Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-09

party or Tour persons--two ladies. n gentle man and lamo girl walking with a crutch. An excited English tourist condescended to inform Paul that it was tho great English actress, Miss Rretherte.a,' who was creating all tho coinmotion. Tlen, Of course, hc went up to hel-he was provoked that he could hardly see her ill the dim light of St Marks -lntrodu,ed himself and described our per- plexltles. Of course, she had written ex- pected as much. Jacques must certainly be pensioned of! Paul thought the other three very inferior to her. though the uncle was civil and talked condescendingly of Venice as though it were even good enough to be admired by Worrall. It is arranged that the beauty is to come and see me to-morrow 1T, after Cateiina las operated upon us dur ing two meals, we are still alive Good night and good-by."
 ''VENIcE, Aug. :.
 Well. 1 have seen herl It has been blazing day. l was sitting in the little gar den which separates onehaif of our rooms from the other, whilo Caterina was arrang- ing the dejeuner under the little acacia srbor in the center of it. Suddenly Felicie came cut from the house, and behind her a tall fig ure in n large hat and a white dress. Tho figure held out both hands to me in q cordial, un English way, and said a number of pleas ant things rapidly in delicious voice, while
  that could hardly make out the features, stood feeling little thrilled by the advent of so famous a person. In a few moments, how ever, as it seemed to me, wo were sitting under the acacias, she was helping me to cut up the melon and arrange the figs, as if we had known one another for months and was experiencing one of those sudden rushes of liking which, as you know are weakness Of mine She stayed and took her meal with Us. Paul, of course, was fascinated, and for once has not set her down as a reputation surfaite
 "Her beauty has q curious air of the place; and now l remember that her mother was 1taiian-Venetian, actually, was it nots That accounts for it; she is the Venetian type spir- itualized. At the foundation of her face, as 1t were, lies the face of the Burano lace maker; only the original type has been SO re- fined, so chiseled and smoothed away, that, to speak fancifully, only a beautiful ghost of it remains. That large stateliness of Der movement, too, is Italian. You may see it i'll any Venetian street, and Veronese has fixed it in art"
 IVY hile we were sitting in the garden who should be announced but Edward Wallace I knew, of course, from you that he might be hcro about this time, but in the hurry of our settling in l had quite forgotten his exist ei1cc, so that the sight of his trim person bearing down upon us was a surprise. He ana the Bretherton party, however, had been going about together for several days, so that ho and she had plenty of gossip in com mon. Mrs Bretherton's enthusiasm about Venice is of a very naive, hot, outspoken klad 1t seems to mo that she is very sus- ceptible creature. She lives her life fast and crowds into it greater number of sensations than most people. All this zest and pleasure must consume q vast amount of nervous force, but 1t makes her very refreshing to people as blase Paul and I are. My first feeling about her is very much what yours was. Personally, there seems to be ell the stuff Ill her of which an actress is made. Will she some day stumble upon tho discovery of how to bring her own individual flame and force to bear upon her art9 should think it not unlikely, and, altogether, I feel as though should take more hopeful view of he- intellectually than you do. You see, my dear Eustace, you men never realize how clever we women are, how fast we learn and how quickly we catch up hints from all quar- terS under heaven and improve upon them. An actress so young and so sympathetic as Isabel Bretherton must still be very much of an unknown quantity dramatically know you think thas the want of training is fatal, | and that popularity will stereotype her 1 faults. It may be so; but I am inclined to l think, from my first sight of her, that she is | nature that will gather from life rather what stimulates 1t than what dulls and yul- l garizes it. Altogether when I compare my first impressions of her with tho image of her left by your letters, feel that I have been pleasantly surprised. Only in the matter of | intelligence. Otherwise it has, of course, 1 been your descriptions of her that have planted and nurtured in mo that strong of " h10cco,,,oIl ;,,+> l1- ing at the moment of personal contact"
 August TO-
 ''This afternoon we have been out in tho | gondola belonging to this modest establish. ment, with our magnificent goadolier, Piero, and his boy, to convey us to the Lido. I got Miss Bretherton to talk to me about her Jamaica career. She made us all laugh with her accounts of the blood and thunder pieces i'll which the audiences of the Kingston theatre reveled. She seems generally to have played the Bandits Daughter the Snug glers Wife or The European Danlsel Car ried Of by 1ndians,' or some other thrilling parsonage of the kind. The White Lady was apparently, her first introduction to more complicated order of play It is when one comes to think of 1 it, how little positive dramatic knowledSe she must have! She knows some Shake speare, l think-at least she mentions two or three plays-and l gather from something she said that she is now making the inevita- ble study of Juliet that every actress makes sooner or later; but Sheridan, Goldsmith, and. of course, all the French people are mere names to her. When I think of the minute exhaustive training our Paris actors go through and compare it with such Q state of nature as hers, am amazed at what she has donel For, after all you know, she must be able to act to some extent; she must know 8 great deal more of her business than you and suspect, or she could not get on at all"
 August 16.
 "It is almost week, see, since wrote to you last. During that time we have seen B great deal more of Miss Bretherton, some times in company with her belongings, some times without them, and my impressions of her have ripened very :ast Oh, my dear Eustace, you have been hasty-au the world has beeA nasty. Isabel Bretherton's real self is only now coming to the front, and 1t Is self which, as say to myself with as- not even your keen eyes have