Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-11-25
TALK.

IL
matte matters in those days, wrote: "There
is something in these partinga with public
favorites exceedingly affecting. They
teach US the shortness of human life and
the vanity of human pleasures.
Oar associations of admiration and de-
light with theatrical performers are among
our earliest recollections, among our last
regrets. They are links that connect the
beginning and the end of life together;
their bright and giddy career of popularity
measures the arch that spans our brief ex-
istence.'
The stage has been tremendously revo-
lutionized since the days when the Kem-
bles shook the town, and we're commemor-
ated by two of the best English essayists,
Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, whose words have
immortalized their performances.
Hear Hazlitt: sTo have seen Mrs. Sid
dons was an event in every ones life. With
her tragedy was something above nature.
We can conceive of nothing grander. She
embodied to our Imagination the fables of
mythology, of the heroic and deifed NOR
tails of elder times. y
Power was seated on her brow; passion
emanated from her breast as from a
shrine. She was tragedy personifed. She
was the stateliest ornament of the public
mind"
When this woman SO gloriously extolled
was well established actress her pay was
three pount 2 week. In 1904 it was five
pounds wee1. and in 1911, at the meri-
dian of her power and fame,
it was fifty guineas week.
Think of then, and now, in the
matter OF remuneration alone, and then
consider the transcendent merit of an
actress who had the first minds in England
to analyze and laud her personations, and
the finest English artists, painters
and engravers to transmit some pictured
semblances of her attitudes, gestures and
marvelousi power of expression. Think,
too, of the change from the beautiful and
spontaneous and correct criticisms of the
cultured minds of that time, and then of
the Brobdignagian type, the pictorial
effects, and the senseless and mercsnary
fustian of this period, with its photographs
dumped into every shop window in the
land.
The stately Sarah's father, Roger Kemble,
was a strolling player, who combined
hair dressing withhis profession. At times
rations were SO reduced that Roger faceti-
ously chronicles having d1ned on the raw
product of turnip field, and calls his
board widespread" So they sklrmishsd
through the English provinces under all
sorts of disadvantages, sometimes we'll re-
ceivec, and oftener threatened with the
stocks and whipping at the cats tail, play
ing in inn yards, barns, and the large room
of taverns, eking out an uncertain and eI-
citing livelihood, and in the last scene Of
all being generally considered unfit to re-
cei7e Christian burial. (Withel so strong
was the theatrical blood in him that John
Philip Kemble, although entered for
the priesthood by his Catholic father, the
aforesaid Roger, and winning honors at
Douai, preferred the chances of an actors
life to any other career, greatly to his faith
er's displeasure, who refused to receive him
and turned him away with the
grudged gift of one guinea to begin the
world
If Roger Kemble, iourneyinR in
this uncomfortable way with his family,
and having precarious exercise of his pro-
fession, with two of his children to be
known as Sarah Siddons and John Philip
Kemble and Charles Kemble, in English
theatrical memory as long as its stage has
history-if, say, Roger could DO re-
fbr hriaf xubil 70 Il -
that special palace car, which an enter
prising manager had devised for the trans
portation of Mrs. Langtry in her first
American tour-why, he'd think the world
had gone mad since his day and he wouldn't
be so wi de of the mark, either.
In homage such as il is, and recompense
the foremost of players have an almost
royal progress throughout their career, and
it seems as if they claimed the largest
share af public attention in these fortunate
days. In France they are decorated, in
England they arc feted, and favors OF the
great and en- inent are showered upon
them, while il America all that money can
do is done for them.
The s-ciety Of the world receives them
and existence Is one glowing pageant for
them.
Crowned heads pay tribute to them, and
brains are prodigal of praises From.
Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and Charles Lamb to
William Winter of the New York TRIBUNE,
the magnifcence of adulation is sounded
for them.
They are the most favored of mortals,
and it is no wonder that Rachel, the great
French actress, said when she was
dying IL faut done gutter tout.
Il must indeed have been
hard to give up world which had
been so beautiful and generous to a poor
wandering little Jewess, uplifted from the
first intimstion of her genius out of squslid
Indulgence to q position OF dazzling dis
tinction; -where artists, men of letters,
men of rank and all the prestige of tran
scendent social eminence were at her feet
Aside from her profession Rachel was a
cultivated woman, charming and original
in conversation and remarkably brilliant
as letter writer.
Her correspondence alone would give
her rank as woman of eminent ability.
For instance, writing from Thebes, Egypt,