The Portland daily press., 1892-07-06
NEW YORK LETTER.
The Career Of a Onee-Bright Social
Star Of New York.
Edward Gould and His Fiancee-Gothamr
| New Ria1to and tho Cause of
the Change-Tie Wealth OF
the Country.
rcopYRreHr. 1921

Brown Potter, in the two little rooms
she then lived in at the Brevoort house
in this city, said good-by to her little
daughter Fiji, and to her husband,
James Brown Potter, Esq, of this city,
good-ioolzing man of unexceptionable
morals and manners, and sailed for
Havre. The cable now brings news of
the dissolution of the dramatic part
nership she had then formed and has
since maintained with person known
by the name of Kyrle Bellew. The
whole subject of this beautiful and in
teresting womans extraordinary mis-
chance in life once more occupies the
minds of the friends whom she once
counted here by the hundreds, and of
the acquaintance and admirers, for she
has undoubtedly the "fatal gift of
beauty" who might have been num-
bered by the thousand. consider that
there has been no more tragic develop
ment Of nineteenth century social life
than the career Of Cora Urquhart, off
and on the stage. Something over
fifteen years ago in London, I heard
one evening, at Brompton, reading by
Rev. Bellanay Bellew, a gifted man Of
splendid presence and excellent repute.
He was clergyman of the Church of
England, tall and erect in form,
forid-faced and white-haired. l was
struck by the mans appearance as he
walked to the rcstrum from which he
read, the imperious dignity of his eye,
which seemed to search out the re-
hottest corners of the hall, his perfect
mastery of the language, and the ten
der grace and manly feeling with which
he rendered some Of the most beautiful
selections in the English language I
never heard the Bridge of Sighs'' given
more tenderly than by him; nor the
death-bed scene from Dickens 'Old Gu
riosity Shop" nor Jean Inglelow's mag
nifcent ballad Of 1.-THE Noble Mercer"
Rev. Mr.. Bellows silvery white hair
fell in soft ringlets around his neck, but
there was nothing effeminate in his ap-
pearance or bearing. If there was an
inherited faint Of any kind in the con-
stitution Of the young man who at that
time was making something of a repu-
tation on the stage under the name of
Kyrle Bellew, those who know his fa-
Their must believe that faint came from
the other side of the house.
remember well hearing, indeed, at
that time that there had been domestic
unhappiness in the Bellew household,
the head of which had obtained sep
aration from his wife, The particulars
were kept quiet and never heard them
Shortly afterward Rev. Bella1ny Bellew,
who was certainly one of the most pop
ular readers in London, although not a
favorite Of the fashionable set, died, and
soon afterward his slender and personal
ly well-endowed son became a favorite
among certain class of New York
theater-goers. I'have never been able,
on subsequent visits to London, to learn
that this curled and oiled young man
with the long hair and the spatulated
fingers was considered either an orna-
ment or pillar Of the English stage.
am inclined to believe, indeed, that his
reputation has been largely the result Of
undeserved, but well sought, newspa-
per publicity, spread abroad perhaps in
a large measure by that interesting
but not very sagacious specimen of the
female community known as the .'mat-
inee girl" In,London Bellew was rec
ognized as having some originality of
idea about the dress of a young leading
man; he was among the first to affect
the fob chain and the expansive collar
and cuffs, which have since become a
byword in other directions. But have
never seen reason to believe that the
fellow had any depth Of thought or
originality Of conception, or that there
was anything in him to attract the I'M
doubtedly numerous young women,
some of them not as silly as they might
have been, who have fallen victims to
his baseness. That the Sothern boys
did not club him to death in gutter
long ago for his conduct toward their
sister, brought out in semi-legal pro-
ceedings in Chicago year or two since,
have not yet ceased to wonder.
From time to time there has been put
in circulation a story that Bellows real
name was Higgins, that he was the
son of an Irish briclslayer and that
he had wife and nine children down
in the Whitechapel region in London.
/ am convinced from facts in my own
possession and from conversations with
Londoners of to-day that this gracious
reprobate is in reality the son of a
worthy father, who bore with honor
the name the son has disgraced. It was
when Mrs. James Brown Potter was
living with her husband and beautiful
little daughter in a modest apartment
looking out over Washington square
that being before the Tuxedo craze
that this young woman, who had ac-
qlired taste for amateur theatricals,
made the acquaintance in semi-pro-
fessional way of Kyrle Bellew. A
woman whose personal gifts might
easily have enabled her to make honor
able allies and friends in any walk of
life to which she chose to adj
dress herself seems from the first
to have been a victim to the
destinations of this perfumed young
Assyrian bull, and gradually to have
fallen so completely under his control
as to lose all desire to keep up even the
semblanee Of womanly honor, and to
| make of herself a mark at which every
honorable wife and loving mother in
the land might feel tempted to point
I