The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-20

charms. For what may not come of it, If
your truth or your project shall b0urge0n and
grow in the mind of the gracious Empress,
partner of the astute potentate who holds in
his hand the lives and the labors Of fifty mil
lions of Frenchmen?
You wonder, you dream, you hope, and
you are charmed with this woman, who, in
all her beauty and greatness, listens and un-
derstands. Dear ladies, queens of hearts, see
how she fascinates, and do as she does, and
SO become Expresses in your own way
Mr.. Richard Grant White, in his paper on
''The Age of Burlesque,' gives the following
interesting "reminiscences of Rachel and
Sontag:-
have known very few actresses. Although
not without opportunities of knowing them,
can reckon my acquaintances among the la
dies of the stage almost on the fingers of one
hand. 1t has merely happened soto my
great loss, l do not doubt-although my
limited observation has confirmed what is
said by those who have known many actresses,
and known them WELL that there is no peculiar
charm in their society except a certain free
domfrOm restraint that makes intercourse with
them easier than it is with purely domestic
women. A clevera and successful actress is gene
rally charming woman, with her womanhood
slightly dashed with the open-hearted freedom
OF good fellow, and the ease and repose of
and graces being, as counterpose, little
more pronounced in her than they usually
are. But beyond wearing the rue of their
sex with this slight difference, actresses are
Just like other women; as fond of admiration,
but no fonder; no more eager to be loved or
covetous of the attentions and the gifts that
are tributes to their charms; no more addicted
to eXtravagancein dress or to luxurious living
for which, indeed, they very rarely have the
means at their command: no less gifted with
all the peculiar virtues-nay, the very domes-
| tic virtues of their sex; as true in
their friendships as other women are and
as pungent i'll their hatred; as selfish and as
unselfish; and as ready to sacrifice them
selves to their love of duty. They are some
what more frank and simple in their manner
than the women of society, and generally [
believe, more generous; reader, as a rule, to
give to others and to work for others who
have no claim on them but need and their
common profession. The services done to
each other by actresses, out of pure kindness and
good nature, and the help that the successful
ones give to the unsuccessful, more than
atone for the professional jealousy for which
they are noted, but in which they are not
peculiar
Mere women as they are, with slight ex-
cess of the more womanly traits of character,
they are subject to more obloquy and misre-
presentation than any other class of people.
They excite the envy and not unfrequently
provoke the jealousy of other women, who
resent and wonder at the admiration they re-
ceive from ''all the men, an admiration often
accompanied by lively interest on the part
of men who have and who seek no personal
acquaintance with them. But the reason of
this interest is merely that they are devoted
to giving pleasure. 1t is their daily
occupation to enliven, to stimulate,
to delight They do this in the
eyes of the world. They spread their nets in
the sight of many birds, and not in vain.
With one glance they wound hundreds, and
with the self-same smile they captivate tens
of hundreds. The domestic woman practises
as with a rifle, or at most, with a double
barrelled fowling-piece, bringing down her
man here and there, but an actress scatters
her charms into a crowd, out of a blunder-
buss. Her fire is rarely so fatal as that of her
more concealed, sharp-shooting sister;
but she hits more, and makes q great
deal more noise about it; and once in a
while she, as well as the other, gives wounds
that last life time. Some man, not of her
class, is more than a passing admirer, feels
more than transient fame, and then she
either shares a great happiness or grieves
over a great sorrow of her making; or else
she eXults in her conquest, and utilizes it,
and makes all she can of it in reputation and
in tribute, just as if she had been brought up
in the conventional atmosphere and under
the self-denying precepts and examples of the
best society. In either of these cases she is
sure to be denounced as harpy, man-trap,
a whited sepulchre; and very virtuous women,
who are laying, or who have lain snares to
catch rich men, and get such legal hold
upon them that they may drain their purses
all theirlives, sneer at the mercenary views of
a hard-worl1ing actress who accepts the
eagerly-protfered pleasure and, perhaps the
material benefits with which some admirer is
glad to tighten and decorate the burden of her
iaborious life. If only the women who are
without sin in this respect were to cast stones,
how many actresses would be stoned to death?
The freedom with which the private conduct
and the character Of actresses are spoken of
by those who have no knowledge of them is
one of the tolerated outrages of society. In
the first place, their conduct in private is no
proper subject of public criticism Ifthey
ask to be received into any circle of society,
the members of that society have the right to
pass Judgment upon their morals and their
manners: but not otherwise Their
private relations are meters to be
! determined by their owp sense of pro-
priety: and they, no less than other wo-
men, have the right to demand, not only that
nothing shall be said of them which ia untrue,
but that no man shall say that of them that
he does not know to be true. Yet have
been an involuntary listener to stories about
actresses, related with great particularly,
when every assertion of my professed inform
ant was directly at variance with the fact as
[ knew of my own knowledge. And l have
not unfreauently heard that told, with reck-
less indifference, of these ministers to the
worlds pleasure, for telling which, even IL II