Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1886-10-06
Ono of the Unapproachables.

Margaret Mather has started for Califor-
MIA to conquer the Pacific slope. It is a
curious fact, writes Nym Crinkle in a syndi-
cate letter, that during the five years OF
she has never spoken to q living soul of the
stage except her manager. Nobody during
that time has been able to get admitted to
her rooms, much less interview her. She
has never been seen in public except when
playing, and not an authenticated line has
appeared in print as coming from her lips.
This is very remarkable when it is con
sidered that Miss Matheris one of the most
conpicuous, best advertised and widest
she has had nothing to say stands out in
such awful contrast to all the unmuzzled
celebrities and beauties that one cannot
help wondering at it. That Mr.. J. M. Hill
Theoretically seals her after each perform.
ance is said by the people in the Union
Square Hotel to lave no foundation in
fact, for they have heard her reciting in her
room. The private veil of mystery which
falls promptly with the fall of the curtain
and shuts Mather off from the public, il, I
suppose, a managerial policy, built upon
to say. But it has given rise to all sorts
of expedients on the part of press men to
make Mather talk.
One enterprising Bohemian tried to get
admittance as q maid and another as q
priest. But Mr.. j. M. Hill always turned
up with q qiiiet thing in neckties with an
adage on it of '"Too thin"
Now there is a very pretty story about a
lover of long ago, who wal loved in return,
and who was left out in the cold when Mr..
in. Hill took charge Of the actress.
Her contract read: "No interviews, no
female dressmakers, no lovers, and she
had to bid everlasting farewell to her love
of long ago. But n day he threw a
bouquet At her. and in it was q card which
read: Learn the deal and dumb language,
darling. Yours till death, mutely, Al
phonse."
Her soul babe her obey. She learned it.
So did he. And about the same time that
she came to the Union Square to play
Juliet they had got SO they could converse
in it across the footlights.
If faith can remove mountains it was
plain that love could remove a Hill. How
few who then wondered at and admired the
gestures of Mather knew that she was con
versing with Alphonse in the left hand box.
1t was in the potion scene especially that
they used to have q sociable little chat
every night, for that scene OF agony gave
her every excuse to use her hands, and Mr..
Steele Mackaye remarked emphatically one
night after studying the play OF her fingers
that she ha0 IN some way acquired the
physic Interpretation through the digital
fexus. But l always doubted the flexus.
Some of the c~ommunings in this way
were deeply interesting to the favored few
who happened to be deaf as well as dumb,
and who got the text from her fingers and
not from her mouth. I shall never forget a
young lady friend of mine who was a deal
mute, and who went from the theatre to
her Shakespeare to find Mather's lines.
"What lines are you looking for, my
dear?" I asked her in pencil.
"Why,' she replied with a pen, 1.-THE line,
"How are all the boys?'"
Nonsense" I said; shat isn'tin Shakes
peare."
"Isn't it? Well, I'm sure Miss Mather
said it. Then. too, she said, DO you re-
member all the toots we had in the sweet
yesternight?' I can't find it in the play"
'Oh, you must be dreaming
mo, I am not. I can't understand her
action at all. In the potion scene she said,
Cheese it, his Nibs is in a back seat They
must use q version OF the text that we are
not familiar with. Don't you think so?"
"Yes," 1 replied, 'she does. but you u
admire her handling OF it,"
Lucky Alphonse, to thus have his trysts
embalmed on the Shakespearean amber,
and the candle of love hidden sweetly from
the world, even when it vas set upon a