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HENRY IRVING
on the stage to the last instant of his death
agony; appearing as obviously to the view
when he tenderly embraces his daughter
as when, in talk, he nervously courses
around his secret, or turns into a statue of
anguish and terror at the imagined sound
of the memory-haunting bells.
Mr. Irving's artistic sense is exceedingly
just and delicate, and is an ever-present
factor in his performance. In witnessing
eight of his impersonations, I never saw it
fail him, except occasionally in a presen-
tation of Doricourt, in The Belle's Strat-
agem, which was given at the close of a
very fatiguing engagement. This faculty
in Mr. Irving is pictorial, — nothing about
him or his art being in any sense statu-
esque, — and makes him, with the help of
his intensity, the most entirely picturesque
actor of our time. Mademoiselle Bernhardt
has a gift of like nature, but not equally
high in quality or large in measure. In all
his assumptions there is an abundance of
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