The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-23
Amy Leslie in the Chicago News.

Amy Leslie in the Chicago News.
 @ ROM the shadow of the Alps Y comes amour mournful little misslv' ,aar. field, the widow of Richard Mansfield, and a widow who Is still dazed and mystihed and moaning in her heart over her loss in that great man. She never seems quite to understand that he is irrevocably gone from her and there is plaintive. mixture of wild, uncomfortable grief pent up and kind of solace in his presence which she feels all the time wherever she may carry her tears and her cour- age. She is in Switzerland with George Gibbs Mansfield, her boy, whom she is educating among the learned Switzers.
 we live in a little cottage so plainly furnished and so immaculately devoid of luxury that Americahs would look aghast,
 but we are near the sky, and there are misty~days when I can hear Dicks voice
 as clear as if he called to us, when l am alone upon the mountains The more
 alone I am the nearer seems my poor
 Dick, and know he misses me and must
 hear my voice, too way up here. We
 have a nice life, though, Gibbs and Dick s
 voice and l. and the boy is growing so
 wonderful is promising such splendors
 of mind and courage, such manly char acteristics and all that makes me glad and must delight his dear father. We are
 quite alone, though Gibbs goes to day
 school in order to be with me longer, for
 there must come freezing day when
 loftier college pursuits will take him from us, but we are happy here.'
 Mrs. Mansfield has only one aim in life,
 except, of course, that maternal one or
 watching Gibbs grow into splendid ma turity with all his boyish talents af1ame and well refined. 1Ier longing, aside from
 this. is to see Mansfeld's greatness. per
 petuated in some laudable form by a public testimonial. But American actors
 have always gone gypsying into kind Of
 mystical celebrity which holds fire and
 belief and monumental glory intact with
 little sculpture, Inscription or acknowl- edgment from the public. It never has
 been done, but Mrs. Mansfield will leave no stone unturned until she sees that her lord and honored husband, notwithstand- ing his notable and unchallenged great ess, Is not to be the only player to break into the regular American habit of let ting celebrity tell It's own story through the clouds gathered about memories of their superb estates and divine appoint ment
 That Mrs. Mansfield lives in retirement
 does not mean not plenty of money. For though Richard Mansfield always lived en prince, with retinues of a rajah and the luxuries of a potentate of India, he still had much money to put aside for his wife and boy for he loved them better | than himself But she is a frugal little creature. Mansfield always said she never had clothes on, but pretty trim things" l "Beatrice never has but two frocks. They l are both just alike. I think she buys them | ready made in Sixth avenue somewhere"
 he wouldl say, poking fun at hdr But she did dress that way. Her bank was | full of jewels, but she rarely wore any l thing but the most unpretentious deco 1 ration, something he had given her. He | used to squander fortunes for her in 1 beautiful furs and hats and jewels, but
 she was rather unhappy loaded down with 1 them. A plain brown dress of the most i expensive material without a vestige of
 style other than Beatrice Mansfield's own
 was her favorite array In white she was
 most sweet and girlish to look upon, and :! she wore it usually for the big swagger l things in which she and Mansfield swam l up to their eyes when they had time. but