The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1905-05-09
JOSEPH JEFFERSON.
A GREAT ACTOR HAS PASSED TO
HIS FINAL REWARD.

lduH LiUCI bAtSlC WClC hAdhJ VOeeAS'
for he knew how to play upon
human heartstrings and running
through the joyous measures
there were sometimes tones that
were sobs set to music. He was
a natural actor, but really what
made his performances SO effec-
tive was the truth that under his
acute mind, there was a heart
great enough to encompass all
his fellow men, to take up then
burdens and help to carry them.
His would have been a marked
personality, even had he never
seen a theatre. This is what
gave his audiences an impress
sion that, while charming them
as they had never been charmed
before, still he was not doing his
best; that his mind and thoughts
were higher than anything he
ever had portrayed or ever could
portray. After Manila and San
tiago, when the nation was wild
over the great news, Chauncey
Depew said to him Jefferson,
how do you account for the
marvellous victories ?" From
the actors standpoint" was the
reply, Il should say those other
fellows had not rehearsed
enough" 1t was a light ans
wer, calculated to make the list
ner laugh, but in it when analyz-
ed, will be seen a full compre-
hension of all the causes that
made the Spanish, squadrons
helpless in the presence of real
fighting enemy; full compre-
hension of the years of supersti-
ton, hereditary ignorance, slav-
ish fear of those in authority,
the disintergration that comes
when the poor of a nation are
long kept under the lash of tyr
amy and the fear that supersti-
ton involves a people in until
their manhood dies and they are
no lodger capable of staining
behind the guns of ship when
death is in the air and annihiia-
ton is iminent.
Of course a man so gifted and
so warm hearted as was Joseph
Jefferson was greatly loved, and
the affection for him was confin-
ed to no class. No man attained
a position so high that he was
not glad to be registered as JOS
eph Jefferson's friend; no man
was SO humble that he feared to
greet him; no child so timid that
it feared without hesitation to
climb upon his knee, for Jeffer-
son met his fellowmen as the de-
vout Catholic kneels in church,
with a king on his left and a
mendicant on his right, without
awe of the one or scorn of the
other for God is so near that all
men are brothers. The very
highest in his profession looked
up to him, trusting his superior
judgment, the lowest approach
ed him without fear, confident of
his sympathy.
A world filled with such men
as he would make translation
to better world unnecessary;
few such men as was he would
make the world better.
AS he awakened from the coma
into which he had fallen, we do
not believe that there was as
much surprise to his soul as he
was won't to exhibit in the great
play when he awakened from his
long sleep in the Catskill hills.
We are sure there was left none
of the chill of his deep sleep for
were not the arms of Booth and
Barrett and Mccullough and
Boucicault and the others around
his soul? And was not the great
orchestra playing soft and low,
and was not the stage set for the
scene of the radiant Dawn that
ushers in the everlasting Day I?
|-Goodwin's Weekly.