His mother, however, could not reconcile herself to his taking so serious a step as “going on the stage.” “I used frequently,” writes his companion at the elocution class, “to visit at her house to rehearse the scenes in which John and I were to act together. I remember her as being rather tall, somewhat stately, and very gentle. On one occasion she begged me very earnestly to dissuade him from thinking of the stage as a profession; and having read much of the vicissitudes of actors’ lives, their hardships, and the precariousness of their work, I did my best to impress this view upon him.” But it is ever idle thus striving to hinder a child’s purpose when it has been deliberately adopted. Having come to this resolution, he applied earnestly to the task of preparing himself for his profession. He learned a vast number of characters; studied, and practised; even took lessons in fencing, attending twice a week at a school-of-arms in Chancery Lane. This accomplishment, often thought trifling, was once an important branch of an actor’s education; it supplies an elegance of movement and bearing. “The die being now cast,” according to the accepted expression, John Brodribb, who had now become Henry Irving, bade adieu to his desk, and bethinking him of the Hoskins letter, applied to Mr. Davis, a country manager, who had just completed the building of a new theatre at Sunderland. With a slender stock of money he set off for that town. By an odd coincidence the name of the new house was the Lyceum. The play appointed was ‘Richelieu,’ and the opening night was fixed for September 29, 1856. The young actor was cast for the part of the Duke of Orleans, and had to speak the opening words of the piece.