San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-02-13
CHAPTER ".

white Lady" Kendall, in the course of his
weekly letter TO his sister, sent her a fairly
detailed account of the evening, including
the interview with her after the play, which
had left two or three very marked impress
sions upon him. II WISH" he wrote, "I
could only convey 70 you a sense Of her per-
sonal charm such as might balance the I'M
preston of her artistic defects, which | sup
pose this account of mine cannot but leave
on you When | came away that night
after our conversation with her | had en-
tirely forgotten her failure as an actress,
and it is only later, since / have thought
over tho evening in detail, that have re-
turned TO my first standpoint of wonder at
the easy liberation of the English public.
When yOu are actually with her, talking 10
her, looking at her, Forbes attitude is tho
only possible ind reasonable one. What
does art, or cultivation, or training matteri
l found myself saying, as walked home, in
echo of him-so long as nature will only
condescend once in "a hundred years to pro-
duce for us creature SO perfect. so finely
fashioned to all beautiful UsesI Let other
people go through the toll TO acquire; their
aim is truth, but here is beauty III its quin-
tessence, and what is beauty but three parts
of truth: Beauty is harmony with the uni
tions of which, in our common cropping
through a dull world, we find i'll general
nothing to remind us. And, e so, what folly
to ask of human creature that it should be
more than beautiful 1t is u messenger from
the gods, and we treat it as if it were any
common traveller along the highway of life,
and cross-eXamlne it for its credentials In-
stead of raising our altar and sacrificing to
IL with grateful hearts
That WAS my latest impression of Friday
night. But, naturally, by Saturday morn
ing had returned to the rational point of
view. The minds morning climate is re-
moved by many degrees from that of tue
evening; and the critical revolt which the
whole spectacle of the White Lady had
originally reused In me revived in all its
force. | began, indeed, to feel as If l and
humanity, with its long, laboriOus tradition,
were on one side, holding our own against
young and arrogant aggressor - namely,
beauty, in tho person of Miss Bretherton.
How many men and women, / thought,
have labored and struggled and died in the
effort TO reach a higher and higher perfec-
ton in one single art, and are they TO be out
done, eClipsed in a moment, by something
which is a mere freak of nature; something
which, like the lilies of the field, has neither
toiled nor spun, and yet claims the special
Inheritance ard reward Of those who havei
1t seemed to me as though my feeling in her
presence of the night before, as If the sudden
overthrow of the critical resistance in me-.
had been a kind of treachery to the human
cause. Beauty has power enough, found
myself rejecting with some lierCenesS-let us
withhold from her sway and a prerogative
which are not rightly hers, let Us defend
against her that store of human sympathy
which is the proper reward, not of her facile
and heaven born PROJECTIONS but Of labor
and intelligence Of all that is complex and
tenacious in the workings of the human
spirit
And then, as my mood cooled still fur
Their, began to recall many an evening at
the Franchise with you. and one part after
another, one actor after another, REQUIRED to
me, till, as realized afresh wha. dramatic
intelligence and dramatic training really
are, fell into an angry contempt for our
lavish English enthusiasms Poor girl! it is
not her fault if she believes herself to be a
great actress Brought up under mis-
leading conditions, and without any but the
most elementary education, how is she to
know what the real thing meansi She finds
herself the rage within few weeks of her
appearance in the greatest city in the world.
Naturally she pays no heed to her critics
why would she'
"And she is indeed a most perplexing mix
ture Do what | will, cannot harmonic
all my different impressions Of her Let me
begin again. Why is it that her acting is so
poori | never saw more dramatic per-
sonality Everything that she says or does
is said or done with wrath, force, viva
city that makes her smallest gesture and her
lightest tone impress themselves upon you.
felt this very strongly two or three times
after the play on Friday night-in her talk
with Forbes, for instance, whom she has
altogether in her tolls, and whom she plays
with as though he were the gray headed
Merlin and she an innocent Vivieu weaving
harmless spells about him. And then, from
this hooking war of words and looks, this gay
camaraderie, in which there was not scrap
Of coquetry or self CONSCIOUSNESS, she would
pass into a sudden outburSt Of anger as to the
impertinence of English rich people, the i'm
pertinence OF rich millionaires who have
tried once or twice to order her for their
evening parties as they would order their
ices, or the impertinenCe Of the young swell
about town who thinks she has nothing to
do behind the scenes but receive his visits
and provide him with entertainments And,
as the quick, impetuous words came rushing
out, you felt that here for once was u woman
speaking her real mind to you. and that with
a flashing eye and curvlng lip, an Unborn
grace and energy which made every word
memorable Ii she would but look like that
or speak like that on the stage! But there,
Of course, is the rub. The whole difficulty of
art consists in losing your own personality,