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

quick as possible, when I looked again she
was vanished out of sight. There was not q
football, or the rustic of q gown, or even
the clink of two sequins l saw no trace
or sign of the woman with whom had
been speaking the twinkling of an eye before.
II was as if she had been swallowed by the
earth, or to speak in keeping with the place
where we were, as if she had gone down at
my feet through a noiseless trap. l
turned, with look of amazement, to the
manager, who said:--"Just like her. Now
she will stand by herself and take no notice
of anything till it's time for her to go on.
Will YOU 90 to your box?" For, with all his
polite attention, Mr.. Barry, like sensible
manager, was not inclined to have loungers
on the stage while the business of the scene
was going on But | needed no invitation to
hasten to see that performance from the front.
The next morning l called at the appointed
hour and, after waiting longer than | thought
/ should have been kept alone when | was
expected, the door opened, and there ap-
peared, mot Rachel, but her sister, Mile. Sarah,
who brought Rachels regrets. She was not well
enough to see any one. She was feverish, had
a cough, and must nurse herself for tomorrow
evening. | took this for a woman's and, if the
ladies of the stage will pardon me for saying
so, an actress put-off | remember her high
condition the evening before, and did not be-
lieve that she was ill at all; but that, being
lazy, or bored or Indifferent, or occupied
more to her taste, she had sent me this eX-
cuse l should have felt certain of it if she
had sent me also a certificate of her condition
from her physician. But l wronged her
She had received her death-warrant, and was
never well again. She played afterwards,
but her performances were unequal in qua
lity, and were frequently interrupted by her
inability to bear the fatigue of acting;
and ere long she went back across
the ocean to die. Trihing as my
misjudgment was-one of a kind that
man runs the risk of at least
twelve times a year, never looked again
into her fading eyes, or heard her short, sharp
cough without guilty feeling. And still
have it, mingled with my pleasure at the
thought that l saw, under such circumstances
and with such stimulating condiment of per
sonal intercourse, the last really complete
| performance of her whom | believe to have
been the greatest actress the world ever saw
Will the world see another Rachel? l thinl
| not Nature is not exhausted; but her riches
| are taken from her bosom only when they
| supply need; and the need of great actors
or even of acting of high grade, seems to b,
no longer felt. The drama, as an intellectual
| diversion of the mind from one channel tC
! thought into another, has passed away,
| think, forever. The public, even the cult
waited public, in all countries, prefers tina
kind of theatrical entertainment at which i
is not required to think 1t asks, not diver
| sion, a tuTHiHq of the mind from one obiec
to another, but the pleasure of the sense
while the mind lies dormant 1t seeks onl
to be amused. OF this mood, buresque O
Spectacular extravaganza is the natural an
inevitable product. We, of Anglo-Saxo
race at least, have probably seen the last q
our legitimate drama.