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Show DRAMATIC POWER OF EDWIN BOOTH. "A good many years ago, no matter when, while Edwin Booth Avas playing a successful engagement in one of the leading theatres of the country, matter where, I dropped into his dressing room one night during the course of the performance. He chanced to be in a particularly happy and cheerful cheer-ful frame of mind and he was often cheerful and happy, tradition to the contrary notwithstanding. He vas smoking the ineA-itable pipe, and he Avas arrayed in the costume of Richelieu, with his feet upon the table, submitting patiently to tho manipulations manipu-lations of his wardrobe man, or 'dresser.' After a few Avords of greeting the call boy knocked at the door and said that Mr. Booth was- wanted at a certain 'left lower entrance.' The protagonist jumped up quickly, and asked if I would stay where I Avas and keep his pipe alight or go along with him and see him 'lunch the cuss of Rum,' quoting the Avords of George L. Fox, who had been producing produc-ing just about that time a ludicrously clever burlesque bur-lesque of Booth in the same part. "I followed him to the Avings and stood by his side while he Araited for his cue. It was the fourth act of the drama, I remember, and the stage Aras set as a garden, nothing of Arhich a'us visible from our position but the flies and the back of the Avings; and rre might hare been placed in a great bare barn so far as any scenic effect was apparent. Adrain, Baradas, and the conspirators were speaking, speak-ing, and at an opposite entrance, waiting for her cue, Aras the Julie of the e-ening. She was a good Avoraan and an excellent actress, but unfortunately not a personal favorite Avith the star, who called my attention to the bismuth with which she Aras covered, and said that if she got any of it on his new scarlet cloak he would pinch her black and blue puffing volumes of smoke into my face as he spoke. When the proper time come he rushed upon the stage Arith a parting injunction not to let his pipe go out; and with the great meerschaum in my mouth I saw, the. heroine of the play cast herself into his arms and noticed, to my great amusement, that she did smear the robes of my lord cardinal Avith the "greasy white stuff he so much. disliked. I winked back at the half comic, half angry glance he shot toAvard me orer Julie's snowy shoulders. I half expected to hear the real scream he had threatened threat-ened to cause her to utter. I thought of nothing but' the humorous, absurd side of the situation; I Aras eager to keep the pipe going. And lo! he raised his hand and spoke those familiar lines: "Around her form I draw the aAA'ful circle of our solemn church. Place -but a foot within that hal-loAred hal-loAred ground, and on thy head, yea, though it wear a crown, I'll launch the curse of Rome!'' Every head on tho stage Aras uncoA-ered and I found my oaati hat in my hand! I forgot all the tomfoplery Are had been indulging in; I forgot his pipe and my promise regarding it; forgot that I had been an habitual theatre goer all my life; I forgot that I Aras standing in the presence of the great, visible head of the Catholic religion in France, and that I Avas ready to drop on my knees with the rest of them at his invocation." Lawrence Hut ton's Talks on a Library. |