Chapter 22

Her second character in London was Lady Macbeth, to the Macbeth of Edwin Forrest; but the American actor failed to please, and the audience gave free expression to their discontent. Greatly disgusted, Forrest withdrew, deluding himself with the belief that he was the victim of a conspiracy. Miss Cushman's success knew no abatement. She played a round of parts, assisted by James Wallack, Leigh Murray, and Mrs. Stirling, appearing now as Rosalind, now as Juliana in "The Honeymoon," as Mrs. Haller, as Beatrice, as Julia in "The Hunchback." Her second season was even more successful than her first. After a long provincial tour she appeared in December, 1845, as Romeo at the Haymarket Theatre, then under the management of Mr. Webster, her sister Susan assuming the character of Juliet. She had sent for her family to share her prosperity, and had established them in a furnished house at Bayswater.

Her success as Romeo was very great. The tragedy was played for eighty nights. Her performance won applause even from those most opposed to the representation of Shakespeare's hero by a woman. For a time her intense earnestness of speech and manner, the passion of her interviews with Juliet, the fury of her combat with Tybalt, the despair of her closing scenes, bore down all opposition, silenced criticism, and excited her audience to an extraordinary degree. She appeared afterward, but not in London, as Hamlet, following an unfortunate example set by Mrs. Siddons; and as Ion in Talfourd's tragedy of that name.

In America, toward the close of her career, she even ventured to appear as Cardinal Wolsey, obtaining great applause by her exertions in the character, and the skill and force of her impersonation. But histrionic feats of this kind trespass against good taste, do violence to the intentions of the dramatists, and are, in truth, departures from the purpose of playing. Miss Cushman had for excuse--in the first instance, at any rate--her anxiety to forward the professional interests of her sister, who, in truth, had little qualification for the stage, apart from her good looks and her graces of manner. The sisters had played together in Philadelphia in "The Genoese"--a drama written by a young American--when, to give support and encouragement to Susan in her personation of the heroine, Charlotte undertook the part of her lover. Their success prompted them to appear in "Romeo and Juliet." Other plays, in which both could appear, were afterward selected--such, for instance, as "Twelfth Night," in which Charlotte played Viola to the Olivia of Susan--so that the engagement of one might compel the engagement of the other. Susan, however, quitted the stage in 1847, to become the wife of Dr. Sheridan Muspratt, of Liverpool.

Charlotte Cushman called few new plays into being. Dramas, entitled "Infatuation," by James Kenny, in 1845, and "Duchess Elinour," by the late H. F. Chorley, in 1854, were produced for her, but were summarily condemned by the audience, being scarcely permitted indeed a second performance in either case. Otherwise, she did not add to her repertory. For many years she led the life of a "star," fulfilling brief engagements here and there, appearing now for a term in London, and now travelling through the provinces, playing some half a dozen characters over and over again. Of these Lady Macbeth, Queen Katherine and Meg Merrilies were perhaps the most frequently demanded. Her fame and fortune she always dated from the immediate recognition she obtained upon her first performance in London. But she made frequent visits to America; indeed, she crossed the Atlantic "upward of sixteen times," says her biographer. In 1854 she took a house in Bolton Row, Mayfair, "where for some years she dispensed the most charming and genial hospitality," and, notably, entertained Ristori on her first visit to England in 1856. Several winters she passed in Rome, occupying apartments in the Via Gregoriana, where she cordially received a host of friends and visitors of all nations. In 1859 she was called to England by her sister's fatal illness; in 1866 she was again summoned to England to attend the death-bed of her mother. In 1860 she was playing in all the chief cities of America. Three years later she again visited America, her chief object being to act for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission, and aid the sick and wounded victims of the civil war. During the late years of her life she appeared before the public more as a dramatic reader than as an actress. There were long intervals between her theatrical engagements; she seemed to quit her profession only to return to it after an interval with renewed appetite, and she incurred reproaches because of the frequency of her farewells, and the doubt that prevailed as to whether her "last appearances" were really to be the "very last." It was not until 1874, however, that she took final leave of the New York stage, amid extraordinary enthusiasm, with many poetic and other ceremonies. She was the subject of addresses in prose and verse. Mr. Bryant, after an eloquent speech, tendered her a laurel wreath bound with white ribbon resting upon a purple velvet cushion, with a suitable inscription embroidered in golden letters; a torchbearers' procession escorted her from the theatre to her hotel; she was serenaded at midnight, and in her honor Fifth Avenue blazed with fireworks. After this came farewells to Philadelphia, Boston and other cities, and to these succeeded readings all over the country. It is to be said, however, that incessant work had become a necessity with her, not because of its pecuniary results, but as a means of obtaining mental relief or comparative forgetfulness for a season. During the last five or six years of her life she was afflicted with an incurable and agonizing malady. Under most painful conditions she toiled unceasingly, moving rapidly from place to place, and passing days and nights in railway journeys. In a letter to a friend, she writes: "I do get so dreadfully depressed about myself, and all things seem so hopeless to me at those times, that I pray God to take me quickly at any moment, so that I may not torture those I love by letting them see my pain. But when the dark hour passes, and I try to forget by constant occupation that I have such a load near my heart, then it is not so bad." She died almost painlessly at last on February 18, 1876.

Charlotte Cushman may assuredly be accounted an actress of genius in right of her originality, her vivid power of depicting emotion, the vehemence and intensity of her histrionic manner. Her best successes were obtained in tragedy, although she possessed a keen sense of humor, and could deliver the witty speeches of Rosalind or of Beatrice with excellent point and effect. Her Meg Merrilies will probably be remembered as her most impressive achievement. It was really, as she played it, a character of her own invention; but, in truth, it taxed her intellectual resources far less than her Bianca, her Queen Katherine, or her Lady Macbeth. Her physical peculiarities no doubt limited the range of her efforts, hindered her advance as an actress, or urged her toward exceptional impersonations. Her performances lacked femininity, to use Coleridge's word; but in power to stir an audience, to touch their sympathies, to kindle their enthusiasm, and to compel their applause, she takes rank among the finest players. It only remains to add that Miss Stebbins' fervid and affecting biography of her friend admirably demonstrates that the woman was not less estimable than the actress; that Charlotte Cushman was of noble character, intellectual, large and tenderhearted, of exemplary conduct in every respect. The simple, direct earnestness of her manner upon the mimic scene, characterized her proceedings in real life. She was at once the slave and the benefactress of her family; she was devotedly fond of children; she was of liberal and generous nature; she was happiest when conferring kindness upon others; her career abounded in self-sacrifice. She pretended to few accomplishments, to little cultivation of a literary sort; but she could write, as Miss Stebbins proves, excellent letters, now grave, now gay, now reflective, now descriptive, always interesting, and altogether remarkable for sound sense and for force and skill of expression. Her death was regarded in America almost as a national catastrophe. As Miss Stebbins writes, "The press of the entire country bore witness to her greatness, and laid their tributes upon her tomb."

* * * * *

The following letter of good counsel from Miss Cushman to young Mr. Barton is reprinted, by permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., from the "Life and Letters of Charlotte Cushman."

"I think if you have to wait for a while it will do you no harm. You seem to me quite frantic for immediate work; but teach yourself quiet and repose in the time you are waiting. With half your strength I could bear to wait and labor with myself to conquer _fretting_. The greatest power in the world is shown in conquest over self. More life will be worked out of you by fretting than all the stage-playing in the world. God bless you, my poor child. You have indeed trouble enough; but you have a strong and earnest spirit, and you have the true religion of labor in your heart. Therefore I have no fears for you let what will come. Let me hear from you at your leisure, and be sure you have no warmer friend than I am and wish to be."

RACHEL

By DUTTON COOK

(1821-1858)

It is told that Rachel Felix was born on March 24, 1821, at Munf, near the town of Aarau, in the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland; the burgomaster of the district simply noting in his books that upon the day stated, at the little village inn, the wife of a poor pedler had given birth to a female child. The entry included no mention of family, name, or religion, and otherwise the event was not registered in any civil or religious record. The father and mother were Abraham Felix, a Jew, born in Metz, but of German origin, and Esther Haya, his wife. They had wandered about the continent during many years, seeking a living and scarcely finding it. Several children were born to them by the wayside, as it were, on their journeyings hither and thither: Sarah in Germany, Rebecca in Lyons, Dinah in Paris, Rachel in Switzerland; and there were other infants who did not long survive their birth, succumbing to the austerities of the state of life to which they had been called. For a time, perhaps because of their numerous progeny, M. and Madame Felix settled in Lyons. Madame Felix opened a small shop and dealt in second-hand clothes; M. Felix gave lessons in German to the very few pupils he could obtain. About 1830 the family moved to Paris. They were still miserably poor. The children Sarah and Rachel, usually carrying a smaller child in their arms or wheeling it with them in a wooden cart, were sent into the streets to earn money by singing at the doors of cafes and estaminets. A musical amateur, one M. Morin, noticed the girls, questioned them, interested himself about them, and finally obtained their admission into the Government School of Sacred Music in the Rue Vaugirard. Rachel's voice did not promise much, however; as she confessed, she could not sing--she could only recite. She had received but the scantiest and meanest education; she read with difficulty; she was teaching herself writing by copying the manuscript of others. Presently she was studying elocution under M. St. Aulaire, an old actor retired from the Français, who took pains with the child, instructing her gratuitously and calling her "ma petite diablesse." The performances of M. St. Aulaire's pupil were occasionally witnessed by the established players, among them Monval of the Gymnase and Samson of the Comédie. Monval approved and encouraged the young actress, and upon the recommendation of Samson she entered the classes of the Conservatoire, over which he presided, with Michelot and Provost as his co-professors.

At the Conservatoire Rachel made little progress. All her efforts failed to win the good opinion of her preceptors. In despair she resolved to abandon altogether the institution, its classes and performances. She felt herself neglected, aggrieved, insulted. "Tartuffe" had been announced for representation by the pupils; she had been assigned the mute part of Flipote, the serving-maid, who simply appears upon the scene in the first act that her ears may be soundly boxed by Madame Pernelle. To this humiliation she would not submit. She hurried to her old friend, St. Aulaire, who consulted Monval, who commended her to his manager, M. Poirson. She entered into an engagement to serve the Gymnase for a term of three years upon a salary of 3,000 francs. M. Poirson was quick to perceive that she was not as so many other beginners were; that there was something new and startling about the young actress. He obtained for her first appearance, from M. Paul Duport, a little melodrama in two acts. It was called "La Vendéenne," and owed its more striking scenes to "The Heart of Midlothian." After the manner of Jeanie Deans, Géneviève, the heroine of the play, footsore and travel-stained, seeks the presence of the Empress Josephine to implore the pardon of a Vendéan peasant condemned to death for following George Cadoudal. "La Vendéenne," produced on April 24, 1837, and received with great applause, was played on sixty successive nights, but not to very crowded audiences. The press scarcely noticed the new actress. The critic of the _Journal des Débats_, however, while rashly affirming that Rachel was not a phenomenon and would never be extolled as a wonder, carefully noted certain of the merits and characteristics of her performance. "She was an unskilled child, but she possessed heart, soul, intellect. There was something bold, abrupt, uncouth about her aspect, gait, and manner. She was dressed simply and truthfully in the coarse woollen gown of a peasant-girl; her hands were red; her voice was harsh and untrained, but powerful; she acted without effort or exaggeration; she did not scream or gesticulate unduly; she seemed to perceive intuitively the feeling she was required to express, and could interest the audience greatly, moving them to tears. She was not pretty, but she pleased," etc. Bouffé, who witnessed this representation, observed: "What an odd little girl! Assuredly there is something in her. But her place is not here." So judged Samson also, becoming more and more aware of the merits of his former pupil. She was transferred to the Français to play the leading characters in tragedy, at a salary of 4,000 francs a year. M. Poirson did not hesitate to cancel her agreement with him. Indeed, he had been troubled with thinking how he could employ his new actress. She was not an _ingénue_ of the ordinary type; she could not be classed among soubrettes. There were no parts suited to her in the light comedies of Scribe and his compeers, which constituted the chief repertory of the Gymnase.

It was on June 12, 1838, that Rachel, as Camille, in "Horace," made her first appearance upon the stage of the Théâtre Français. The receipts were but seven hundred and fifty francs; it was an unfashionable period of the year; Paris was out of town; the weather was most sultry. There were many Jews in the house, it was said, resolute to support the daughter of Israel, and her success was unequivocal; nevertheless, a large share of the applause of the night was confessedly carried off by the veteran Joanny, who played Horace. On June 16th Rachel made her second appearance, personating Emilie in the "Cinna," of Corneille. The receipts fell to five hundred and fifty francs. She repeated her performance of Camille on the 23d; the receipts were only three hundred francs! the poorest house, perhaps, she ever played to in Paris. She afterward appeared as Hermione in "Andromaque," Aménaide in "Tancrède," Eriphile in "Iphigénie," Monime in "Mithridate," and Roxane in "Bajazet," the receipts now gradually rising, until, in October, when she played Hermione for the tenth time, six thousand francs were taken at the doors, an equal amount being received in November, when, for the sixth time, she appeared as Camille. Paris was now at her feet. In 1839, called upon to play two or three times per week, she essayed but one new part, Esther, in Racine's tragedy of that name. The public was quite content that she should assume again and again the characters in which she had already triumphed. In 1840 she added to her list of impersonations Laodie and Pauline in Corneille's "Nicomède" and "Polyeucte," and Marie Stuart in Lebrun's tragedy. In 1841 she played no new parts. In 1842 she first appeared as Chimène in "Le Cid," as Ariane, and as Frédégonde in a wretched tragedy by Le Mercier.

Rachel had saved the Théâtre Français, had given back to the stage the masterpieces of the French classical drama. It was very well for Thackeray to write from Paris in 1839 that the actress had "only galvanized the corpse, not revivified.... Racine will never come to life again and cause audiences to weep as of yore." He predicted: "Ancient French tragedy, red-heeled, patched, and beperiwigged, lies in the grave, and it is only the ghost of it that the fair Jewess has raised." But it was something more than a galvanized animation that Rachel had imparted to the old drama of France. During her career of twenty years, her performances of Racine and Corneille filled the coffers of the Français, and it may be traced to her influence and example that the classic plays still keep their place upon the stage and stir the ambition of the players. But now the committee of the Français had to reckon with their leading actress, and pay the price of the prosperity she had brought them. They cancelled her engagement and offered her terms such as seemed to them liberal beyond all precedent. But the more they offered, so much the more was demanded. In the first instance, the actress being a minor, negotiations were carried on with her father, the committee denouncing in the bitterest terms the avarice and rapacity of M. Felix. But when Rachel became competent to deal on her own behalf, she proved herself every whit as exacting as her sire. She became a _sociétaire_ in 1843, entitled to one of the twenty-four shares into which the profits of the institution were divided. She was rewarded, moreover, with a salary of forty-two thousand francs per annum; and it was estimated that by her performances during her _congé_ of three or four months every year she earned a further annual income of thirty thousand francs. She met with extraordinary success upon her provincial tours; enormous profits resulted from her repeated visits to Holland and Belgium, Germany, Russia, and England. But, from first to last, Rachel's connection with the Français was an incessant quarrel. She was capricious, ungrateful, unscrupulous, extortionate. She struggled to evade her duties, to do as little as she possibly could in return for the large sums she received from the committee. She pretended to be too ill to play in Paris, the while she was always well enough to hurry away and obtain great rewards by her performances in the provinces. She wore herself out by her endless wanderings hither and thither, her continuous efforts upon the scene. She denied herself all rest, or slept in a travelling carriage to save time in her passage from one country theatre to another. Her company complained that they fell asleep as they acted, her engagements denying them proper opportunities of repose. The newspapers at one time set forth the acrimonious letters she had interchanged with the committee of the Français. Finally she tended her resignation of the position she occupied as _sociétaire_; the committee took legal proceedings to compel her to return to her duties; some concessions were made on either side, however, and a reconciliation was patched up.

The new tragedies, "Judith" and "Cléopatre," written for the actress by Madame de Girardin, failed to please, nor did success attend the production of M. Romand's "Catherine II.," M. Soumet's "Jeanne d'Arc," in which, to the indignation of the critics, the heroine was seen at last surrounded by real flames! or "Le Vieux de la Montagne" of M. Latour de St. Ybars. With better fortune Rachel appeared in the same author's "Virginie," and in the "Lucrèce" of Ponsard. Voltaire's "Oreste" was revived for her in 1845 that she might play Electre. She personated Racine's "Athalie" in 1847, assuming long white locks, painting furrows on her face, and disguising herself beyond recognition, in her determination to seem completely the character she had undertaken. In 1848 she played Agrippine in the "Britannicus" of Racine, and dressed in plain white muslin, and clasping the tri-colored flag to her heart, she delivered the "Marseillaise" to please the Revolutionists, lending the air strange meaning and passion by the intensity of her manner, as she half chanted, half recited the words, her voice now shrill and harsh, now deep, hollow, and reverberating--her enraptured auditors likening it in effect to distant thunder.

To the dramatists who sought to supply her with new parts, Rachel was the occasion of much chagrin and perplexity. After accepting Scribe's "Adrienne Lecouvreur" she rejected it absolutely only to resume it eagerly, however, when she learned that the leading character was to be undertaken by Mademoiselle Rose Chéri. His "Chandelier" having met with success, Rachel applied to De Musset for a play. She was offered, it seems, "Les Caprices de Marianne," but meantime the poet's "Bettine" failed, and the actress distrustfully turned away from him. An undertaking to appear in the "Medea" of Legouvé landed her in a protracted lawsuit. The courts condemned her in damages to the amount of two hundred francs for every day she delayed playing the part of Medea after the date fixed upon by the management for the commencement of the rehearsals of the tragedy. She paid nothing, however, for the management failed to fix any such date. M. Legouvé was only avenged in the success his play obtained, in a translated form, at the hands of Madame Ristori. In lieu of "Medea" Rachel produced "Rosemonde," a tragedy by M. Latour de St. Ybars, which failed completely. Other plays written for her were the "Valéria" of MM. Lacroix and Maquet, in which she personated two characters--the Empress Messalina and her half sister, Lysisca, a courtesan; the "Diane," of M. Augier, an imitation of Victor Hugo's "Marion Delorme;" "Lady Tartuffe," a comedy by Madame de Girardin; and "La Czarine," by M. Scribe. She appeared also in certain of the characters originally contrived for Mademoiselle Mais, such as La Tisbe in Victor Hugo's "Angelo," and the heroines of Dumas's "Mademoiselle de Belle Isle" and of "Louise de Lignerolles" by MM. Legouvé and Dinaux.