The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-07-19

ure to delight the world, for her like
will not soon pass this way again.
Patti never had a childhood. She was
a prima donna when she was SO small
that it was necessary to put her on
table that she might be seen, and at 8
she was singing with fire and passion
the role of Norma. revealing it's tragedy
of love betrayed, of jealousy all con-
Stunning, of maternal sacrifice complete
Thus, now she has no old age. The
tall dark Swede who is her husband is
a perfect specimen of physical Develop
ment and athletic manhood, but al
though he is young enough to be her
son, Patti looks young beside him.
At Craig1y y he goes 9. eve every ia, DAY
he is, and Patti accompanies him.
tripping along with the little steps of
child, and running into the house at the
end, rosy and painting like a girl If
you are fortunate enough ever to be
a guest at that great castle in the
Welsh mountains you will hear her
early the morning singing lightly, I'm,
conscious almost, as she runs up and
down stairs, into this room and that.
fresh, bright and youthful, her eyes
sparkling, her cheeks aglow.
At the Albert Hall old men and wo-
men will sit with their grandchildren
and tell a bout PATHS appearance and
PATHS triumphS in the days of her
youth. and then Patti will come out,
unchanged in looks, to receive the same
applause, to sing the same songs with
=
so the people in the audience will say,
even if the critics do find a few flaws.
Whoever will come after her will be
small in comparison, small in the esti-
nation of the audience, which adores
only Patti when she is at hand and
keeps on adoring her year after year,
decade after decade, with a faithful en-
thusiasm the world has seldom seen
equaled
In attempting to describe her voice in
this year of grace 1902, one says at once
that the ordinary epithets sound COM
monplace when applied to it. that ito
sweetness, its power, its hexibility, its
sensitive, senuous sympathy, are still
superb, still in perfect order, hardly be-
traying the least effect of time. But
one reads the same thing in the jour-
hands that have long since been dust.
Is it wildly in possible to imagine that
the journals of 20 years hence will have
the same thing to say?
AS far as her beauty is concerned,
Patti uses few of the artsSwhich ordi-
nary beauties bring to their aid to pro-
long the spell of their physical attrac-
tons. A great deal has been written
about her baths of milk and the secret
connections in cosmetics she employs,
but most of it is pure Invention She
does not even worry about her ward
robe. as the ma jority of women find
anxiously over different colors. studying
various styles. seeking the material
which will best set off their charms.
Patti always has new gown for ev-
cry concert, but she never knows what
it is to be until she sees it in the dress
ing room an hour or two before Her
dressmaker has carte blanche and her
milliner also, and neither OF them has
ever made her thing she could not
wear.
She eats what she likes, she lives as
she likes. she takes exercise as she
chooses, having Fashioned notions
that it is unwomanlv to ride bicycle
and dangerous to intrust ones life to 8
motor car. She has no physician in close
attendance to watch every sign of ill
ness and arrest it, and, most marvellous
of all, in these days of neurotic feninin-
ism-she has no nerves! Among her
fads is one for watches, and every night
before retiring she winds up eight or
ten of them and places them in different
parts of the bed room. One can imagine.
or, rather. one cannot imagine, the eff
feet of this upon some of the highly
strung Great lures of the twentieth CEN
fury who succumb every year to
nerves.
It is well known that Patti never had
a teacher in the common acceptance OF