Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1874-11-10
Charlotte CushEan.
CHARLOTTE CUsHfAN.
By Anate Chambers KetchaBs,

The sages tell rs genius is the fruit
OF centuries. One child alone came forth
From Setos golden cycles. With blind eyes
Turned from without he tracked the world OF
Thought,
Counted its fabulous shapes, and gave to men
That beautiful religion which has made
Classic and cOnsecrate each Tuscan flower,
Each Greek and Roman stream.
One prince alone,
Prophet and seer, kprang from the lusty womb
OF Europe's last millennium. With bright eyes
Cleaning like opals, from each bog and fen,
Goblin and witch he summoned; from the air
Fantastic sprites and from the human heart
Its hidden skeletons, its demons fierce,
Or, with a sersph's high authority,
Its gOdike virtues and its graces fair,
swfft as the lightning, over land and sea
His subtle witchery sped. The little child
Tracking for buttercups, the grandam gray
Mending her winter fire, the cowboy blithe
BabbIed his wit not knowing whence it came /;
And they whose polished sensitive ear had
caught
In eager hope that from the lifeless page
Some spirit weird as his might call TO life
The wondrous shapes he pictured.
Hope had died
Or dwindled to the meager, stunted thought
That the grand visions Of the English Seer
From Ayon's Jupiter, armed edp-G-pGe,
Thou, goddess queen, dtdst spring.
We see thee tread
Macbeth's still midnight chamber, and the
shapes
That haunt our own deep hearts, start up and
Malignant fingers at u.s. 'Tis not thou
We gaze at, till our spirits shake with fear,
But dark Alecto, born anew OF blood.
Scene after scene, beneath thy magic wand
The Stratford wizards peopled world unfold e.
We laugh with Rosalind, we descend with
Bright Portals wit and wisdom play at will
Before our senses; gallant Henry woos
Fair Katharine and most fair; Ophelia comes
Bedight with rue and pansies; white-halred
Distracted sobs, Cordoba, stay little!
And Juliet sing Ten thousand times good might.
We look again, as DER tn enchanted stage
Thy proud cothurnus treads. We see the tall
And stately child Of Ferdinand, whose firm
Gastilian courage awes our ready tears
Back to congealment Breathlessly we note
The queenly, sad appeal, the naughty tone,
The lofty bearing, the majestic woe,
Till at the last we start to find us here
Dwellers in modern time, and from the leash
Our feftered pulses freeing, while the blood
Leaps through each trembling artery, we feel
That Lies Erinnyes dire in thee become
Eumenides indeed.
Others have trod
The Shakespeare world before thee; some
Like Juliet and Ophelia; some have died
Like Katharine; some have plotted like Mac
beth.
Or TESTED like gay Rosalind IN the wood;
But thou alone hast conjured with thy spell
All the enchanter's fancies into shape,
And made them speak at viii, from grave to
From lively to severe.
We are most proud
To say thou art American, but this
Is meagre claim for thee. Unto no land
Nor line dost thou belong; thou shin'st eterne
IN the fair p 'rthenon OF mimetic lore,
Pallas-Athenae, helmeted and thrOned.
mr.. Feehter.
This distinguished artist, who for some
L., IL. \.
ment of the eastern cities, viii make
his first appearance in Mem
phis On Monday of next week,
in his great PRESERVATION Of "Ruy
Bias" When Mr.. Fechter was about to
leave England on q professional tour
through the United States, Mr.. Charles
Dickens wrote an article for the atlantic
Monthly, introducing Mr.. Fechter in
the most complimentary terms. In
fact, the great author spoke so warmly
in praise of the great actor, that we
might suspect the former of being in
by personal regard, if he did
not distinctly state that his admiration
of Fechter long preceded any personal
Mr.. Fechter is unques-
one Of the great actors OF the.
age. The first and most strik-
iuR Glculc4b VI MS SASdbucco 10 LIS OAA
inality. He does not simply introduce
new readings and new business, but he
gives new tone and eoler to the charac-
ter. His Hamlet is almost a new
Mr.. Dickens says Of the per-
sonatiOn: Perhaps no innovation in
art was ever accepted with so much fs-
vor by 80 many intellectual persons pre-
to, and preoccupied by, |
another SYSTEM, ,ss Mr.. Fechter's Ham
let I take this to have been the case, |
not because Of its picturesqueness, not
because OF its novelty, not because of its
many scattered beauties, but because of
its perfect consistency with itself" The |
Of Mr.. Fechter's "Hamlet" |
has caused it to be much discussed, but
It is not, perhaps, the character in |
which he appears to the greatest ad-
vantage. His "Ruy Bias" and '"The /
Master of RavenwoOd, afford greater
scope for the quality in acting in which |
be excels-that of the romantic lover.
He has also great power of passionate
il we may accept the
Judgment OF the distinguished critic
above mentioned.