I hear many tales of the insolence of stars--of their overbearing
manners, and their injustice to "little people," as the term goes; but
personally I have seen almost nothing of it. In the old days stars were
generally patient and courteous in their manners to the supporting
companies.
Among the stars whose coming was always hailed with joy was Edwin Adams,
he of the golden voice, he who should have prayed with fervor, both day
and night: "Oh, God! protect me from my friends!" He was so popular with
men, they sought him out, they followed him, and they generally expressed
their liking through the medium of food and drink. Like every other
sturdy man that's worth his salt, he could stand off an enemy, but he was
as weak as water in the hands of a friend, and thus it came about that he
often stood in slippery places, and though he fell again and again, yet
was he forgiven as often as he sinned, and heartily welcomed back the
next season, so great was his power to charm.
He was not handsome, he was not heroic in form, but there was such dash
and go, such sincerity and naturalness in all his work, that whether he
was love-making or fighting, singing or dying, he convinced you he was
the character's self, whether that character was the demented victim of
the _Bastille_, young _Rover_ in "Wild Oats," or that most gallant
gentleman _Mercutio_, in which no greater ever strode than that of Edwin
Adams. His buoyancy of spirit, his unconquerable gayety made it seem but
natural his passion for jesting should go with him to the very grave.
Many a fine _Mercutio_ gives:
"----a plague o' both your houses!"
with a resentful bitterness that implies blame to _Romeo_ for his "taking
off," which would be a most cruel legacy of grief and remorse to leave to
his young friend--but Adams was that brave _Mercutio_:
"That gallant spirit that aspired the clouds,
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth."
and whose last quips, coming faintly across paling lips, expressed still
good-natured fun, and so:
"----a plague o' both your houses!"
but no blame at all.
His grace of movement and his superb voice were his greatest gifts. Most
stars had one rather short play which they reserved for Saturday nights,
that they might be able to catch their night train _en route_ for the
next engagement; so it happened that Mr. Adams, having bravely held
temptation from him during the first five nights, generally yielded to
the endearments of his friends by the sixth, and was most anyone but
himself when he came to dress for the performance of a play most
suggestively named: "The Drunkard." It was a painful and a humiliating
sight to see him wavering uncertainly in the entrance. All brightness,
intelligence, and high endeavor extinguished by liquor's murky fog. His
apologies were humble and evidently sincere, but the sad memory was one
not to be forgotten.
I had just married, and we were in San Francisco. I was rehearsing for my
engagement there. The papers said Mr. Adams had arrived from Australia
and had been carried on a stretcher to a hotel, where, with his devoted
wife by his side, he lay dying. A big lump rose in my throat, tears
filled my eyes. I asked my husband, who had greatly admired the actor,
and who was glad to pay him any courtesy or service possible, to call,
leave cards, and if he saw Mrs. Adams, which was improbable, to try to
coax her out for a drive, if but for half an hour, and to deliver a
message of remembrance and sympathy from me to her husband. To his
surprise, he was admitted by the dying man's desire to his room, where
the worn, weary, self-contained, ever gently smiling wife sat and, like
an automaton, fanned hour by hour, softly, steadily fanned breath between
those parched lips, that whispered a gracious message of congratulation
and thanks.
Mrs. Adams never left him, scarce took her eyes from him. Poor wife! who
knew she could hold him but a few hours longer.
My husband was deeply moved, and when he tried to describe to me that
wasted frame--those helpless hands, whose faintly twitching fingers could
no longer pluck at the folded sheet, my mind obstinately refused to
accept the picture, and instead, through a blur of tears, I saw him as on
that last morning, when in his prime, strong and gentle, at his rehearsal
of "Enoch Arden," he said to me: "I am disappointed to the very heart,
Clara, that you are not my _Annie Lee_."
He took his hat off, he drew his hand across his eyes. "I can't find
her," he said, with that touch of pathos that made his voice
irresistible; "no, I have not found her yet--they are not innocent and
brave! They are bouncing, buxom creatures or they are whimpering little
milk-sops. They are never fisher-maidens, flower-pure, yet strong as the
salt of the sea! She loved them both, Clara, yet she was no more weak nor
bad than when, with childish lips, she innocently promised to be 'a
little wife to both' the angry lads--to Philip and young Enoch! Now your
eyes are sea-eyes, and your voice--oh, I am disappointed! I thought I
should find my _Annie_ here!"
And so I see him now as I think with tender sorrow of the actor who was
so strong and yet so weak--dear Ned Adams!
When Mr. Joseph Jefferson came to us I found his acting nothing less than
a revelation. Here, in full perfection, was the style I had feebly,
almost blindly been reaching for. This man, this poet of _comedy_, as he
seemed to me, had so perfectly wedded nature to art that they were indeed
one. Here again I found the immense value of "business" the most minute,
the worth of restraint, if you had power to restrain, and learned that
his perfect naturalness was the result of his exquisite art in cutting
back and training nature's too great exuberance.
I was allowed to play _Meenie_, his daughter, in the play of "Rip Van
Winkle," and my delight knew no bounds. He was very gentle and kind, he
gave me pleasant words of praise for my work; he was very great, and--and
his eyes were fine, and I approved of his chin, too, and I was, in fact,
rapidly blending the actor and the man in one personality. In the last
act, when kneeling at his feet, during our long wait upon the stage, I
knelt and adored! and he--oh, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson, that I should
say it, but _did_ you not hold my fingers unnecessarily close when you
made some mild little remarks that were not in the play, but which filled
my breast with quite outrageous joy, and pride--indeed, my crop of young
affections, always rather a sparse growth, came very near being gathered
into a small sheaf and laid at your feet.
Fortunately, I learned in time that there was an almost brand-new wife in
the hotel next door, and I looked at him with big, reproachful eyes and
kept my fingers to myself, and wisely put off the harvesting of my
affections until some distant day.
Mind you, I was well within my rights in this matter. Girls always fall
in love with stars--some fall in love with all of them, but that must be
fatiguing; besides, as I said before, my affections were of such sparse
growth they could not go round. Yet since I could honor thus but one
star, I must say I look back with complete approval upon my early choice,
and the shock to my heart did not prevent me from treasuring up some
kindly words of advice from the artist-actor anent the making-up of eyes
for the stage.
Said he to me one evening: "My girl, I want to speak to you about that
'make-up' you have on your eyes."
"Yes, sir?" I answered, interrogatively, feeling very hot and
uncomfortable, "have I too much on?"
"Well, yes," he said, "I think you have, though you have much less than
most women wear."
"Oh, yes," I hurriedly interposed, "there was a French dancer here who
covered nearly a third of her eyelids with a broad blue-black band of
pomatum, and she said----"
"Oh," he protested, "I know, she said it made the eyes large and
lustrous, and as you see yourself in the glass it does seem to have that
effect; but, by the way, what do you think of my eyes?"