News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-04-19
A ROMANCE OF THE STAGE.
Four Blasted Lives and a Death
Beneath the Waves.

[ heard "Fatinitza" the other night
at Albaugh's. Tom Karl played Julian
Hardy as he did eight years ago. Agnes
Huntingdon had taken the place of AIDE
lalde Phillips. The sweet little lady
who had sung Lydia Gig t years ago
was gone, too, Out of the cast Her place had
been taken by another sweet little lady
whose style and method reminded me
very much of the first. Especially was
l carried back to the old days when in
that trio towards the end of the opera
Lydia takes her white train in her left
hand and waves her right triumphantly
in the air as she and Hardy and Nlad-
mir tread backward ard forth and sing
that inspiring march. You remember
it well. A poor fellow whom I knew
used to whistle that march a good part
of the time when the opera was first
given, because he was in love with the
other Lydia. He is dead now. He
killed himself. She2 She is doubtless
happy all the days through.
Years ago tall handsome fellow was
fitting for Harvard College. He had
taken his preliminary examinations,
when suddenly his father died. His
father had lost the accumulations of
years of toll in the hotel business and
sickened of brain fever. The son had
not only to abandon his cherished hope,
but to earn a living for himself and his
mother and sister. He had shone in
theatricals in his own locality, SO he
took to the stage of one of the Boston
theaters, and to earn as much money as
possible for his needs worked during the
summer vacation as a hotel clerk. He
was a good clerk at once and good
actor before long, and had made q
thousand new friends, for his generous
heart and his talent and his devotion.
he shared the lot of handsome actors
he was much admired and sought after
by the silly women who go so much
alone to the matinees-but, unlike some
actors, regret to say he was really the
royal fellow that he seemed to be. His
head, though, was never turned. He
kept on with his work with only the i'm
ages of his mother and his sister in his
heart. Finally q sweet voiced little per-
son, who had sung with much success in
church, came out in opera. Her voice
and her trim figure secured her recognl-
ton, and she succeeded. She and the
actor were introduced and thrown much
together think they loved each other.
Though ought not to say that they did,
for the widow of one lives and the hus-
band of the other. But they surely
ought to have loved each other. Some
how, though, things went wrong-how
often things go wrong!-and the two
lived farther and farther apart.
Well, she married a wealthy business
man. But she did not leave the stage,
and they were divorced. She is mar
ried again now, I think. He lived along
and finally married one whom he had
acted with. [ don't know what the
trouble was-there was some trouble
and one day they found the body of the
poor fellow drowned in the harbor. His
life was too honorable and brave for him
to be much to blame in anything. So,
you see, when [ heard the proud Lydia
sing again the whole sad story was called
up. [ thought. too, of the story of
Maud Muller. -Four lives were made
unhappy in this terrible business, be-
cause-well, the course of true love new
er did run smooth, or because, perhaps,
it never runs at all sometimes.