The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1881-06-24
The Younger and the Elder Booth.

From an eariy'Ggs Edwin Booth wa
associated with his father In all the
wanderings and strange and often sad
adventures of that wayward man of ge-
Mus, and no doubt the many sorrowful
experiences Of his youth deepened the
gloom of his inherited temperament.
Those who know him well are aware
that he has great tenderness of heart,
and abundant playful humor; that his
mind is one of extraordinary Eveliness,
and that he sympathizes keenly and
cordially with the joys and sorrows of
others; yet that the whole man seems
saturated with sadness, isolated from
companionship, lonely, and alone. 1t
is this temperament, combined with a
sombre and melancholy aspect Of coun-
tenance, that has helped to make him
so admirable in the character of Ham
let OF his fitness for that part his
father was the first to speak, when on
night many years ago, in Sacramento,
they had dressed for st. Pierre and Jaf-
fer, in Venice Preserved. Edwin, as
Jaffier, had put on a close fitting robe
of black vetvet. "You look like Ham
let," the father said "why don't you
play it?" The time was destined to
come when Edwin Booth would be ac-
cepted all over America as the greatest
Hamlet of the century. In the season
of 1S64-65, at the Winter Garden Thea
ter, New York, he acted that part for a
hundred nights in succession, accom-
plishing thus feat unprecedented in
theatrical annals. Since that time Henry
Irving, in London, has acted Hamlet
two hundred consecutive times in one
season but this latter achievement, in
the present day and in the capital city
of the world seems less remarkable
than Edwin Booths exploit was, per-
formed in turbulent New York in the
closing months of our terrible civil war.
The elder Booth was a short, spare,
muscular man, with a splendid chest,
symmetrical Greek head a pale counte-
nance, a voice of wonderful compass
and thrilling power, dark hair, and blue
eyes Edwin's resemblance to him is
chiefly obvious in the shape of the head
and face, the arch and twist of the heavy
eyebrows, the radiant and constantly
shifting light of expression which ami
mates the countenance, the natural
grace of carriage, and the celebrity of
movement. Edwin's eyes are dark
brown, and seem to turn black in mo-
ments of excitement, and they are capa-
bic of conveying, with electrical effect,
the most diverse meanings-the solem-
nifty of lofty thought, the tenderness of
affection, the piteousness of forlorn sor-
row, the awful sense of spiritual sur
roundings, the woful WEAKNESS of de-
spair, the mocking glee of wicked sar-
casm, the vindictive menace of sinister
purpose, and the lightning glare of bale
full wrath. In range of facial express
iveness his countenance is thus fully
equal to what his father was, and
to all that tradition tells us of the
countenance of Garrick. The present
writer saw the elder Booth but once
and that in comparatively inferior
part-Pescara, in ShiePs ferocious trag-
edy of THE ApoState. He was terrible
presence. He was the incarnation of
smooth, specious, malignant, hellish
rapacity. His exultant malice seemed
to buoy him above the ground. He
foated rather than walked. His glance
was deadly. His clear, high, cutting,
measured tone was the exasperating
note of hideous cruelty. He was acting
a tiend then, and making the monster
not only possible, but actual. He GER
tainly gave greater impression of
overwhelming power than is given by
Edwin Booth, and seemed more for
and tremendous man. But his
face was not more brilliant than that of
his renowned son and in fact it was, if
somewhat less splendid in
power of the eye. There is a useful
book about him called Tile Trdgedian,
written by Thomas r. Gould, who also
made a noble bust of him in marble,
and those who never saw him can obtain
a very good idea of what sort of an actor
he was by reading that book. 1t con-
veys the image Of greater actor, but
not more brilliant one, than Edwin
Booth. Only one man of our time has
equalled Edwin Booth in this singular
splendor of countenance. That man
was the great New England orator Rufus
Choate. Had Choate been an actor
upon the stage--as he was before a jury
with those terrible eyes Of his, and
that passionate Arab face, he must have
lowered fully TO the height of the tradi-
ton of George Frederick Cooke.-Har-
pe,'s Magazine.
Avoid SANDER.
None of lis are perfect. and we have