BELLEW WAS A SAILOR.
He Studied for the Ministry and Ran
Away to Sea Before He Got Into
the Spot-light.
Kyrle Bellew, soon to follow "Raffles" with "The Right of Way," is the son of an actor who bore the reputation of being the handsomest man in England. He married the daughter of a commodore, and left the stage to enter the church, becoming Bishop of Calcutta. Harold Kyrle (by which name Bellew was then known), being the eldest son, was destined to follow in his father's footsteps, and studied for holy orders at Oxford.
But he soon found that he had made a mistake. His flesh constantly warred against the confining life of the scholar, and at nineteen he ran away to sea, in the old-fashioned way of the story-books.
After five years on salt water he found himself back in England, no further advanced in this world's goods than when he cut stick from Oxford. He wandered about London, not daring to go home, and without money in his pockets. It was at this crisis that he chanced to read an advertisement calling for a light comedian to join a company for the provinces, the salary to be two pounds (ten dollars) a week.
The blood that had come from his actor-father stirred in his veins, and he went at once to apply for the post. His good looks and pleasing address outweighed his lack of experience, and he was transported with joy at being engaged.
While playing in Dublin as George de Lesparre in Boucicault's "Led Astray" his work and appearance so impressed a critic that he wrote to Boucicault, in London, about him. The dramatist at once sent for the unknown actor, and gave him a position in the company at the Haymarket, where in three years' time he rose to be leading man. From there he went to the Lyceum, under Henry Irving, where he first used the name "Kyrle Bellew."
TRIBUTES TO DEAD BROTHERS.
EULOGIES PRONOUNCED AT THE GRAVE BY SIR
ECTOR ON SIR LAUNCELOT, AND BY ROBERT
G. INGERSOLL ON E.C. INGERSOLL.
However unemotional man may be, his deepest sentiments are stirred when he stands face to face with death. The sense of loss; the uncertainty; the vastness of the mystery, which can be solved only by conjecture or the intuitions of faith—all these solemn elements call out the most interior thought and feeling.
Among the recorded utterances of grief we have selected two for our readers. Each is a funeral oration over the body of a brother. In literature we go back to old Sir Thomas Malory for the "doleful complaints" of Sir Ector de Moris over the dead Sir Launcelot, his brother. It will be remembered that after the death of Queen Guinevere, as recorded in the "Morte d'Arthur," Sir Launcelot "ever after eat but little meat, nor drank, but continually mourned until he was dead." They bore him to Joyous Gard, where he had desired to be buried, and thither came Sir Ector, who for seven years had been vainly seeking his brother.
The second utterance is the eulogy which was pronounced by the late Robert G. Ingersoll at the funeral of his brother, E.C. Ingersoll. Under similar conditions of grief no deeper note has been so eloquently sounded. Colonel Ingersoll touched the meanings of life, and, infidel though he was, ventured a noble hope in death.