Gordon and I had the privilege of seeing Charlotte Cushman when, no longer able to act in the plays in which she had so distinguished herself, she gave a reading at one of the large halls in New York. She was infirm, less from age than a malady which was consuming her. I found an immense audience assembled in her honor. There were no more seats, no more standing room. She had no assistants, no support. A chair behind a small table was all the mise en scÈne, and here, dressed in a matronly gown of black silk and lace, the great tragedienne seated herself. Her gray hair was rolled back À la Pompadour from her broad, high forehead, and beneath black brows her eye kindled as she glanced over the fine audience. As she described it afterward, "a modest farewell reading blossomed into a brilliant testimonial." After our enthusiastic response to her graceful greeting, she said simply: "Ladies and gentlemen, I shall read—I trust for your pleasure, surely for mine," laying her hand upon her heart—"from the second scene in the third act of 'Henry the Eighth.'" It so happened there had been, incident upon her appearance, a remarkable discussion in some of the journals of the day. The wise ones, the elect, had paused in their speculations as to the authorship of "... O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies." She pointed upward as she uttered reverently the word "He." From this, after a brief pause—she did not leave her seat all evening—she passed to "Much Ado about Nothing." Never was there such a Dogberry, bursting with arrogance and ignorance. Mrs. Maloney, on the Chinese question, followed, dismissing, with inimitable impudence, the mistress who had just shown her the door. Then she became the loyal, spirited, wildly sweet Kentucky girl and her blue-grass horse, Kentucky Belle,—utterly charming, both of them,—concluding with "Molly Carew," In this she was tremendous. The policemen at the door came in to listen; the applause I soon found out how much there was in Molly Carew per se with no Charlotte Cushman to interpret! I happened to have Samuel Lover's poems, and when I reached home, I took the book from the library shelves and summoned the children to listen to the funniest thing they had ever heard in all their lives. "I warn you," said I, "you'll half kill yourselves laughing." I read "Molly Carew." Round eyes opened wider in astonishment as I proceeded. There was not a smile; not the faintest glimmer of mirth. Dead silence was broken by a polite "Is that all? Thank you, mamma," as they escaped. Oh, genius, gift of the gods! Who can measure it? Who, not born to it, can hope to win it! Who can attain even a faraway imitation of it! How it can clothe and glorify the simplest ideas! How it transfigured Charlotte Cushman—haggard and gray from keen physical suffering, knowing well that her hour was at hand! What noble restraint in her selections, ignoring pain and sorrow, denying herself the tribute of sympathy, bidding us good night with a smile on her lips and words demanding an answering smile on ours! She was once the guest of a lady who had gathered together a number of choice spirits in her honor. One of them, forgotten of her good angel, asked, "How do you like our country, madame!" "Oh," spreading out her hands to signify empty space, and speaking in a weary tone, "Oh! It is all—all one great level." "Ah, but," said her hostess, "patience! I shall introduce you by and by to a little hill." An introduction followed, and at the close of the evening Madame Modjeska, pressing the hand of her hostess at parting, said with feeling:— "Ah, madame! She was one great mountain!" Helena Modjeska. Before the war which cut me off from every pleasure demanding leisure and a little money, I heard the elder Booth in "Hamlet"—and I must In the autumn of 1882 our old Southern friend, General R. D. Lilley, visited New York in the interests of Washington and Lee University. Colonel Mapleson, with Adelina Patti, Nicolini, and the famous danseuse, Cavalassi, had just arrived for a brilliant season at the Metropolitan Opera House. General Lilley sent me a letter from Colonel Mapleson,—which lies before me,—in which he offered "a grand entertainment to be given about the 3d of March for the endowment of scholarships in Washington and Lee University, in which entertainment the leading artists of the opera would appear," and asked for a committee of ladies to act in concert with him. General Lilley was in a quandary. He knew no New York ladies. No more did I. But finally he won his way into the good graces of the widow of Governor Dix and mother of the Rev. Morgan Dix, who granted her drawing-room for our meetings, and doubtless consulted her own visiting list to find patronesses. When, at the general's earnest prayer, I went over to the first meeting, I found a noble band of women all enthusiasm over the project. I was a stranger in New York, and but dimly recognized the names on the committee with my own: Mrs. John Dix, Mrs. August Belmont, Mrs. William M. Evarts, Mrs. Francis R. Rives, Mrs. Colonel Mapleson met with us at our meetings, which Mrs. Dix made delightful. We had animated discussions over Mrs. Dix's tea-cups, and adopted fine resolutions. Patti, the colonel assured us, would sing,—certainly,—but she needed a vast deal of coaxing and mock entreaty. Then every day Nicolini—whom she had recently married—wrote us a letter presenting some difficulty which we must settle. The flowers we ordered were beyond compare—to Arditi, the orchestra leader, a large music scroll in white flowers, and upon this ground the first bars of his "Il bacio" in blue violets. To the witch Cavalassi we voted a floral slipper, to Colonel Mapleson a silken banner of Stars and Stripes. What, alas! could we do for Patti? Could anything be enough? At last we sent for Colonel Mapleson. "Ladies," he said, "this will be your easiest task. Come to the opera-house with bouquets in your hands or corsage, tied with cords you have taken from your fans, and throw them to her, impulsively. There's nothing she so dotes on as to run all over the stage and pick up flowers, affect intense surprise at each new bouquet, press them All this was done, I learned, for I was not there to see! Colonel Mapleson, however, did not forget me. He sent me the monogram cut in gold of Washington and Lee University, and I often wear it as a souvenir of my charming hours with good Mrs. Dix and her friends. When I came to the city to live, I found that Dr. Dix, his lovely mother, and many of the ladies of our committee still remembered me. This was not the last time we were together in a benevolent enterprise, nor the last time Patti honored me. Childish as were the little arts attributed to her by Colonel Mapleson, she could give evidence of a big warm heart on occasion! |