I retire from the field with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart, as becomes a cynic betrayed and undone. To consider her critically is beyond my powers—she simply annihilates the instinct. Of this much I am quite sure: She is a great, a very great artist, and by far the most appealing and human little figure appearing on the screen today—and the loveliest.
“THE SCARLET LETTER” Miss Gish as Hester Prynne, with the shadow of Lars Hansen, as Dimmesdale
Three or four years ago, in a big barn of a theatre in Southern France, the writer of these pages first saw “The Scarlet Letter” and went home in a daze, waking up now and then to damn his Puritan ancestors. In the seat next his, had sat a small, intense Frenchwoman, who, at one point, had said, tearfully, to her companion: “Regardez, Léontine, regardez son pauvre petit dos!” (Look, Leontine, look at her poor little back!) And just now I read a paragraph which said: “Lillian Gish can convey more pathos with her back than any other actress with all her features.”
I agree with that, and I am not going by my first impression. I have seen the picture again—very recently, with Lillian, in the New York Metro-Goldwyn projection room. Association had destroyed none of the illusion. The effect was the same—heightened.
We left the crash and glare of Ninth Avenue for the comparative seclusion of a cab. Lillian said, presently:
“I was too immature to play that part. She was a woman. I looked just like a child.”
“You looked young, certainly, but not too young for Hester—that Hester. Of course, the real Hester—supposing there ever was one—was not at all your Hester. She was less—more—what the others were.”
She assented, a little doubtfully. I stumbled on:
“If I might offer a humble opinion, you did not turn Lillian Gish into Hester Prynne; you turned Hester Prynne into something—well—something more exquisite.”