As entertaining was always a delight to my mother, she gave several
Booth parties. It is chronicled that at one of them he spent much of his
time playing with little Maud, then some eight years old. Clearly he did
not enjoy being lionized. I have already intimated that we older girls
regarded him as a species of Olympian god. This attitude of silent
homage must have been trying to a man of his good sense and modesty. Yet
he doubtless was wise enough to make allowance for school-girls’ little
harmless follies.
The most important of these Booth parties was given at No. 13 Chestnut
Street, the house in Boston to which we removed in 1862. Every one
wanted to come to it, all sorts of people, artistic, literary and
fashionable, being anxious to meet Edwin Booth. The party was a great
success, as my mother’s entertainments usually were. I remember that
Mrs. Booth wore a high-necked silk dress of some delicate color. While
we wore _décolleté_ dresses for dances, we did not in those days think
it necessary to wear our shoulders bare on all evening occasions. At her
throat was a brooch composed of a single large opal. Her sudden death, a
few months later, recalled to us sadly the superstition about this stone
which is supposed to portend the early death of the wearer.
Sister Julia went with my mother to the funeral at Mount Auburn. Edwin
Booth was overwhelmed with grief by his wife’s sudden death. He was
acting in New York at the time, and did not reach Boston until all was
over. The sad news was not broken to him by the friends who came to meet
him until he was in the carriage. On learning it his agony was so
intense that they could with difficulty hold him.
I saw him that winter on the Brighton Road, then the gay resort of
rapidly moving sleighs. Some hopeful friend had evidently thought the
scene might divert him from his sorrow. A glance at his face and figure
showed the utter futility of this hope. Such an image of sorrow I have
never seen. His wonderfully expressive features mirrored the grief
within as only such features can, while his long black hair seemed a
fitting frame for the dark, melancholy face as he sat huddled together
in the cutter, his head sunk upon his breast. I doubt whether he saw any
one of that gay throng of people. He saw only one face, invisible to us,
and a grave in Mount Auburn a few miles away.
Fortunately he had good friends and true to help him through this sad
time. Among these were the two poets, R. H. Stoddard and Thomas W.
Parsons. In my collection of Booth relics is a note from the former to
my mother, written soon after the death of Mrs. Booth. Being very
sympathetic by nature, she did not shrink from her friends in time of
sorrow, but strove to comfort them. Mr. Stoddard writes that Booth will
see her, adding, “I think you can do him good and I have told him so.”
Doctor Parsons’ lovely verses give a true picture of Mary Booth’s
exquisite personality.
We saw a good deal of Doctor Parsons at this time. He was a man of the
greatest refinement, absolutely free from self-assertion. He had,
withal, a touch of genius. One day, on looking up from his work, he saw
Edwin Booth standing before him. The poet could but say, “Angels and
ministers of grace defend us!” his friend answering in the same sportive
strain.
Walking in the neighborhood of the old Revere House one day, I saw Edwin
Booth and a friend driving in a buggy. He had doubtless been visiting
the grave of his wife at Mount Auburn. To my surprise and pleasure, he
recognized me by a grave bow. As he had seen us all a number of times,
at the house of our parents, there was really nothing surprising in
this. But, as I have said, we regarded him as a species of superman.
After Mrs. Booth’s death we saw less of the great actor, as she had been
the gracious link that united us all. When he came to spend his summers
at Newport, a score of years later, the old friendship was pleasantly
renewed.
Wilkes Booth I saw several times on the stage in the characters of
Richard the Third, Shylock and Charles Moore in Schiller’s play of the
“Robbers.” He also was handsome, taller and heavier than his brother.
Edwin Booth was filling an engagement in Boston at the time of Lincoln’s
assassination. We had tickets bought before the dreadful news came, for
his matinée on the fatal Saturday of the President’s death. All places
of amusement were of course closed at once. The blow, a stunning one to
the whole country, brought to Edwin Booth the additional shock of his
brother’s terrible deed. It was reported at the time that he had
resolved to quit the stage forever. The actors of the day were much
troubled that a member of their profession should have perpetrated such
a crime. It was said, in their defense, that actors had seldom committed
deeds of violence.
Although Edwin Booth and Charlotte Cushman never acted in “Hippolytus,”
they did appear together in “Macbeth.” He mischievously remarked to us
that he longed to say to Miss Cushman: “Why don’t you kill him? You’re a
great deal bigger than I am.” He did not consider himself heavy enough
for the part of Macbeth. Yet his rendering of it was very impressive.
All the dreadful drama of the murder, the knocking at the outer gate,
the banquet scene where the ghost of Banquo appears, were thrilling to
witness.
Who, indeed, has rendered Shakespeare like Edwin Booth? Sir Henry Irving
could not, in my opinion, be compared with him.
Hamlet was thought his best part—indeed, we said he was the gentle
Prince of Denmark. The gravity of his disposition, “sicklied o’er with
the pale cast of thought,” his natural dignity and the grace of his
movements, all recalled Hamlet. When my mother saw him at the funeral of
his beloved wife she remembered how often she had beheld him, on the
stage, follow Ophelia to the grave.
Shakespeare’s “Richard the Third” was another character in which we
especially liked to see him. He was so handsome, so fascinating, that
the scene with Lady Anne, where he wins her from the very bier of her
murdered husband, did not seem unnatural. The scene in the tent he gave
with tremendous power. After the ghosts of his victims have appeared to
him, one after another, calling down defeat upon his head, he arouses
himself from his uneasy slumber. Still half-asleep, and fighting his way
with his sword, he staggers to the front of the stage, crying out, “Give
me another horse; bind up my wounds!” Kneeling for a moment, his
countenance still distorted, he cries out, “Have mercy, Jesu!” His
movements as he blindly made his way forward, the awful expression of
his face, with eyes rolled upward, made this scene more terrible in its
way than that of his death on Bosworth Field.
Yet this revelation of the true soul of the hump-backed king lasted but
a few moments. Soon he recovers and “Richard is himself again.” (This
phrase must have been added by Colley Cibber, for it is not in
Shakespeare.)
As “honest Iago,” the openness of his countenance somehow conveyed to
the beholder that it was assumed. Only in the final scene did he allow
the true villainy of the character to appear on his face. His Othello
was beautiful and moving. As Cardinal Richelieu he was wonderful,
portraying to the life the little, cunning, powerful, yet on the whole
benevolent old man of Bulwer’s drama. With what telling effect he drew
the magic circle and gave the curse of Rome!
I saw him as Shylock a number of times, the last time shortly before his
retirement from the stage. This impersonation had gained greatly in
power since the early days. The awful look of hatred that, during his
talk with Tubal, he allowed for a moment to play over his face was a
revelation. You caught a glimpse of the race hatred accumulated through
centuries of oppression.
Once when I thoughtlessly spoke of the principles of Christianity to a
Hebrew acquaintance, I was frightened to see something of the same
terrible expression come over his face.
When Booth was a young man he often played in comedy. The rollicking
mischief and fun of his Petruchio and Don Cæsar de Bazan we greatly
enjoyed. He gave an abbreviated version of the “Taming of the Shrew” as
companion piece to “The Iron Chest.”
His acting was of an intellectual and poetic type. It was said that
those who saw Edwin Booth play Romeo to Mary Devlin’s Juliet were not
likely to forget it. They were so young, so beautiful, so identified
with their parts. I should not say that, ordinarily, he excelled in the
lover’s rôle. Charles Fechter, in spite of his very plain face and ugly
figure, could enact the love scenes of Claude Melnotte in “The Lady of
Lyons,” with a power that Edwin Booth lacked. Was it his natural reserve
which made it distasteful and difficult for him to simulate love-making
in public? I think it was. Like Hamlet, he had loved once and deeply.
After that I fancy he took little interest in affairs of the heart. It
is true, he married again, perhaps for companionship. His second wife
did not long survive their marriage.
Tenderness of another kind he could well show forth. The scene in “King
Lear,” where he brings in the dead Cordelia in his arms, hoping she is
still alive, was an exquisite piece of acting.
Among my Booth relics is a bundle of playbills, the earliest dating back
to November 6, 1858. This shows “Miss Mary Devlin” in the principal
feminine rôle, Lady Helen, in “The Iron Chest.” The prices are
astounding. “Parquet, Balcony, and First Tier of Boxes, fifty cents;
Family Circle, twenty-five cents; Amphitheater, fifteen cents. Children
under twelve years of age, half price. Private Boxes, $6.00.”
A young friend to whom I lately showed this list exclaimed, “No wonder
Booth was a hero to the public, when the prices were so low that every
one could afford to go to see him!”
From the collection of Booth letters I have selected two from Mrs. Booth
and one from Mr. Booth himself, which will be found of interest:
MY DEAR MRS. HOWE,—I deeply regretted my absence from home
yesterday when you called—but my disappointment was greatly
soothed by soon after receiving your polite note of invitation
to visit you on Sunday.
We will “tea” with you with infinite pleasure, at the hour you
appoint—most happy, too, of another opportunity of meeting Miss
Cushman, whose near departure makes her presence doubly dear.
With great esteem,
Yours very sincerely,