Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-11
MISS BRETHERTON
By MRS. HUMPHREY WARD,

which is only now asserting itself in the ligh, os day.
 What has Eustace been aboutF said Paul to me last night, after we had all returned from rambling round and round the moonlit piazza, and he had been describing to mo his talk with her He ought to have seen fur ther ahead. That creature is only just begin ming to live, and it will be life worth hav- ing He has kindled it, too, as much as anybody. Of course, we have not seen her net yet, and ignorant-yes, she is certainly i,noraut-though not so much as imagined. But sS for natural power and delicacy of mind, there can be no question at all about thenr
 "'I don't l1nox that Eustace did question them,' l said. He thought simply that she had no conception of what her art really re- qulred of her. and never would have because ot her popularity
 ''To which Paul replied that, as far as he could make out, nobody thought more neanly of her popularity than she did, and he has been talking q great desl to her about her season.
 II never saw woman ct more critical or interesting point of development,' he ex- claimed at last, striding up and down, and so absorbed i'll the subject that l could have al most laughed at his eagerness. Something or other, luckily for her, set her on the right track three months ago, and it is apparently n nature OH which nothing is lost One can see it ill the way in which she takes Venice; there isn't a scrap of her, little as she knows abont it, that isn't keen and interested and wide awaker
 "'Well, after all,' I reminded him ns he was settling down to his books, 'we know nothing about her as an actress
 "sWe Shall speh he said. 4 will fyol O,,A something about that too before long,
 And so he haSp
 August 17-19.
 Paul has been devoting himself more and more to the beauty, Mir. Wallace and look ing on with considerable amusement and in- terest; and this afternoon. finding it in- tolcrable that Miss Bretherton has not even a lowing acquaintance with any of his favor ite plays, Ausier, Dumas, Victor Hugo O. anything else, he has been reading aloud to us i'll the garden, running on from scene to scene and speech to speech, translating as Le wcnt-she in rapt attention, and he gesticu- lating and spoutinG, and, except for an occa- sional queer rendering that made us laugh, getting on capitally with his English. She was enchanted; the novelty and the excite ment of it absorbed her; and every now and then she would stop Paul with little inn perious wave of her hand, and repeat tho substance of a speech after him with an i'm petuous elan, aa energy of comprehension, which drew little mods of satisfaction out of him, and sometimes produced strong and startling effect upon myself and Mir Wallace. However, Mir. Wallace might stare as he liked; the two people concerned were totally unconscious of the rest of us, until at last, after the great death scene i'll the Mutt Blanche Paul threw down the book almost with q sob. and she, rising with q burst of feeling, held out her white arms towards all imaginary lover, and with extraordinary skill and memory repeated the substance of tho heroine's last speeches:
 'Achille, beloved! my eyes arc dim-the mists of death are gathering. 0 Achille tho white cottageb by the river-the nest ill the face and mine in the water-the bluc heaven below us in the stream-O joy, quick! those hands. those lipsl But listen, listen! it is the cruel wind rising, rising; it chills mo to the bone; it choAes, it stiles me! l cannot sec the river, and the cottage is gone, and the sun. o Achille, it is dark, so dark Gather mo close, beloved !-c.oser! closer! O l death is kind-teader, liko your touch havo no fears-noneH
 ''She sank back into her chair. Anything moro pathetic, more noble than her intona- tion of those words could not have been | imagined. Desforets herself could not have | spoken them with moro simple q moro | piercing tenderness. was so confused by a ! multitude of conflicting feelings-my own impressions aad yours, the realities of the present position and the possibilities of the | future-that forgot to applaud her. It was l the first time had had any glimpse at all of her dramatic power, and, rough and imper feet as the test was, 1t seemed to mo enough l have not been so devoted to the Francais, and to some of the people connected with it, for ten years for nothing! One gets q kind | of insight from long habit, which, think, one may trust. Oh, you blind Eustacc, how could | you forget that for a creature so full of primi- tive energy, so rich in the stuff of life, noth- ing is irreparablea Education has passed her by. Well, she will 90 to find her education. She will make a teacher out of every friend. out Of every sensation. Incident and feeling. praise and dispraise will all alike tend to mold tho sensitive, plastic material into shape. So far as she may havo remained outside her art; the art, no doubt, has been e appendage, and little more. Training would have given her good con- whereas she has only picked up bad and imperfect ones. But no training could have given her what she will evidently soon develop for herself, that force and flame of imagination which fuses together instrument and idea in one great artistic whole She has that imagination. You can see it i'll fer responsive ways, her quick, sensitive emo ton. Only let it be reused and guided to a certain height, and it will overleap the bar riers which Lave hemmed it in, and pour itself into the channels made ready for it by her art
 "There, at least, you have my strong i'm pression. It is, in many ways, at variance with some of my most cherished principles; for both you and l arc perhaps inclined to the value of education, whether1 technical or general, in its effect on the indi- Tiduality. And, of course, a better technical would have saved Isabel Brother on an immense amount of time; would have her from contracting a host of bad of which she will have to unlearn. But the root of the matter is in her; of that am sure; and whatever weight of hostile may be against her, sho will, if he keeps her health-as to which I am some times, like you, Q little anxious-break