The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-14

Bah PrayS That Her Fascinating Sex
Nav Ever Remain Youthful.


Will Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhard
and Fanny Davenport Be Blessed
With Eternal Youth and VigorP
Fat Stage Queens-Are Our Amer
lean Women Growing HandsomerP
Heart Warmth.
tCopyrightl
New York, May BIT came about
through my seeing in the paper an an
nouncement of the marriage of Ellen
TerTys son, and l though with a shudder
of Rosalind, of Portia, of Beatrice, Of
Ophelia as a grandmother! 1t seemed
horrible just at first. Then laughed and
realized that it wasn't horrible at all;
that there were plenty of women who
were Shakespeare's ideal, whom
age did not wither and custom
did not stale. Then | remem-
bered seeing little performance for some
charity, where Ellen Terrys daughter
played the leading part, and Ellen Terry
herself was a maid-servant, dressed in
| pink cotton, and the mother locked
younger than the daughter. There are
women, who, because of the youthfulness
|
mentality, and the innocence with which
| they accept and do not attempt to analyze
many emotions are never old. Ellen
| Terry is one of these women. If she were
| a great-grand-mother, she would still, be-
cause of her slender, girlish figure, be-
cause of her merry laugh, and because
each year made her so many years younger
| rather than so many years old be able to
play the part of the most love-sick girl
offs.
EVER YOUTHFUL ACTRESSES.
To go over to Paris, as a great many do,
| can you imagine Sarah growing old! Not
a bit moro than you could think of the
| sphinx losing its eternal youth. She
seems always young and never. old. l
think she is grandmother, but ] am
sure that she can understand and could
portray every emotion of the girl of 16.
Most English women grow old hand
somely; they get to look dignifed their
necks increase in beauty, and they hold
their heads well. Mrs. Langtry at rs
will be an older but an equally handsome
Mrs Langtry, for it is only necessary to
look at her mother, and you see the
beauty as in a looking-glass a great many
years from now. Mrs. Bancroft, one Of
the idols of the British public Is to-day
handsome woman, clever enough to
realize that increased flesh, that foe to
actresses, has made it impossible for her
to play the part she used to, and so in the
revival of Diplomacy she took the small
one OF Lady Henry, because she knewshe
would look the character perfectly. and
that there would not be a suggestion of
mutton dressed in lamb fashion. Conse-
quently she looked the perfectly well-bred
woman of the world. beautifully dressed
and so delighted were the audience at
seeing their old favorite again that from
the pot boy in the gallery to the Prince
of Wales in the box, there were wild
cheers and calls for the clever actress by
her name. She win never grow old; there
is too much of humanity in her life, and
1t 1t that that keeps people young.
Look at the women on our own stage.
II Lolita numbers as many years as She"
the sprite herself would be as young and
as delightful as the cherubs that Raphael
pictured Sometimes think that She is
the result Of the law of TRANSPORTATION
and that years ago she was a butterfly.
then human being, and a delightful one,
warranted to keep young forever. Testing
aside Lolita looks young even of the
stage. / saw her the other day on the
street, simply dressed, without particle
of paint or powder on her face, and there
passed before me in review that pretty
girl who was left in the pawnbroker'S Of
fee, the Warehouses slipping the rosy
with Dick Swiveller, and then the young.
bright, merry looking girl who had made
JOY for me when l was a schoolgirl. Kind
illness and genius combined are two of the
ingredients in the draught from out the
fountain of eternal youth
There is type of woman on the stage
who reaches fascinating age and stays
there. / may say, to use Balzac's words,
that reaching the perfect age of 80,
WHEN A WOMAN Is AT HER BEST.
she never grows older Probably the
most prominent in this respect is Fanny
Davenport-to my way of thinking, the
greatest actress on the American stage.
lis an actress, she does not play the parts
| of girls of l6; she plays the parts of
| women of complex mind, and she shows
| her audience the why and wherefore of
] their being historical, which ordinary
women never are. She can make
! you shudder with horror at the death of
| Nancy Skies; she can make Won burn
| with revenge as you long to help Fedora
and she can bring before you picture of
| the serpent of the old Nile" as Sarah.
with all her art, could not do. Fanny
| Davenport, II seems to me-and / have
| thought out good bit Of this question
| will stay just as she is for a great MANY
! years, and our grandchildren will wonder
that we could have seen her play, for to
| them she is eternally interesting as she is
| to US.
| An exact contrast is Ada Rehan; al
ready showing her age on the stage, she
! plays parts that are too young for her,
and it is only because the audience likes
! personally that she is accepted An old
| New York favorite who used to be a
| pretty woman, but who does not seem to
| realize that it has been a number of years
| since she played young girls in the Union
! Square Company, when such an artist
and such gentlew0man as Sarah Jewett
was at the head of it, is Maud Harrison.
! To her, time has been kind it has made
| the figure, which used to be plump. de-
| cidedly fat; the voice that used to be sill
| very, rather rasping and the movements
that used to be coquettish, a little awk-
| ward. Nobody has been kind enough to
| suggest to her that the day has come
when the ingenue can no longer be simu-
! lated, and that one must appear what one
| looks-a lady-well, lady who, no mat
ter what her age is, has not eternal
| youth.
GROWING OLD EXCLUSIVELY.
! There are women on the stage who have
! grown old in such an exquisite way that
! they seem Like perfect miniatures Tony
mind there arc four-Mrs. Bowers, first
| OF all; Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Walcott and
! Mrs. Whif1en. Mrs Bowers is an evil