The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-10-15

live! We feel genial. Let US be gener-
ous!" What actor is beyond the infiu-
ence of the personal? Can he be tonight
quite what he was yesterday, or what
he may be tomorrow? The art has to
be studied that the touch of the brush
may not be repeated upon the same
spot? Can [ say to the monster: ''Wait,
friendly dragon. That was a slip I'll
do it over again and say it better" And
yet, the miss was by the hundredth part
of q nuance.
: glass have 1 thrilled my very reflection
with the vehemence and power OF my
delivery, to cast it at night into the
stony and unmoved faces Of an I'M
friendly monster. How often has an au-
dience arisen to roar it's approval and
delight at q certain passage, which an
other monster has received in apathetic
silence? How often has the best-re-
hearsed effect been beyond redemption
marred by bat whirring around or the
whistle Of an irrespective boy? What
actor rising to the very height Of trag-
edy may not be cast into the very abyss
of pathos by a gamin in the gallery :?
What study and preparation can escape
the ruin of carelessness or accident?
| l cannot compare a monster of Boston
with monster of New York or with
monster Of Philadelphia or Chicago. I
dare not offend any one of these mon
sters for they are much more necessary
to me than [ to them. And if l feed
them they feed me. But, alasi I am one
and they are many, and there are many
others like me whom they like, like me.
and who will be forgotten quickly when
they cease to feed them. What I have
tried TO say to these great and powerful
beasts is all by the way Of giving more
| to get more.
| Perhaps the saddest spot in the sad life
! of the actor Is to be forgotten. Great
paintings live to commemorate great
| painters; the statues Of sculptors are
| their monuments, and books are the in
scr1ptions of authors. But who shall say
| when this generation has passed how
| Yorick played? If ever contemporary
| criticism can extract one spark to annoy
| the artists finger, it should be by this
| thought alone! When the curtain has
! fallen for the last time and only the I'M
! seen spirit hovers in the wings what
| book will speak of all the hummer did
and suffered in his little time? Every
| character he creates is child he bears
| There Is labor and there is pain. He has
| bestowed upon 1t his love and incesstnt
| thought, and sleeping and waking it IS
| with him as with g mother When it Is
born, it is born like the children of the
| klng-in public. 1t Is either beautiful
| and perfect child, or he drags himself
| home in misery to weep away his sor-
| row unpitied Sometimes when the peo-
| pie have acclaimed it, those whose bust
| mesa it is to sit in judgment on the child
| condemn 1t at first sight, and 1t is buried
! in its little coffin and only its mother
| weeps over it.
| I do not wish to become reminiscent
nj I'll
| but 1 have had so many children, and a
| number of them are dead and forgotten
| by everybody. Only I, their natural pa
| ternal mother think of them at night
over my pipe when all the world is STILL
| Then they come out of their corners and
perch upon my knee Motley are not
all beautiful. Very few Of them are
/ But the mother always cherishes most
dearly the ugly one.
There was Nero. How I worked over
him! With what infinite pains I created
him! How prepared his beautiful robes!
And he was buried on the first night
There was Don Juan. How he was
wreathed in flowers upon the night he
was born! How the people applauded him!
How proudly his father and his godmoth-
ers and godfathers toasted himl And the
next day he was dead and buried and
the flowers and the tinsel stuffed into his
comn. linen poor, Wretched, fever
wrought Rodion stands before me- He
was born to me after a great trial, a
long and severe illness, the loss of all
my means and some Of my best hopes.
He was the child of sorrow. 1t was dur
ing the period Of convalescence that I
bore him. and I was shaking with ague
and weakness. I stood UP that night
quite careless of life or death. After the
scene of delirium in which Rodion kills
his imagined victim I broke down. The
curtain had fallen; the audience sat per-
fectly still; there was not breath of APP
plause. I had failed. I was carried to my
room. Then there came to me the thun-
der of approval. 1t woke nett revivi1ed
me. I went before the curtain again and
again. My child had triumphed! Ali my
troubles, my sickness my losses, were
forgotten. But there is no mercy in these
matters. The next day my child was
killed. The next night he was dead Of
neglect. and there was no one at his fu-
neral. But I, 1 received some dozen
anonymsus letters containing the inquiry:
why didn't you die? The pubic Is sick
of you. Die" And wished then had
died with my child.
When 1 was younger pictured the life
on the stage; the triumph an intoxication
of success; the adulation and applause