The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-10-03
She LOVED MANSFIELD
and BECAME 4 NUN

WASHINGTON, Sept. IT, Thai
Richard Mansfield's early life held a
romance that exceeded in pathos any
that he ever portrayed on the stage
and that it's gentle heroine sleeps under
the sod of the burying ground of a
Washington convent, to which she re-
tired on forsaking the world years ago.
is a fact little known to the students
of the great actors public career. The
man who was regarded by his audi
ences as a self-cenrered and wholly
egotistical artist. had from his youth
cherished an affection as unselfsh, and
as hopeless as that of Dante for Bea-
trice.
Few of the young pupils of the con-
vent school to whom the popular actor
was an idol. realized that the lovely
nun who taught them daily had a part
in their hero's life-story.
More than twenty years ago. when
young Richard Mansfield's star had just
risen on the dramatic horizon, the
lovely daughter of a Maryland country
gentleman made her first visit to an
aunt in New York. Fresh from the
quiet of her girlhood home, the young
girl entered with childish joy into all
the pleasures offered by the big city
The first visit which she had ever
paid to a theater was to see the play
in which Mansfield was then making
his first great success.
After the performance one of the
members of the theater party present.
ed the actor to the young Maryland
girl. From that night Mansfield's fat
was bound up in that of the gentle
girl of whom he spoke henceforth as
the white Rose"
The picture which the pretty country
girl, whose simple white frock con-
trasted as strongly with the elaborate
apparel of the other women as the
white rose which she had placed in her
hair did with the jeweled tiaras, ap,
pealed to Mansfield's artistic sense,
and he singled her out for marked
He found her as lovely in
as she was in person., and
fell as deeply in love as only a man of
his ardent temperament and determine
alton can.
But fate had fixed a barrier between
the actor and the object of his devo-
ton The family of the young woman,
deyout Catholics and proud of their
ancestry, held the stage
and all that pertained to it in abhor-
renee. The father in particular,
gentleman of a fast disappear
ing type, looked upon his daughters
sutton as being socially on the same
plane as a circus clown, and sternly
forbade her to receive his attentions
Forced to choose between his love
and his art, Mansfield, with grief
which left an ineffaceable impression
on his life and his art bade farewell
to his dream of happiness, and con-
tinued with renewed ardor the career
to which fate had predestined him.
That his affection was returned,
there can be no doubt, for the girl
whom he had loved SO ardently, to the
of all her friends, soon after
entered upon novitiate in a religious
order, and on finishing her probation
took the final vows which separated
her forever from the man to whom she
had given her heart.
Years ago she became a teacher in
he convent school of the order in this
city. The charm which had made he
/ belle in girlhood and her unusual in
most successful and popular teachers |
If the institution, which enjoys a |
vide reputation for excellence, and in |
which thousands of young women from |
LII parts of the United States have re-
,eived their education.
That he had never forgotten his |
.arly romance and still cherished a |
ender affection for its heroine she |
Knew, for every engagement which the
tctor played in Washington was sig |
lalized by the appearance of a box of |
white roses at the convent, sent by |
Mansfield 10 the white Rose of his |
Early dreams.
When, last spring, death claimed the |
Jun. Mansfield was grief stricken, and |
t is said that at the time of the last |
he played in this city he !
Visited the graveyard of the convent |
md placed a wreath of white roses on !
he grave of his early love.
-----s--%-s.-----
Advertising pays the man who does |