Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-10
| DOMESTIC STAGE LIFE
Matter Not Incompatible as
Shown by MansfieIds.
VEIL LIFTED BUT RARELY
An Apostle of the Simple Life" Pro-
gram of Life.
AWAY FROM NOISE AND SMOKE
Romps With Boy Comrades From the
Vantage Ground of a Railroad
Car Home.


Naturally not every actor can afford to
carry his home with him, as it were, on
the road. Private cars are a luxury and
an expense not to be attained by every
member of a company. But where there
is keen realization of what makes the
difference between home and the best
equipped hotel, even the most modest thes-
! plan determined in despite of one-night
stands to know something of the comforts
of home can usually find a way.
One seldom finds more beautiful family
attachment and more complete domestic
harmony than exist between Richard
Mansfield, his wife, Beatrice, and their
little son, George Gibbs Mansfield. The
veil is lifted only once in awhile, and the
public at large knows very little of it. The
friends who have seen Mansfield at home
know his devotion to the family circle.
Mrs Mansfield divides the year between
their home on Riverside Drive, New York
city, and their country place, The Grange,
on the western heights of New London,
Conn. In town she INDUCES herself in as
active a social life her larger interests
in her domestic ministrations permit. In
the country she devotes her leisure to gar
dening She has several SpecialtieS. Among
them are a wonderful rose garden which
she has cultivated from couple of hun
dred varieties, charming collection of
old-fashioned Towering shrubs and her beds
| of salad greens. The fame of these last
has spread abroad in the east.
A Single Passenger.
The place Mrs. Mansfield holds in the
hearts of all whose privilege it has been
| to come within the radius of her personal
ity is best attested by the quiet but none
the less remarkable demonstration of af-
fectienate concern when she was thrown !
| from her horse with almost fatal results
last summer. When the news was teie.
! graphed over this country and Europe there
Of \, dole
and inquiry from both sides of the ocean
that the telegraph Office at New London
| was overwhelmed for days. Happily, she
| is now recovered from the accident. This
| same occasion furnished an example of the
devotion of the actor-husband. The news
| that Mrs. Mansfield was thrown from her
| horse and was so badly bruised that she
could not be moved was telephoned to New
York to Mr. Mansfield as he returned from
rehearsal. He ordered a special engine and
| car, and in half an hour was on his way
| to his wife. For three hours at record
speed the little train pounded through the
night with the one solitary passenger sit
! ting alone in the corner in an agony of
| apprehension.
| Mrs Mansfield is not alone the pivot of
| her husbands private life, but she is the
| one person in the world to whose judgment
| he habitually gives ear and assent 1t is
| his comfort to have her near during the
ordeals of creation, while a new character
and new play is in process of evolution
at rehearsal; and it is his satisfaction to
Necessarily they are much apart during
| the winter. His professional duties take
him over d wide circumference of territory
| and her maternal obligations usually keep
| her at home. But morning and evening
| of every day Geographic messages pass be-
| tween them. When Mansfield is playing
| an extended engagement, as in Chicago, or
| Boston, or Philadelphia, Mrs. Mansfield
| always pays him visit.
| For several years while in Chicago he
| has made it practice of renting a resi-
,,,;tl lit Of
servants, and there Mrs. Mansfield joins
him.
From Noise and Smoke.
New York and Chicago are the only cities
| in which Mr.. Mansfield is at home in the
usual sense of having his own residence
When he visits other cities he lives either
in his private car or in hotel. More often
than not during the last few years he has
insisted on living away from busy centers,
away from noise and smoke and crowds,
in some sylvan suburb where he can enjoy
nature.
A gentleman in Cincinnati wrote home
in these terms after having driven out to
Fernbank, where Mansfield lived in his
car on his last visit there:
"Fernbank is ten miles from the heart
of the city, a perfect woodland paradise.
Overhead two great trees tower~above the
house on wheels. But step away stands
an ancient farm and granary in state
of picturesque ruin that pleases the artistic
eye CHANGING from the window of his
dining room, Mr.. Mansfield has a sweeping
view of the greening Kentucky hills just
across the Ohio river. not mile away.
Violets bloom beneath the car, and a
dozen varieties of song birds sing in the
trees which hang over it. Nature is in
| the budding. and here Mr. Mansfield goes
every spring, being hauled ten miles into
! the city in the evening and returning at
| midnight after each performance. He
| awakens at in the morning to the carol
| of the meadow lark. His is hidden
| from the roadside, and only few of the
| neighborng suburbantes seem to know of
| its presence. Those nearest him during his
| seven days pilgrimage among the violets
say that here in the sunshine Mr.. Mans
| fields inner nature shines forth and he
| shakes off the gloom of his pathetic or
| tragic roles and is just Richard Mans
| field
| Apostle Of Simple Life.