The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-05-01
A BREATH FROM THE FIELDS.
Miss Caroline GordOn's Sympathetic
Delinestion of Negro Life


Delinestion of Negro Life.
That portion of Savannah's population
that gathered last night at IAawton Me-
mortal, and it made up an audience at
once large, fashionable and cultured
was treated to that rarest gift of the
gods-a new sensation
New in kind, as well as in degree. In
terpreters there are of negro life, and OF
singers of negro folk songs and melodies
or what purport to be SUCH a soodlv
sunlclency. Every now and then one
OF these strikes a note that rings true
once IN a long and tiresome while, one
Oh tnem gives an Interpretation that
really interprets. For the most part thew
indulge themselves and weary their lis
lehers with what are parodies of the ne
gro character and the negro habit and
mat are no more like the original they
pretend 10 portray than are the gaudy
earlcatures OF the comic papers like the
persons of their alleged models The
occasional ring of fidelity and truth in
the deiineations of these good-intentioned
toIks is like a happy bon mot in the mid
ole OF an outpouring of post-prandial ora
tory, That otherwise is fiat, stale and un-
prohtabie-pleasing in itself, but does not
evenings tortures.
Miss Caroline Lewis Gordon. whose de-
llghtful readings, songs and stories from
negro life were heard at the Lawton
Memorial is the happy possessor of all of
lhose rare attributes that make for a
Norrect and sympathetic Interpretation of
the character and the moods of the old
plantation darkey. One must have been
born and brought up with the negro, have
imbibed- with childish avidity something of
mis- superstition, his credulity, his intense
emotions, his drifting, shifting moods, to
know what he is like. One must have a
voice that can moduate itself to his soft
utterances and adapt itself to his I'M
expected vocal changes, to be able to
convey this knowledge to others. One
must have sympathy with the subject and
the theme and tender love for these
vanishing characters in play that is end
ed, to stamp the picture with the seal of
truth.
All these Miss Gordon has, and more
Just what the additional element in her
personality one hesitates 10 say-superla-
tives are wont to defeat sometimes the
purpose for which they are used but il
it be not genius, it is talent sublima ted,
or else it is nature in her most charming
garb. AS Miss Gordon sings one of the
the rythm of the half-barbaric air, eyes
half closed, one foot patthg the floor and
hands softly beating time to the measure,
with Tilt in her voice that is like breath
from the fields and the pines, the specta-
tor has only to close his eyes to her
beauty to have rise before him the picture
of some Old negro nanny, upon whose
tender bosom and 10 the music of some
such lullaby he has passed in days
gone by from childhood's waking
thoughts into the gracious land of sleep.
DE Buryin O. Brer Briscoe," an orig
inal sketch from life by Miss Gordon, was
first on her programme last evening. In
it's reading Miss Gordon controlled at her
will the emotions of her audience. One
moment the audience was laughing heart
lily at some grotesque absurdity; the next
it would be Stilled and Gained and sit
with eyes tear-dimmed in the presence Of
some scene of pathos and deep feeling
whose very presence she seemed to evoke
Laughter and tears, dance songs and
burial hymns, the love of life and the
fear of death, lullabies, soft as the breath
of an angels wing, invocations that held
the very spirit of despair; these, ever
varying. following and intermixing with
each other, Miss Gordon produced and re-
produced at her will