Henry Irving was now accepted by the fashionable as well as by the populace. He had become a figure in society. The man who for so long had been an unknown touring actor was described as one of the best known men in London. He did not underplay his off-stage appearance. Appearing as a ‘Celebrity at Home’, his rooms in Grafton Street were lovingly described as being entirely different from those of the ‘wealthy wifeless which abound in the vicinity’. Interviewers bring their prejudices with them, and in Irving’s rooms they found a perfect example of the confusion and neglect of order of the artistic mind. The study appears to have been a jumble of tiger-skin rugs, books, prints, and boxes of cigars, with the tables, chairs, and piano covered with manuscripts. Irving, anxious to cast off his fetters and leave Mrs Bateman and her daughters, was in a delicately embarrassing situation.