The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862. Various

The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862

in London. Sometime in the Spring I should hear from her again.

Accompanying the letter was a formal legal surrender of such property as she possessed by my gift or otherwise, and a demand that I should apply it to cancel my obligations. She would hereafter, she said, provide for herself. Except a small reservation for the benefit of the children, I complied with her direction. No mandate of hers would I disobey.

So existence dragged on. I resided in a humble dwelling with my two children. Their presence did not soothe me,—their infantile affection made no appeal to my heart,—but their dependence claimed my care.—Memories of Evelyn alone possessed me. I secured full files of London papers, and watched for notices of her appearance. At last they came. A new star, the papers said, had suddenly appeared, unheralded, in the theatrical firmament, and rapidly culminated in the zenith. She was understood to be an American lady, formerly an actress, who had returned to the stage on account of domestic difficulties. Some papers intimated that her husband was a brute, who had forsaken her; others, that by a series of mischances she had been compelled to the stage to support a husband and numerous dependent relations. Lengthy criticisms on her various performances were inserted, most of them stuffed with the pseudo-taste and finical ostentation of knowledge prevalent in that department of newspaper literature, but all according her the most exalted merit. The tragedies involving the intense domestic affections were those she had selected for her rôles

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'If the slaves be emancipated, what with their own natural ability and such aids and appliances as the government and 20,000,000 of people in the North can furnish, I do not believe but that they will get employment, and pay, and, of course, subsistence.'—HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL.

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Guesses at Truth.

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'Mes habitudes de dîner chez les restaurants,' says a Parisian philosopher, 'ont été pour moi une source intarrissable de surprises, de decouvertes, et de revelations sur l'humanité.'

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Guesses at Truth.

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'Mes habitudes de dîner chez les restaurants,' says a Parisian philosopher, 'ont été pour moi une source intarrissable de surprises, de decouvertes, et de revelations sur l'humanité.'

4

The very description of her enthusiastic admirers suggests that such were the original traits and the special character of Rachel. At first we are told by the patron who earliest recognized her genius, 'a delirious popularity surrounded the young tragedienne, and with her the antique tragedy which she had revived.' How different from the original relation of Kemble, Kean, or Siddons to the Shaksperian drama! Then the manner in which she prepared herself for artistic triumph is equally suggestive of the artificial and the conventional: 'Elle se drape,' we are told, 'avec un art merveilleux; au theatre elle fait preuve d'études intelligentes de la statuaire antique.' It was in the external form rather than by sympathetic emotion that she wooed the tragic muse. Véron compares her to Thiers. 'C'est la même netteté de vues, la même ardeur, les mêmes ruses vigéreuses, la même fecondité d'expedients, la même tableau phllosophique que ne la comprend ni la vengeance ni les haines, qui se contente de negocier avec les inimities, d'apaiser les rancunes et de conquerir toutes les influences, toutes les amitiés qui peuvent devenir utiles.'

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Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson.

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