by Madame de Girardin, failed to please, nor did success attend the
production of M. Romand's "Catherine II.," M. Soumet's "Jeanne d'Arc,"
in which, to the indignation of the critics, the heroine was seen at
last surrounded by real flames! or "Le Vieux de la Montagne" of M.
Latour de St. Ybars. With better fortune Rachel appeared in the same
author's "Virginie," and in the "Lucrece" of Ponsard. Voltaire's
"Oreste" was revived for her in 1845 that she might play Electre. She
personated Racine's "Athalie" in 1847, assuming long white locks,
painting furrows on her face, and disguising herself beyond
recognition, in her determination to seem completely the character she
had undertaken. In 1848 she played Agrippine in the "Britannicus" of
Racine, and dressed in plain white muslin, and clasping the
tri-colored flag to her heart, she delivered the "Marseillaise" to
please the Revolutionists, lending the air strange meaning and passion
by the intensity of her manner, as she half chanted, half recited the
words, her voice now shrill and harsh, now deep, hollow, and
reverberating--her enraptured auditors likening it in effect to
distant thunder.
To the dramatists who sought to supply her with new parts, Rachel was
the occasion of much chagrin and perplexity. After accepting Scribe's
"Adrienne Lecouvreur" she rejected it absolutely only to resume it
eagerly, however, when she learned that the leading character was to
be undertaken by Mademoiselle Rose Cheri. His "Chandelier" having met
with success, Rachel applied to De Musset for a play. She was offered,
it seems, "Les Caprices de Marianne," but meantime the poet's
"Bettine" failed, and the actress distrustfully turned away from him.
An undertaking to appear in the "Medea" of Legouve landed her in a
protracted lawsuit. The courts condemned her in damages to the amount
of two hundred francs for every day she delayed playing the part of
Medea after the date fixed upon by the management for the commencement
of the rehearsals of the tragedy. She paid nothing, however, for the
management failed to fix any such date. M. Legouve was only avenged in
the success his play obtained, in a translated form, at the hands of
Madame Ristori. In lieu of "Medea" Rachel produced "Rosemonde," a
tragedy by M. Latour de St. Ybars, which failed completely. Other
plays written for her were the "Valeria" of MM. Lacroix and Maquet, in
which she personated two characters--the Empress Messalina and her
half sister, Lysisca, a courtesan; the "Diane," of M. Augier, an
imitation of Victor Hugo's "Marion Delorme;" "Lady Tartuffe," a comedy
by Madame de Girardin; and "La Czarine," by M. Scribe. She appeared
also in certain of the characters originally contrived for
Mademoiselle Mais, such as La Tisbe in Victor Hugo's "Angelo," and the
heroines of Dumas's "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle" and of "Louise de
Lignerolles" by MM. Legouve and Dinaux.
The classical drama of France has not found much favor in England and
America. We are all, perhaps, apt to think with Thackeray
disrespectfully of the "old tragedies--well-nigh dead, and full time
too--in which half a dozen characters appear and shout sonorous
Alexandrines for half a dozen hours;" or we are disposed to agree with
Mr. Matthew Arnold, that their drama, being fundamentally insufficient
both in substance and in form, the French, with all their gifts, have
not, as we have, an adequate form for poetry of the highest class.
Those who remember Rachel, however, can testify that she breathed the
most ardent life into the frigid remains of Racine and Corneille,
relumed them with Promethean heat, and showed them to be instinct with
the truest and intensest passion--When she occupied the scene, there
could be no thought of the old artificial times of hair powder and
rouge, periwigs and patches, in connection with the characters she
represented. Phedre and Hermione, Pauline and Camille, interpreted by
her genius, became as real and natural, warm and palpitating, as
Constance or Lady Macbeth could have been when played by Mrs. Siddons,
or as Juliet when impersonated by Miss O'Neill. Before Rachel came, it
had been thought that the new romantic drama of MM. Hugo and Dumas,
because of its greater truth to nature, had given the _coup de grace_
to the old classic plays; but the public, at her bidding, turned
gladly from the spasms and the rant of "Angelo" and "Angele," "Antony"
and "Hernani," to the old-world stories, the formal tragedies of the
seventeenth century poet-dramatists of France. The actress fairly
witched her public. There was something of magic in her very presence
upon the scene.
None could fail to be impressed by the aspect of the slight, pallid
woman who seemed to gain height by reason of her slenderness, who
moved toward her audience with such simple natural majesty, who wore
and conducted her fluent classical draperies with such admirable and
perfect grace. It was as though she had lived always so attired in
tunic, peplum, and pallium--had known no other dress--not that she was
of modern times playing at antiquity, she was the muse of Greek
tragedy in person. The physical traditions of her race found
expression or incarnation in her. Her face was of refined Judaical
character--the thin nose slightly curved, the lower lip a trifle full,
but the mouth exquisitely shaped, and the teeth small, white, and
even. The profuse black-brown hair was smoothed and braided from the
broad, low, white, somewhat over-hanging brow, beneath which in shadow
the keen black eyes flashed out their lightnings, or glowed luridly
like coals at a red heat. Her gestures were remarkable for their
dignity and appropriateness; the long, slight arms lent themselves
surprisingly to gracefulness; the beautifully formed hands, with the
thin tapering fingers and the pink filbert nails, seemed always
tremblingly on the alert to add significance or accent to her
speeches. But there was eloquence in her very silence and complete
repose. She could relate a whole history by her changes of facial
expression. She possessed special powers of self-control; she was
under subjection to both art and nature when she seemed to abandon
herself the most absolutely to the whirlwind of her passion. There
were no undue excesses of posture, movement, or tone. Her attitudes,
it was once said, were those of "a Pythoness cast in bronze." Her
voice thrilled and awed at its first note: it was so strangely deep,
so solemnly melodious, until, stirred by passion as it were, it became
thick and husky in certain of its tones; but it was always audible,
articulate, and telling, whether sunk to a whisper or raised
clamorously. Her declamation was superb, if, as critics reported,
there had been decline in this matter during those later years of her
life, to which my own acquaintance with Rachel's acting is confined. I
saw her first at the Francais in 1849, and I was present at her last
performance at the St. James' Theatre in 1853, having in the interval
witnessed her assumption of certain of her most admired characters.
And it may be true, too, that, like Kean, she was more and more
disposed, as the years passed, to make "points," to slur over the less
important scenes, and reserve herself for a grand outburst or a
vehement climax, sacrificing thus many of the subtler graces,
refinements, and graduations of elocution, for which she had once been
famous. To English ears, it was hardly an offence that she broke up
the sing-song of the rhymed tirades of the old plays and gave them a
more natural sound, regardless of the traditional methods of speech of
Clairon, Le Kain, and others of the great French players of the past.
[Illustration: Rachel as the Muse of Greek Tragedy.]
Less success than had been looked for attended Rachel's invasion of
the repertory of Mlle. Mars, an actress so idolized by the Parisians
that her sixty years and great portliness of form were not thought
hindrances to her personation of the youthful heroines of modern
comedy and drama. But Rachel's fittest occupation and her greatest
triumphs were found in the classical poetic plays. She, perhaps,
intellectualized too much the creations of Hugo, Dumas, and Scribe;
gave them excess of majesty. Her histrionic style was too exalted an
ideal for the conventional characters of the drama of her own time; it
was even said of her that she could not speak its prose properly or
tolerably. She disliked the hair-powder necessary to Adrienne
Lecouvreur and Gabrielle de Belle Isle, although her beauty, for all
its severity, did not lose picturesqueness in the costumes of the time
of Louis XV. As Gabrielle she was more girlish and gentle, pathetic,
and tender, than was her wont, while the signal fervor of her speech
addressed to Richelieu, beginning, "Vous mentez, Monsieur le Duc,"
stirred the audience to the most excited applause.
Rachel was seen upon the stage for the last time at Charleston on
December 17, 1856. She played Adrienne Lecouvreur. She had been
tempted to America by the prospect of extravagant profits. It had been
dinned into her ears that Jenny Lind, by thirty-eight performances in
America, had realized seventeen hundred thousand francs. Why might not
she, Rachel, receive as much? And then, she was eager to quit Paris.
There had been strange worship there of Madame Ristori, even in the
rejected part of Medea. But already Rachel's health was in a
deplorable state. Her constitution, never very strong, had suffered
severely from the cruel fatigues, the incessant exertions, she had
undergone. It may be, too, that the deprivations and sufferings of her
childhood now made themselves felt as over-due claims that could be no
longer denied or deferred. She forced herself to play, in fulfilment
of her engagement, but she was languid, weak, emaciated; she coughed
incessantly, her strength was gone; she was dying slowly but certainly
of phthisis. And she appeared before an audience that applauded her,
it is true, but cared nothing for Racine and Corneille, knew little of
the French language, and were urgent that she should sing the
"Marseillaise" as she had sung it in 1848! It was forgotten, or it was
not known in America, that the actress had long since renounced
revolutionary sentiments to espouse the cause of the Second Empire.
She performed all her more important characters, however, at New York,
Philadelphia, and Boston. Nor was the undertaking commercially
disappointing, if it did not wholly satisfy expectation. She returned
to France possessed of nearly three hundred thousand francs as her
share of the profits of her forty-two performances in the United
States; but she returned to die. The winter of 1856 she passed at
Cairo. She returned to France in the spring of 1857, but her
physicians forbade her to remain long in Paris. In September she moved
again to the South, finding her last retreat in the villa Sardou, at
Cannet, a little village in the environs of Cannes. She lingered to
January 3, 1858. The Theatre Francais closed its doors when news
arrived of her death, and again on the day of her funeral. The body
was embalmed and brought to Paris for interment in the cemetery of
Pere la Chaise, the obsequies being performed in accordance with the
Jewish rites. The most eminent of the authors and actors of France
were present, and funeral orations were delivered by MM. Jules Janin,
Bataille, and Auguste Maquet. Victor Hugo was in exile; or, as Janin
announced, the author of "Angelo" would not have withheld the tribute
of his eulogy upon the sad occasion.
EDWIN BOOTH[15]
[Footnote 15: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
By CLARENCE COOK
(1833-1893)
[Illustration: Edwin Booth.]
The great actor who has lately left the world furnished, in his own
remarkable character and shining career, a striking exception to the
popular tradition that men of genius are the fathers of ordinary sons.
The father of Edwin Booth was in his time one of the glories of the
English and American stage; but, even in his case the strict rule
wavered, for his father, though not a genius, was yet a man of
exceptional character; one who marked out a clear path for himself in
the world, and walked in it to the end.
How far back the line of the family can be traced, or what was its
origin, we do not know; but it has lately been said that the family
was of Hebrew extraction, and came into England from Spain, where it
had been known by the Spanish name, Cabana. The branch of the family
that left Spain to live in England translated the name into the
language of their new home, and from "Cabana," a shepherd's cabin,
made the English equivalent, Booth.
However it may have been in this case, it was quite in the order of
things that this change of name should be made. It has been done
everywhere in Europe since very early times, and is doing to-day in
this country by new comers from all parts of the old world.
The first of the Booths we read of in England was a silversmith,
living in Bloomsbury, London, in the latter half of the last century.
He had a son, Richard, who was bred to the law, but who was so imbued
with the republican ideas rife at the time that he actually came to
America to fight in the cause of Independence! He was taken prisoner,
and carried back to England, where, not without some struggles, he
again applied himself to the practice of the law, and in time made a
fortune. He did not, however, forget America, and we are told that he
had, hanging in his house, a portrait of Washington, which he expected
all his visitors to salute.
One of the ways in which the republicans of that time showed where
their sympathies lay, was in naming their children after the heroes of
Greece and Rome; and accordingly we find Richard Booth calling his
eldest son, Junius Brutus Booth, after the Roman patriot. This son was
born in London, in 1796. His father was a man of scholarly tastes, and
gave the boy a classical education, but it was long before he showed a
marked inclination for any particular walk in life. He tried his hand
at painting, sculpture, and poetry; and for a while studied law with
his father. But, when the time came to choose, he gave his voice for
the navy, and would have joined the brig Boxer, then fitting out for
Nova Scotia. But, as war threatened between England and America, he
was induced, by the strong persuasions of his father, not to run the
risk of being forced to fight against America. He then decided to go
upon the stage, and, in spite of his father's remonstrances, carried
out his purpose. After some unimportant essays he at last succeeded in
attracting public attention, and before long showed such unmistakable
ability in dealing with difficult parts, that the public, till that
time undivided in its enthusiasm for Kean, awoke to the fact that a
dangerous rival threatened the security of their idol's throne. In the
midst of his successes, however, Booth married and left England with
his wife for a honeymoon trip to the West Indies. He had intended to
return at once to England, but he was persuaded to prolong his journey
and to visit New York. After playing a successful engagement there he
went to Richmond, where he was no less prosperous. He next visited New
Orleans and acquired such facility in speaking French that he played
parts in French plays more than acceptably, and distinguished himself
by acting Orestes in Racine's "Andromaque," to the delight of the
French-speaking population. His accent is said to have been remarkable
for its purity. Returning to New York, he acted Othello to Forrest's
Iago; but, in the midst of his successes, the death of two of his
children produced a temporary insanity, and this was made worse by the
news of the death of his favorite son, Henry Byron, in London, of
small-pox. This grievous loss was, however, to be made up to him by
his son, Edwin, in whom he was to find the counterpart of himself,
softened, refined, ennobled, while between father and son was to grow
a strong attachment, a bond of mutual affection to last as long as
life should endure.
Edwin Thomas Booth was born at Bel Air, Maryland, November 12, 1833.
He was named Edwin, after his father's friend, Edwin Forrest, and
Thomas, after Thomas Flynn, the actor, whom the elder Booth had known
intimately in London. His son dropped the name of Thomas, later in
life, and was only known to the public by the name of Edwin Booth.
Owing to his father's wandering life Edwin had few advantages of
education, but he made the most of his opportunities, and indeed was a
student of good letters all his life, turning the light of all he
learned from books and experience upon his art. His youth is described
as reticent, and marked by a strong individuality, with a deep
sympathy for his father, early manifested; his father, a much
enduring, suffering man, strongly in need of sympathy, knowing to
repay it, too, in kind.
Edwin Booth made his first appearance on the stage in 1849 at the
Boston Museum in the youthful part of Tressil, in Colley Cibber's
version of Shakespeare's "Richard III." It had been against his
father's wishes that he had adopted the stage as a profession; but,
as his father had done in a like case before him he persevered, and
soon had the satisfaction of convincing his parent that he had decided
wisely. He did not at once come to New York after his success in
Boston, but went to Providence and to Philadelphia, acting Cassio in
"Othello," and Wilford in the "Iron Chest," a part he soon made his
own and in which he made his first appearance in New York, playing at
the National Theatre in Chatham Street, in 1850. The next year he
played Richard III. for the first time, taking the part unexpectedly
to fill the place of his father, who was suddenly ill. In 1852 he went
out with his father to San Francisco, where his brother, Junius Brutus
Booth, Jr., was the manager of a theatre; and the father and his two
sons acted together. At Sacramento, we are told that the incident
occurred which led Edwin Booth to think of acting Hamlet, a part which
was to become as closely associated with his name as that of Richard
III. was with his father. He was dressed for the part of Jaffier in
Otway's play, "Venice Preserved," when some one said to him "You look
like Hamlet, why not play it?" It was, however, some time before he
ventured to assume the part. In October, 1852, the father and son
parted, not to meet again. The elder Booth went to New Orleans, and
after playing for a week took passage in a steamboat on the
Mississippi, and catching a severe cold succumbed after a few days'
illness and died. For a while after his father's death Edwin suffered
greatly from poverty and from the hardships of his precarious life,
unsustained as he now was by the affection and encouragement of a
father who, with all his faults, and in all the misfortunes brought on
by serious ill-health and some aberrations that were the effect of
ill-health had always been an affectionate and true friend. But a
talent such as Edwin Booth possessed, united to a high character, and
to a dauntless spirit, could not long be hid, and in a short time his
name began to be heard of as that of one destined to great ends. In
1854 he went to Australia as a member of Laura Keene's company. He had
made a deep impression in California, acting such parts as Richard
III., Shylock, Macbeth, and Hamlet, and on returning there from
Australia that first impression was greatly strengthened. On leaving
San Francisco he received various testimonials showing the high esteem
in which his acting was held by the educated part of the community;
but throughout Edwin Booth's career, the interest he excited in the
vast audiences that followed him was by no means confined to the
self-styled "best people." Though he never "played to the gallery,"
the heart of the gallery was as much with him as the heart of the
boxes, and he knew the value of its rapt silence as well as of its
stormy voices.
In Boston, in 1857, he played Sir Giles Overreach, in Massinger's "A
New Way to Pay Old Debts," and the profound impression he made in it
confirmed him in his purpose to devote himself to tragic acting. The
story of an actor's life is seldom eventful, and Mr. Booth's history,
after his first assured success, is the record of a long line of
triumphs without a failure. The most remarkable of these triumphs was
at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, where he acted Hamlet to
large and ever-increasing audiences for over one hundred successive
nights, that is, from November 21, 1864, to March 24, 1865. On this
occasion a gold medal was presented to the actor by friends and
admirers in New York; the list of subscribers including the names of
many well-known citizens. The Winter Garden Theatre was managed by
Booth and his brother-in-law, the clever actor, J. S. Clarke, until
Booth bought out Clarke and assumed the entire management himself. In
1865 the terrible tragedy occurred which blighted Booth's whole
after-life, and for a time drove him from the stage. He did not act
again until 1866; in 1867 the theatre was destroyed by fire, and in
1868 the corner-stone of a new building, to be known as Booth's
Theatre, was laid, and in a short time New York was in possession, for
the first time, of a thoroughly appointed, comfortable, and handsome
theatre. This building was made famous by a number of Shakespearian
revivals that for beauty, magnificence, and scenic poetry have, we
believe, never been equalled. We doubt if "Hamlet," "Julius Caesar," or
"Romeo and Juliet," have ever been presented with more satisfying
completeness to the eye and to the imagination than in this theatre by
Mr. Booth and his company. Although the theatre was in existence for
thirteen years, from 1868 to 1882, when it was finally closed, Mr.
Booth's management lasted only about half that time. The speculation
was not a fortunate one for the actor; the expenses ate up all the
profits, and Mr. Booth was bankrupted by his venture. He paid all his
debts, however, and went bravely to work to build up a new fortune. He
made a tour of the South, which was one long ovation, and in a season
of eight weeks in San Francisco he took in $96,000.
In 1880 he went to England and remained there two years. In 1882 he
visited Germany, acting in both countries with great success, and in
1883 he returned home and made a tour of America, repeating everywhere
his old triumphs, and winning golden opinions from all classes of his
countrymen.
Edwin Booth died in New York, June 7, 1893, at the Players' Club,
where he had lived for the last few years of his life. This was a
building erected by his own munificence, fitted up with luxurious
completeness, and presented to a society of his professional brethren
for the use and behoof of his fellow-artists, reserving for himself
only the modest apartment where he chose to live, in sympathetic touch
with those who still pursued the noble art he had relinquished.
Mr. Booth was twice married. By his first wife, Miss Mary Devlin, who
died in 1863, he had one child, a daughter; by the second, Miss
McVicker, he had no children. She died in 1881.
[Signature of the author.]
JOSEPH JEFFERSON[16]
[Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
By CLARENCE COOK
(BORN 1829)
[Illustration: Joseph Jefferson.]
Joseph Jefferson, distinguished, among his other brilliant successes
as an actor, as the creator for this generation of the character of
Rip Van Winkle in the play dramatized from the story in Washington
Irving's "Sketch Book," was the third of his name in a family of
actors. The first of the three was born at Plymouth, England, in 1774.
He was the son of Thomas Jefferson, a comedian of merit, the
contemporary and friend of Garrick, and came to this country in 1795,
making his first appearance in New York on February 10, 1796, in the
part of Squire Richard in "The Provoked Husband." Dunlap says that,
young as he was, he was already an artist, and that among the men of
the company he held the first place. He lived in this country for
thirty-six years, admired as an actor and respected as a man. He died
at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1832.