I also met Mr. Clemens socially at Mr. Cable’s house. Many years before, I had seen Charlotte Cushman in the White Mountains. We were one day together in the same stage. An opportunity offering, with much delight Miss Cushman mounted to the top. She made her first appearance as Lady Macbeth in New Orleans. She looked the “Meg Merrilies” she had re-created for the world,—a vigorous woman in mind, body and character, and a gifted talker; nobody else was listened to when she was present. She bore in her face the earnestness of her spirit, the tragedy of her struggles, the intensity of her sympathy and the calm strength of her success.
Not long before her death I met Mrs. Eliza Leslie in Philadelphia. I was exceedingly glad of this opportunity, for she was one of the few premature women who had a message to give, and who did give it, notwithstanding in doing so she had to bear the disgrace of being a “blue-stocking.” She was a very quiet and dignified woman. I saw that she was quite bored by the loud talking of some small literary pretenders who were endeavoring to astonish her by their remarks on French drama. One offered to read to her an original poem, and the others assured her that she alone of American women was capable of rendering the true spirit of a French play. She talked with me about the South. She said she was glad to know that she had Southern readers and friends, and that if ever she visited the South it would be without prejudices. I thought of her sweet dishes, and I longed to ask her about the size of that “piece of butter as big as a hickory-nut” which, along with a gill of rosewater, her cook-book constantly recommended, to my as constant perplexity and amusement. (Query—What sized hickory-nut?)
The next year in February, 1882, I dined at Mrs. Guthrie’s with Edwin Booth and his daughter Edwina. He was then at his best, and forty-nine years of age. I saw him at that time as Hamlet. He was a very modest man and dreaded after-dinner speeches, saying they gave him a stage-fright, and that he always tried to sit by a guest who would promise to take his place when he could not say anything. He was shown a rare edition of Shakespere, and a disputed point being introduced, he read several pages aloud with remarkable effect, though reading in private was contrary to his habit. The day was Sunday, and he mentioned how delightful it was to him to be in a quiet Christian home during the sacred hours. Booth acquired no mannerisms with age. His art so mastered him—or he mastered it—that his simplicity of style increased with years, which implies that his character grew with his fame.
Without being a habitue of the theater, I have enjoyed it from time to time all along my life-road. There is undoubtedly much to object to in the modern stage. Its personnel, methods of presentation and the character of many of the plays should call down just and strong censure. But it seems to me no more wrong to act a drama than to write one. Faith in humanity and in the ultimate triumph of good leads me to the conclusion that if the better people directed patient, believing effort to the purification of the stage, the time would come when histrionic genius would be recognized and cherished to its full value; and the best people would control the theater, and would crowd from it those debasing dramas which, as never before in our day, are having the encouragement of the leading social classes. It is time something were done—and the right thing—to make it at least “bad form” that young men and women should witness together the broadly immoral plays that have of late so much shocked all right-minded people. If one generation tolerates the breaking down of moral barriers in public thought, the next generation may witness in equal degree the destruction of personal morality. The stage is but the expression of an instinctive human passion to impersonate. Masquerading is the favorite game of every nursery. It has been well said that “a great human activity sustained through many decades always has some deep and vital impulse behind it; misuse and abuse of every kind cannot hide that fact and ought not to hide it.” An instinct cannot be destroyed, but it may be directed—and nature is never immoral. Will the church ever be able to discriminate between that which is intrinsically wrong and that which is wrong by use and misdirection, and will it set itself to study without prejudice the whole question of public amusements as a human necessity, bringing the divine law to their regeneration rather than to their condemnation? The existence of any evil presupposes its remedy.
CHAPTER XIII.
FRANCES WILLARD.
In June, 1881, I spoke by invitation before the Alumnæ Association of Whitworth College, at Brookhaven, Mississippi,—a venerable institution under the care of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. I did not give those young women strong doctrine, but I set before them the duty to
“Learn the mystery of progression truly:—
Nor dare to blame God’s gifts for incompleteness.”