San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-02-20

at Kingston
livery WE'LL them / went on, enjoying this
little comedy of a neglected education, get a
French mald, "a French master and novel; l
will provide you with "Consuelo" and trans
lation Tomorrow
" LAS for the French maid she answered,
obviously, shaking her head, i don't know
expect my old black woman that brought
with me from Jamaica would ill treat her
perhaps murder her. But the master can be
managed and the novel. Will none of you
laugh at me if you see me trailing French
grammar aboutT
And so she has actually begun today.
She makes pretense of keeping her novel
and a little dictionary and grammar
in a bag and hides them when any
one appears. But Paul has already
begun to tease her about her new and
mysterious occupation, and foresee that he
will presently spend the greater part Of his
mornings in teaching her. never saw any
body attract him SO much; she is absolutely
different from anything he has seen before;
and, as he says, the mixture of ignorance and
genius in her-yes, genius; don't be startledI
is most stimulating to the Imagination"
August %.
During the last few days have not been
She has been devoting herself to her family
and Paul and have been doing our pictures
We cannot persuade her to take any very
large dose of galleries. it seems to me that
her thoughts are set on one subject-and one
subject only-and while she is in this first
stage of intensity it is not likely that any
thing else will have chance
ut is amusing to study the dissatisfaction
of the uncle and aunt with the turn things
have taken since they left London. Mr..
Worrall has been evidently accustomed to
direct his niece's life from top to bottom-to
choose her plays for her, helE.d by Mr. Rob-
inson, to advise her as to her felow-actors
and her behavior in society, and all, of
course, with n shrewd eye to the family profit
and as little regard as need be to any fantas-
Scal conception OF art
Now, however, Isabel has asserted herself
in several unexpected ways. She has refused
altogether to open her autumn season with
the play which had been nearly decided on
before they left London-a flimsy spectacular
performance, quite unworthy of her. AS
soon as possible she will make important
changes in the troupe who are to be with her,
and at the beginning of September she is COM
ing to stay three weeks with us in Paris, and, in
all probability Though the world is to know
nothing of it,, Perraut of the Conservative,
who is a great friend of ours, will give her
good deal of positive teaching. This last ar
rangement is particularly exasperating to
Mr. Worrall He regards it as sure to be
known, a ridiculous confession of weakness
on Isabel part, and so on. However, in
spite of h.S wrath and the aunt's sullen or
fearful dsapproval, she has stood firm, and
matters are so arranged"
saturday night, August p.
This evening we persuaded her at last to
give us some scenes Of Juliet How | wish
you could have been hcrel 1t was one Of
those experiences which remain with one as a
sort of perpetual witness to the poetry which
life holds in it, and may yield up to one at
any moment. 1t was in our little garden;
the moon was high above the houses oppo-
site, and the narrow canal running past our
side railing into the Grand canal was shin
ing streak of silver The air was balmy and
absolutely still; no more perfect setting to
Shakespeare or to Juliet could have been
imagined. Paul sat at little table in front
of the rest Of us; he was to read Romeo and
the Nurse in the scenes she had chosen, while
in the background were the Worralls and
Lucy Bretherton the little crippled sister,,
Mr. Wallace and myself. She did the bal
cony scene, the morning scene with Romeo,
the scene with the Nurse after Tybalt's death
and the scene of the phiter. There is an old
Sundial in the garden, which caught the
moOnbeams. She leaned her arms upon it,
her eyes fixed upon the throbbing, moonlit
sky, her white brocaded dress glistening here
and there in the pale light-a vision of per-
feet beauty And when she began her sigh
ing appeal
o, Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou, RomeoY-
it seemed to me as if the night-the passion
ate Italian night-had found its voice-the
only VOICE which fitted it.
'Afterwards tried as much as possible to
shake off the impressions peculiar to the
scene itself to think of her under the ordi-
nary conditions of the stage, to Judge her
purely as an actress. In the love scenes there
seemed hardly anything to find fault with.
thought could trace in many places the in
huen"e of her constant dramatic talks and ex-
erciSeS with Paul. The flow of passion was
continuous and electric, but marked by all
the Simpleness, all the sweetness, all the
young wlESOme extravaganza which belong
to juliet The great scene with the Nurse
had many fine things in it; she had evidently
worked hard at it line by line, and that
speech of Juliets with its extraordinary dra-
matte capabilities
Shall speak i'll of him that is my husband?
was given with admirable variety and SUD-
plenesS of mtonation. The dreary sweetness
of her
Banishcd! that one word banishedl
still lives with me, and her gestures as she
paced reStlessly along the little strip of moon