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Show Modjeska and Booth THE papers are still bringing in their tributes to Modjeska. They tell of her charm and try to express what they feel, and they invariably in-variably fall down. The truth about Modjeska was that she was a great woman. If she had been a man she would have been a statesman, but the charm of her as a woman was that while she looked and acted the high born, while every motion was as distinctly dis-tinctly high born as that of a blooded horse, she was the most affable, considerate, gentle creature crea-ture in the world. In one paper before us is her picture in Ophelia and below is the legend, "When she played this role with Edwin Booth, the Hamlet had to act his best to save himself from eclipse." And that is all foolishness; moreover, it is unfair. un-fair. The part of Ophelia does not permit any great or rather striking ability on the part of the actress; that is, the actress cannot reveal any great ability, while Hamlet happens to be the real prince and the real soul of the play; and to us, that Edwin Booth had to do his best to keep from being eclipsed, is folly. It was a fashion with Edwin Booth to do his best on all occasions. If the audience was worth it, he played his best out of respect to the audience; if the audience was an inferior one, he played his best out of self-respect and in honor of his profession. Modjeska was great in her own way and the especial chai'm that saved her despite her Imperfect Imper-fect use of English, was that she was a much greater woman than she was actress. We do not believe anyone in America ever appreciated her, because she could not give herself full expression; ex-pression; but in lier native tongue on her native heath, with youth and beauty and grace and a magnetism which made her glorious, all to help, we can understand that her countrymen and countrywomen went crazy over her presentations. But even then, Edwin Booth ought not to be discounted by comparison, because Edwin Booth, according to all his brother artists and all the most celebrated critics, was the nearest absolutely abso-lutely perfect Impersonation of what Shakespeare meant by Hamlet that was ever seen. |