Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-02
-4deyaide Nelson.

There ARE thousands of people in this
country who will thank Mrs. Amelia E.
Barr for the beautiful and affecting &C
count of visit to the early home of AIDE
laide Nelson. the actress. in the December
Lippincott. So much has been said of this
wondrous woman's early life and so many
untruths have been literally published con-
corning it, that this charming statement
comes like a breath of pure mountain air
through a desert dust cloud. Miss Nelson
was reported to have been various things
that she never dreamed of being, and her
life was little understood by those with
whom she was almost wholly thrown in
| contact. Any one who reads this paper
will realize that Adelaide Nelson was a
| woman who was much sinned against and
whose generosity and affection made
amends for many errors of her short life.
Mrs. Barr says of her meeting with a
Yorkshire friend OF the actress:
But, apart from these things, Guiseley
was Guiseley yet. The great moors and
hills and the winding air were just the
same. The Yorkshire homes, with their
delightsome ''best Kitchens" reveling in
warmth and comfort and color, were I'M
changed; the hearts of their owners were.
young as ever. AS l wandered about, full
of Joy, fomI the best parlor to the best
kitchen, two familiar faces on q wall struck
me. One was that of President Garfield;
the other, that of Adelaide Nelson. Gar
| fields picture had become used to seeing
in all kinds of out of the way places, and
it reused no particular sense of won der;
but Adelaide Nelson, in the charm of her
wondrous Juliet, in the house Of York
shireman, who believed with all his soul
that the road to heaven lay right through
it Methodist meeting house." did affect
me curiously.
Still, perhaps I should have taken no
further notice of the singularity had I not
casually lifted an album and opened it on
Adelaide Nelson. There was no installing
the face, though the dress was that of an
ordinary lady. In few pages I came up
on Adelaide Nelson again and again and
again; it seemed to me that it was almost
Nelson album.
carried the book into the houseplace
and sat down by my hostess. ''We'll hev
our dinner Directly she said radiantly !;
'there's nothing like bit of good eating"
''What beautiful facer'
sYou are right there. She wer bonny
) lass, she wer for sure. And she wer always
reckoned a clever one,particularly t'.queen
and t prince of Wales and all London
thought SO too.''
.s'You knew her, then?''
81 should think did know her. Dreary
me! I'd rayther hev lost a bit of brass
than she should hev died yonder way-and
mong them French people, too. Poor
| Lizzie Annr'
But her name was Adelaide"
! "Whya! may be so to them as didn't
know her. She wer brought upi'
Il GUIsELEY,
but she wer niver quite like other lasses.
When she wer slip of thing she wer
always reading. 1 can mind her often
coming to our SHOP for pound of sugar
or the like of that, and eng so taken up
with t. reading on t. PAPER bags as niver
was"
'The reading on The aper bags"
eyes. The bags We bought then for
wrapping up goods had always a
some foreign place on them; and often
she'd say to me, sGive me this other
bit of paper, too, Mrs. B. and I'd say,
For sure, and welcome, Lizzie Ann Eli !
but can see her yet, half leaning over t.
counter, and that taken up with some bit
of paper she forgot Everything, till I'd say,
; why, Lizzie Ann, niver! Art thou here
yet? Thou'd better be framing home with
, thy parcel or thy mother will be fratching
at thee, and serve thee right, too Then
she'd go her ways quick enough, but with
kind of yOnderly look in her eyes,"
$50 her mother lived here also?"
''She lives none that far from Us now.
Well go and see her when we've eaten
summat."
The promised call was made at small,
pretty cottage, standing in strip of garden
fragrant with IA bush of southernwood and
a sweetbriar.
| The parior into which we were taken I
| saw at a glance was shrine dedicated to
the fair Nelson's memory. Pictures of
her in every character and mood covered
the walls, and these walls were remarkable
, in little village like Guiseley and in a
cottage whose rent could hardly be more
than twenty pounds year. They were of
the richest and most dazzling white picked
out with a quaint pattern In gilt. The
room was otherwise indicative of quiet and
, refined tastes; a few very comfortable
chairs, good books, some fresh primroses
in a vase and plate of fine purple plums
on the table.
In rev moments Mrs. Siand came TO
US. She is still q handsome woman, about
fifty years of age, with manners singularly
dramatic and demonstrative. There was
no difficulty in Introducing the object of
our visit. The poor, broken hearted mother
could talk o: only one thing child who
had persisted in the very zenith of her
beauty and fame. 1 began to ask her
about her youth, and she brought me lit
tie colored daguerreotype taken when the
actress was in her eleventh year. The face
was exquisite; not even the disiguring
style of the dress and the wide muslin pam
talettes down TO the ankles could iniure
its beauty.
I asked the mother then if the future act
tress had displayed any histrionic talen
in her childhood:
"When she was four years old she was
inventing and acting characters" she an
} swered. ''Sho seemed to seize on any
peculiarly people had, and not only did
she try to initiate them, but often in
vented new manner for them, trying to
realize her ideal in all sorts of queer ways.
When she was five years old she had
formed her own opinion of what ghost
ought to be like and how it ought to
walk and 40; and She heoOed ma often tn