The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-06-04

When the young fellows made their
greetings to the visitor there was not
one among them who could not have
endured with some complacency to
hear himself called a critic.
When they pressed the old mans
hand in parting one of the critics"
said: I feel like a little boy who has
been told that children were to be seen
and not heard and that if he were good
and quiet he might come again.
And another glancing back at the
dean of the guild, said: I'VE, critics?
In that presence we are theatrical re-
pOrters-nothing more"
Then he rolled the word critics In
the cheek waggishly and added mus
ingly in the manner of the Virginian,
ooh, sugarl'
Yes, they all were very humble. They
had learned a great deal in that hour
or was it tWo-at the table, but most
of all they had learned how much they
had to learn, which in itself is a profit
able thing.
william winter critic, hfstorianpoet.
playwright, is IS years old. He has
been in active and conspicuous news
paper life for more than 40 years. He
is the only survivor of that cOterie of
brilliant men Horace Greeley drew
around him when he began to make
the New York Tribune a power in the
land.
AS one who has helped to make the
plays of Shakespeare beloved of the
multitude. the name of William Winter
viii live with the names of David Gar
rick and Edwin Booth and Henry Irv-
ing. He is the last of the old guard
of critics and to us of the twentieth
century, as we saw him and listened to
him last Thursday night, he seemed
more nearly to belong to the age of
Charles Lamb than to the present.
Into the hands of this man the leader
of the English stage had on a certain
Christmas eve pressed the snuffboX of
H. IL
ted treasure which the donor in his
turn, had received from John Murray
the son of that John Murray who was
Byrons publisher.
And on this snuff-bOx,' said Mr..
Winter, there are engraved the arms
of Byron and the initials of Sir Henry
and myself. Within it rests a lock of
the hair of Mrs. Sarah SiddOns, of Miss
Charlotte Cushman and of my dear,
dead friend, Adelaide Nelson. AIDE
lads cut the tress from her head in
my presence, the lock of SiddOns' hair
is perfectly authenticated and that
from CharlOtte's head was given to
Genevieve Ward by Miss Cushman s
nurse and descended from Miss Ward
to me.
Someone suggested that Mr. Winter
might have made assurance of anthem
ITCHY doubly sure by begging from Miss
Cushman herself a lock of her hair.
The thought of such a request from
so austere a. woman made him laugh,
and he said: There is a story to the
effect that John T. Raymond once met
her in the street when he was exhila-
rated and accosted her with the words,
How are you, Lottiei'"
1t is when he is launched in the full
tide of his delightful "reminiscences that
the burden of William Winters 68
years seems to vanish. He is small of
stature and frail. His feet are little
and shapely as a girls but he stands
erect upon them and there is hardly the
suggestion of a stoop in his shoulders.
He wears black clothes and a wide
scarf of white silk knotted in an ex-
pansive bow. A capacious standing
collar with the ends opening comforta-
bly, at the throat rises almost to his
ears His nlustache is white and so is
his long hair. When he wakes anima-
ted in conversation or testY in argu-
ment he runs both hands through his
hair pulls it over his eyes, makes a
lock or two stand upright and from be-
hind this screen blinks and mods at the
behOlder in the manner of an owl whose
dignity has been disturbed but not Of
Tended. His features are sensitive, his
eyes bright, his cheeks tinged with a
rudy glow, his nostrils thin When
his heart is touched his eyes instant
" become moist; when he speaks of
theatrical syndicates, or Ibsen plays, or
musical comedies, they snap and the
lines of his mouth, tender and sweet in
repose. becomes twisted At such time