthermore, was short and secure, while we were at a distance of eight thousand versts from our base of supplies and were connected with our country only by one weak line of railway. The advantage that they had over us in this respect was immense. The slow concentration of our army, which had to be brought eight thousand versts over a single-track railroad, gave them time, after the war began, to form new bodies of troops, in considerable numbers, and send them to the front. They had time enough, also, to supply their army with innumerable machine guns, after they had observed, in the early stages of the war, the importance of machine-gun fire.

The field of military operations in Manchuria had been familiar to the Japanese ever since their war with China. Its heat, its heavy rains, its mountains and its kiaoliang, were well known to them, because they had seen them all in their own country. In the mountains, especially, they felt perfectly at home, while a mountainous environment, to our troops, was oppressive. The Japanese, moreover, in their ten years of preparation for war with us, had not only studied Manchuria, but had secured there their own agents, who were of the greatest use to their army. The Chinese, I may add, assisted the Japanese, notwithstanding the severity and even cruelty with which the latter treated them.

The Japanese had a considerable advantage over us, also, in their high-powered ammunition, their machine guns, their innumerable mountain guns, their abundant supply of explosives, and their means of attack and defence in the shape of wire, mines, and hand grenades. Their organization, equipment, and transport carts were all better adapted to the field of operations than ours were, and their bodies of sappers were more numerous than ours.

The Japanese soldiers had been so trained as to develop self-reliance and ability to take the lead, and they were credited by foreign military observers with "intelligence, initiative, and quickness," In the fighting instructions that were given them, very material changes were made after the war began. At the outset, for example, night attacks were not recommended; but they soon satisfied themselves that night attacks were profitable and they afterward made great use of them. Major von Luwitz, of the German army, in a brochure entitled "The Japanese Attack in the War in Eastern Asia in 1904-05" says that while the Japanese did not neglect any means of making attacks effective, the secret of their success lay in their determination to get close to the enemy, regardless of consequences.

The non-commissioned officers in the Japanese army were much superior to ours, on account of the better education and greater intellectual development of the Japanese common people. Many of them might have discharged the duties of commissioned officers with perfect success. The defects of our soldiers—both regulars and reservists—were the defects of the population as a whole. The peasants were imperfectly developed intellectually, and they made soldiers who had the same failing. The intellectual backwardness of our soldiers was a great disadvantage to us, because war now requires far more intelligence and initiative, on the part of the individual soldier, than ever before. Our men fought heroically in compact masses, or in fairly close formation, but if deprived of their officers they were more likely to fall back than to advance. In the mass we had immense strength; but few of our soldiers were capable of fighting intelligently as individuals. In this respect the Japanese were much superior to us. Their non-commissioned officers were far better developed, intellectually, than ours, and among such officers, as well as among many of the common soldiers, whom we took as prisoners, we found diaries which showed not only good education but knowledge of what was happening and intelligent comprehension of the military problems to be solved. Many of them could draw maps skilfully, and one common soldier was able to show accurately, by means of a plan sketched in the sand, the relative positions of the Japanese forces and ours.

But the qualities that contributed most to the triumph of the Japanese were their high moral spirit, and the stubborn determination with which the struggle for success was carried on by every man in their army, from the common soldier to the commander-in-chief. In many cases, their situation was so distressing that it required extraordinary power of will on their part to stand fast or to advance. But the officers seemed to have resolution enough to call on their men for impossible efforts—not even hesitating to shoot those that fell back—and the soldiers, rallying their last physical and spiritual strength, often wrested the victory away from us. One thing is certain: if the whole Japanese army had not been inspired with an ardent patriotism; if it had not been sympathetically supported by the whole nation; and if all its officers and soldiers had not appreciated the immense importance of the struggle, even such resolution as that of the Japanese leaders would have failed to achieve such results.

THEDEATH OFHENRY IRVINGBYELLEN TERRY

BYELLEN TERRY

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS

I havenow nearly finished the history of my fifty years upon the stage.

A good deal has been left out through want of skill in selection. Some things have been included which perhaps it would have been wiser to omit. I have tried my best to tell "all things faithfully," and it is possible that I have given offence where offence was not dreamed of; that some people will think that I should not have said this, while others, approving of "this," will be quite certain that I ought not to have said "that."

"One said it thundered ... another that an angel spake——"

It's the point of view.

During my struggles with my refractory, fragmentary, and unsatisfactory memories, I have realised that life itself is a point of view. So if any one said to me: "And is this, then, what you call your life?" I should not resent the question one little bit.

"We have heard," continues my imaginary and disappointed interlocutor, "a great deal about your life in the theatre. You have told us of plays and parts and rehearsals, of actors good and bad, of critics and of playwrights, of success and failure, but after all your whole life has not been lived in the theatre. Have you nothing to tell us about your different homes, your family life, your social diversions, your friends and acquaintances? During your long life there have been great changes in manners and customs; political parties have altered; a great Queen has died; your country has been engaged in two or three serious wars. Did all these things make no impression on you? Can you tell us nothing of your life in the world?"

And I have to answer that I have lived very little in the world. After all, the life of an actress belongs to the theatre, as the life of a politician to the State.

The recognition of my fifty years of stage life by the public and by my profession was quite unexpected. Henry Irving said to me not long before his death in 1905 that he believed that they (the theatrical profession) "intended to celebrate our Jubilee." (If he had lived, he would have completed his fifty years on the stage in the autumn of 1906.) He said that there would be a monster performance at Drury Lane, and that already the profession were discussing what form it was to take.

After his death, I thought no more of the matter. Indeed, I did not want to think about it, for any recognition of my Jubilee which did not include his seemed to me very unnecessary.

SIR HENRY IRVINGFROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN THE POSSESSION OF MISS EVELYN SMALLEY

SIR HENRY IRVING

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN THE POSSESSION OF MISS EVELYN SMALLEY

From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley"OLIVIA"DRAWN BY SIR EDWIN HENRY FOR MISS HENRY'S JUBILEE PROGRAMME

From the collection of Miss Evelyn Smalley

"OLIVIA"

DRAWN BY SIR EDWIN HENRY FOR MISS HENRY'S JUBILEE PROGRAMME

Of course, I was pleased that others thought it necessary. I enjoyed all the celebrations. Even the speeches that I had to make did not spoil my enjoyment. The difficulty was to thank people as they deserved.

I can never forget that London's youngest newspaper first conceived the idea of celebrating my stage Jubilee. Of course, the old-established journals didn't like it, but I suppose no scheme of this kind is ever organized without some people not liking something!

The matinée given in my honour at Drury Lane by the theatrical profession was a wonderful sight. The two things about it which touched me most deeply were my visit the night before to the crowd who were waiting to get into the gallery, and the presence of Eleonora Duse, who came all the way from Florence just to honour me. I appreciated very much, too, the kindness of Signor Caruso in singing for me. I did not know him at all, and the gift of his service was essentially the impersonal desire of an artist to honour another artist.

When the details of my Jubilee performance at Drury Lane were being arranged, the committee decided to ask certain distinguished artists to contribute to the programme. They were all delighted about it, and such busy men as Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Mr. Abbey, Mr. Byam Shaw, Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Bernard Partridge, Mr. James Pryde, Mr. Orpen, and Mr. William Nicholson all gave some of their work to me. Mr. Sargent was asked if he would allow the first Lady Macbeth sketch to be reproduced. He found that it would not reproduce well, so in the height of the season and of his work with fashionable sitters, he did an entirely new sketch, in black and white, of the same subject! This act of kind friendship I could never forget, even if the picture were not in front of me at this minute to remind me of it! "You must think of me as one of the people bowing down to you in the picture," he wrote to me when he sent the new version for the programme. Nothing during my Jubilee celebrations touched me more than this wonderful kindness of Mr. Sargent's.

Burne-Jones would have done something for my Jubilee programme too, I think, had he lived. He was one of my kindest friends, and his letters—he was a heaven-born letter-writer—were like no one else's, full of charm and humour and feeling. Once, when I sent him a trifle for some charity, he wrote me this particularly charming letter:

"Dear Lady,"This morning came the delightful crinkly paper that always means you! If anybody else ever used it, I think I should assault them!I certainly wouldn't read their letter or answer it."And I know the cheque will be very useful. If I thought much about those wretched homes, or saw them often, I should do no more work, I know. There is but one thing to do—to help with a little money if you can manage it, and then try hard to forget. Yes, I am certain that I should never paint again if I saw much of those hopeless lives that have no remedy....From the collection of Miss Evelyn SmalleyCopyright by Window & GroveELLEN TERRY AS HERMIONE IN "THE WINTER'S TALE"THE PART PLAYED BY MISS TERRY AT HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE IN 1906"You would always have been lovely and made some beauty about you if you had been born there—but I should have got drunk and beaten my family and been altogether horrible! When everything goes just as I like, and painting prospers a bit, and the air is warm, and friends well, and everything perfectly comfortable, I can just manage to behave decently, and a spoilt fool I am—that's the truth. But wherever you were, some garden would grow."Yes, I know Winchelsea and Rye and Lynn and Hythe—all bonny places, and Hythe has a church it may be proud of. Under the sea is another Winchelsea, a poor drowned city—about a mile out at sea, I think, always marked in old maps as 'Winchelsea Dround.' If ever the sea goes back on that changing coast, there may be great fun when the spires and towers come up again. It's a pretty land to drive in."I am growing downright stupid—I can't work at all, nor think of anything. Will my wits ever come back to me?"And when are you coming back—when willthe Lyceum be in its rightful hands again? I refuse to go there till you come back...."

"Dear Lady,

"This morning came the delightful crinkly paper that always means you! If anybody else ever used it, I think I should assault them!I certainly wouldn't read their letter or answer it.

"And I know the cheque will be very useful. If I thought much about those wretched homes, or saw them often, I should do no more work, I know. There is but one thing to do—to help with a little money if you can manage it, and then try hard to forget. Yes, I am certain that I should never paint again if I saw much of those hopeless lives that have no remedy....

From the collection of Miss Evelyn SmalleyCopyright by Window & GroveELLEN TERRY AS HERMIONE IN "THE WINTER'S TALE"THE PART PLAYED BY MISS TERRY AT HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE IN 1906

From the collection of Miss Evelyn SmalleyCopyright by Window & Grove

ELLEN TERRY AS HERMIONE IN "THE WINTER'S TALE"

THE PART PLAYED BY MISS TERRY AT HIS MAJESTY'S THEATRE IN 1906

"You would always have been lovely and made some beauty about you if you had been born there—but I should have got drunk and beaten my family and been altogether horrible! When everything goes just as I like, and painting prospers a bit, and the air is warm, and friends well, and everything perfectly comfortable, I can just manage to behave decently, and a spoilt fool I am—that's the truth. But wherever you were, some garden would grow.

"Yes, I know Winchelsea and Rye and Lynn and Hythe—all bonny places, and Hythe has a church it may be proud of. Under the sea is another Winchelsea, a poor drowned city—about a mile out at sea, I think, always marked in old maps as 'Winchelsea Dround.' If ever the sea goes back on that changing coast, there may be great fun when the spires and towers come up again. It's a pretty land to drive in.

"I am growing downright stupid—I can't work at all, nor think of anything. Will my wits ever come back to me?

"And when are you coming back—when willthe Lyceum be in its rightful hands again? I refuse to go there till you come back...."

150 GRAFTON STREETTHE HOUSE WHERE HENRY IRVING LIVED DURING THE PERIOD OF HIS LYCEUM MANAGEMENT

150 GRAFTON STREET

THE HOUSE WHERE HENRY IRVING LIVED DURING THE PERIOD OF HIS LYCEUM MANAGEMENT

One of those little things almost too good to be true happened at the close of the Drury Lane matinée. A four-wheeler was hailed for me by the stage-door keeper, and my daughter and I drove off to Lady Bancroft's in Berkeley Square to leave some flowers. Outside the house, the cabman told my daughter that in old days he had often driven Charles Kean from the Princess Theatre, and that sometimes the little Miss Terrys were put inside the cab too and given a lift! My daughter thought it such an extraordinary coincidence that the old man should have come to the stage door of Drury Lane by a mere chance on my Jubilee day, that she took his address, and I was to send him a photograph and remuneration. But I promptly lost the address, and was never able to trace the old man.

I was often asked during these Jubilee days, "how I felt about it all," and I never could answer sensibly. The strange thing is that I don't know even now what was in my heart. Perhaps it was one of my chief joys that I had not to say good-bye at any of the celebrations. I could still speak to my profession as a fellow-comrade on the active list and to the public as one still in their service.

All the time I knew perfectly well that the great show of honour and "friending" was not for me alone. Never for one instant did I forget this, nor that the light of the great man by whose side I had worked for a quarter of a century was still shining on me from his grave.

It is commonly known, I think, that Henry Irving's health first began to fail in 1896.

He went home to Grafton Street after the first night of the revival of "Richard III." and slipped on the stairs, injuring his knee. With characteristic fortitude, he struggled to his feet unassisted and walked to his room. This made the consequences of the accident far more serious, and he was not able to act for weeks.

It was a bad year at the Lyceum.

In 1898, when we were on tour, he caught a chill. Inflammation of the lungs, bronchitis, pneumonia followed. His heart was affected. He was never really well again.

When I think of his work during the next seven years, I could weep! Never was there a more admirable, extraordinary worker; never was any one more splendid-couraged and patient.

The seriousness of his illness in 1898 was never really known. He nearly died.

"I am still fearfully anxious about H," I wrote to my daughter at the time. "It will be a long time at the best before he gains strength.... But now I do hope for the best. I'm fairly well so far. All he wants is for me to keep my health, not my head. He knows I'm doing that! Last night I did three acts of Sans-Gêne and Nance Oldfield thrown in! That is a bit too much—awful work—and I can't risk it again.

"A telegram just came: 'Steadily improving.'... You should have seen Norman[I]as Shylock! It was not a bare 'get-through.' It was—the first night—an admirable performance, as well as a plucky one.... H. is more seriously ill than anyone dreams.... His look! Like the last act of Louis XI."

HENRY IRVING AS BECKETTHE PART IN WHICH IRVING MADE HIS LAST APPEARANCE ON OCTOBER 13, 1905, THE NIGHT OF HIS DEATH

HENRY IRVING AS BECKET

THE PART IN WHICH IRVING MADE HIS LAST APPEARANCE ON OCTOBER 13, 1905, THE NIGHT OF HIS DEATH

In 1902, on the last provincial tour that we ever went together, he was ill again, but he did not give in. One night when his cough was rending him, and he could hardly stand up for weakness, he acted so brilliantly and strongly that it was easy to believe in Christian Science "treatment." Strange to say, a newspaper man noticed the splendid power of his performance that night and wrote of it with uncommon discernment—aprovincialcritic, by the way.

In London, at the time, they were always urging Henry Irving to produce new plays by new playwrights! But in the face of the failure of most of the new work, and of his departing strength—and of the extraordinary support given him in the old plays (during this 1902 tour we took £4,000 at Glasgow in one week!)—Henry took the wiser course in doing nothing but the old plays to the end of the chapter.

I realised how near, not only the end of the chapter, but the end of the book was when he was taken ill at Wolverhampton in the spring of 1905.

We had not acted together for more than two years then, and times were changed indeed.

I went down to Wolverhampton when the news of his illness reached London. I arrived late and went to an hotel. It was not a good hotel, nor could I find a very good florist when I got up early the next day and went out with theintention of buying Henry some flowers. I wanted some bright-coloured ones for him—he had always liked bright flowers—and this florist dealt chiefly in white flowers—funeralflowers.

At last I found some daffodils—my favourite flower. I bought a bunch, and the kind florist, whose heart was in the right place if his flowers were not, found me a nice simple glass to put it in. I knew the sort of vase that I should find at Henry's hotel.

I remembered, on my way to the doctor's—for I had decided to see the doctor first—that in 1892, when my dear mother died, and I did not act for a few nights, when I came back, I found my room at the Lyceum filled with daffodils. "To make it look like sunshine," Henry said.

The doctor talked to me quite frankly.

"His heart is dangerously weak," he said.

"Have you told him?" I asked.

"I had to, because, the heart being in that condition, he must be careful."

"Did he understandreally?"

"Oh, yes. He said he quite understood."

(Yet, a few minutes later when I saw Henry, and begged him to remember what the doctor had said about his heart, he exclaimed: "Fiddle! It's not my heart at all! It's mybreath!" Oh, the ignorance of great men!)

"I also told him," the Wolverhampton doctor went on, "that he must not work so hard in future."

I said; "He will, though,—and he's stronger than any one."

Then I went round to the hotel.

I found him sitting up in bed, drinking his coffee.

He looked like some beautiful gray tree that I have seen in Savannah. His old dressing-gown hung about his frail yet majestic figure like some mysterious gray drapery.

We were both very much moved and said little.

"I'm glad you've come. Two Queens have been kind to me this morning. Queen Alexandra telegraphed to say how sorry she was I was ill, and now you——"

He showed me the Queen's gracious message.

I told him he looked thin and ill, butrested.

"Rested! I should think so. I have plenty of time to rest. They tell me I shall be here eight weeks. Of course I shan't, but still—It was that rug in front of the door. I tripped over it. A commercial traveller picked me up—a kind fellow, but damn him, he wouldn't leave me afterwards—wanted to talk to me all night."

I remembered his having said this, when I was told by his servant, Walter Collinson, that on the night of his death at Bradford he stumbled over the rug when he walked into the hotel corridor.

We fell to talking about work. He said he hoped that I had a good manager ... agreed very heartily with me about Frohman, saying he was always so fair—more than fair.

"What a wonderful life you've had, haven't you?" I exclaimed, thinking of it all in a flash.

"Oh, yes," he said quietly, ... "a wonderful life—of work."

Copyright by the London Stereoscopic Co.HENRY IRVING AS MATTHIAS IN "THE BELLS"IRVING GAVE HIS LAST PERFORMANCE OF "THE BELLS" AT BRADFORD, ON OCTOBER 12, 1905, THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH

HENRY IRVING AS MATTHIAS IN "THE BELLS"

IRVING GAVE HIS LAST PERFORMANCE OF "THE BELLS" AT BRADFORD, ON OCTOBER 12, 1905, THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH

IRVING'S DEATH MASK

"And there's nothing better, after all, is there?"

"Nothing."

"What have you got out of it all?... You and I are 'getting on,' as they say. Do you ever think, as I do sometimes, what you have got out of life?"

"What have I got out of it?" said Henry, stroking his chin and smiling slightly. "Let me see.... Well, a good cigar, a good glass of wine—good friends—" Here he kissed my hand with courtesy. Always he was so courteous—always his actions, like this little one of kissing my hand, were so beautifully timed. They came just before the spoken words, and gave them peculiar value.

"That's not a bad summing up of it all," I said. "And the end.... How would you like that to come?"

"How would I like that to come?" He repeated my question, lightly, yet meditatively too. Then he was silent for some thirty seconds before he snapped his fingers—the action again before the words.

"Like that!"

I thought of the definition of inspiration—"A calculation quickly made." Perhaps he had never thought of the manner of his death before. Now he had an inspiration as to how it would come.

We were silent a long time, I thinking how like some splendid Doge of Venice he looked, sitting up in bed, his beautiful mobile hand stroking his chin.

I agreed, when I could speak, that to be snuffed out like a candle would save a lot of trouble.

After Henry Irving's death in October of the same year, some of his friends protested against the statement that it was the kind of death he desired—that they knew, on the contrary, that he thought sudden death inexpressibly sad.

I can only say what he told me.

I stayed with him about three hours at Wolverhampton. Before I left, I went back to see the doctor again—a very nice man, by the way, and clever. He told me that Henry ought never to play "The Bells" again, even if he acted again, which he said ought not to be.

It was clever of the doctor to see what a terrible emotional strain "The Bells" put upon Henry—how he never could play the part of Matthias "on his head," as he could Louis XI., for example.

Every time he heard the sound of the bells, the throbbing of his heart must have nearly killed him. He used always to turn quite white—there was no trick about it. It was imagination acting physically on the body.

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