CONTENTS

ACTORS

JOSEPH JEFFERSON

PAGE

3

How I came to play "Rip Van Winkle." The art of
acting. Preparation and inspiration. Should an
actor "feel" his part? Learning to act. Playwrights
and actors. The Jefferson face.

EDWIN BOOTH

To his daughter when a little girl. To his daughter on her

studies and on ease of manner. On thoroughness of

education. On Jefferson's autobiography. On the

actor's life. Lawrence Barrett's death. His theatre

in New York in prospect. As to his brother, John

Wilkes Booth, the slayer of Lincoln.

young actor.

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

Advice to a

As a child a mimic and singer. First visits to the theatre.
Plays Lady Macbeth, her first part. To a young
actress. To a young mother. Early griefs. Art
her only spouse. Farewell to New York.

CLARA MORRIS

Recollections of John Wilkes Booth. The murder of

President Lincoln. "When, in a hunt for a leading

man for Mr. Daly, I first saw Coghlan and Irving."

SIR HENRY IRVING

The stage as an instructor. Inspiration in acting. Act-

ing as an art: how Irving began. Feeling as a reality

or a semblance. Gesture: listening as an art: team-

play on the stage.

23

39

52

79

HENRY BRODRIBB IRVING

PAGE

The calling of the actor. Requirements for the stage.

Temptations of the stage. Acting is a great art.

Relations to "society." The final school is the

audience. Failure and success.

ELLEN TERRY

Hamlet

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88

тоб

- Irving's greatest part. The entrance scene

in "Hamlet." The scene with the players. Irving

engages me. Irving's egotism. Irving's simplicity of

character.

Dis-

Man and the Actor. All men are actors. Napoleon

as an actor. The gift for acting is rare. The creation

of a character. Copy life! Self criticism.

cipline imperative. Dramatic vicissitudes. A

national theatre. Training the actor.

TOMMASO SALVINI

119

First appearance.

A father's advice. How Salvini

studied his art. Faults in acting. The desire to excel

in everything. A model for Othello. First visit to

the United States. In Cuba. Appearance in Lon-

don. Impressions of Irving's Hamlet. The decline

of tragedy. Tragedy in two languages. American

critical taste. Impressions of Edwin Booth.

ADELAIDE RISTORI

138

167

First appearances. Salvini and Rossi. Appears as

Lady Macbeth. As manager. First visit to America.

Begins to play in English.

ACTORS

JOSEPH JEFFERSON

[William Winter, the dramatic critic of the New York Tribune, in 1894 wrote the "Life and Art of Joseph Jefferson," published by the Macmillan Company, London and New York.

He gives an account of Jefferson's lineage, and then says:

"In Joseph Jefferson, fourth of the line, famous as Rip Van Winkle, and destined to be long remembered by that name in dramatic history, there is an obvious union of the salient qualities of his ancestors. The rustic luxuriance, manly vigour, careless and adventurous disposition of the first Jefferson; the refined intellect, delicate sensibility, dry humour, and gentle tenderness of the second; and the amiable, philosophic, and drifting temperament of the third, reappear in this descendant. But more than any of his ancestors, and more than most of his contemporaries, the present Jefferson is an originator in the art of acting.

Joseph Jefferson is as distinct as Lamb among essayists, or George Darley among lyrical poets. No actor of the past prefigured him,. and no name, in the teeming annals of modern art, has shone with a more tranquil lustre, or can be more confidently committed to the esteem of posterity." The Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson, copyright, 1889, 1890, by the Century Company, New York, was published 1891. From its chapters, by permission, have been taken these pages.-ED.]

How I CAME TO PLAY RIP VAN WINKLE

THE hope of entering the race for dramatic fame as an individual and single attraction never came into my head until, in 1858, I acted Asa Trenchard in "Our American Cousin"; but as the curtain descended the first night on that remarkably successful play, visions of large type,