Despite her love for Eleonora Duse, Jeanne Bordeux will not see her as anything but a woman of genius in her chosen line—of ordinary talent in others. She brings out petty faults and weaknesses of temper which can not counteract what we know of her character and of her virtues. Whatever may be said about Duse, her admirers will not lose sight of the genius under the human form; of the suffering under the brave brow; of the tragedy in the soul; of the fundamental goodness and humility of a woman who could have had the world at her feet, and chose to carry it in her heart.
Jeanne Bordeux’s book is not a contribution to literature, because her style is too tenuous, too thin, and she has few of the qualities of pen and of heart that make for good writing. In beauty, sentiment, style and grace, it can not compare with Edouard Schneider’s biography. The latter is of so different a nature, so superior an attitude that it should be translated into English as it is already into German. It seems a pity that Madame Bordeux’s book should be the only one to speak of Duse to the American public.
M. Schneider’s biography has no relation with Jeanne Bordeaux’s. Indeed, it takes an altogether different viewpoint. It constitutes a testimony of psychological, moral and spiritual order; it is not the work of a foreigner who is unable to discern between truth and fiction in tales gathered here and there. Rather is it the direct story of an intimate friend of Eleonora Duse’s last years; he was bound to her by bonds of absolute confidence of the mind and of the heart; and it is important that the English reading public should be confronted with M. Schneider’s biography of Duse, important to establish the basis of a dignified admiration and attachment to the memory of the actress.
If Jeanne Bordeux has given the bulk of Duse’s life, Edouard Schneider has supplied the flavour; she has worked on the warp and woof of the plain fabric; he has incontestably woven his dreams and embroidered his phantasy. His inspiration comes from his love for Duse, and his love has served him as proof, as canvas, as basis. His personal recollections of her have sufficed to make a beautiful book, and he has written it from the fulness of his heart, and from the wealth of his memory; his eyes still lingering on her picture; his ear still thrilling with the music of her voice; his mind still astir with the beauties she has revealed to him; his heart still under the influence of her genius for friendship.
His presentation of Eleonora Duse is the best adapted to the picture we seek of her; he has avoided the personal element; the human weakness; the hardships of everyday life; all he has wished to remember was the beauty of Duse’s genius. At least, that is all he has wished to remember in this biography, but it calls for another one, from the same author. The mine from which he has drawn his inspiration, his memory, must be rich yet in wealth. M. Schneider has not insisted on biographical facts, but every modulation of Duse’s voice, every expression of her incomparable hands, and every utterance of her lips impressed him. He is a playwright of great talent, a poet of renown, and thanks to his magic qualities of pen, he has dramatised for us the poetry of Eleonora Duse’s life. He loved her not as a woman, but as a goddess, and his book is redolent of self-contained emotion, of bashful adoration, of unlimited admiration.
He was not present at her end, but Pittsburgh and its realities are there; the contrast he has drawn between the woman and Pittsburgh, of all cities, where she was destined to die is one of the most inspired parts of the book. The last chapter has the touch of the poet—and Duse herself would have been pleased with it.
A clever actor who achieved greatness, an incorrigible gambler who never knew satiety, a big heart, a winning personality and a modest man are revealed in The Truth at Last, the record of Charles Hawtrey’s life and achievements. As far as life is concerned, the actor-manager-gambler is reticent and diffident. His autobiography is carried along the most objective of lines, and the few words with which Mr. Somerset Maugham introduces and closes the book are more illuminating of Charles Hawtrey the man, than the complete and detailed story of his life as told by himself. It is not a model autobiography, though it tells with a certain amount of humour the failures and successes of the subject—and the failures are certainly the most attractive feature of the tale—but it is so impersonal an achievement, treated with such indifference that the reader feels the vanity there would be in trying to put more of himself into the reading than the author has put into the writing. It is well known that Charles Hawtrey accepted fame as an actor with a nonchalance that showed how little acting was his true vocation; but his reminiscences show to what height of success good will, tact, charm, personality and the lack of anything better to do, can take a man. The number of times he found himself and his company in the hands of the bankruptcy solicitors is only paralleled by the number of times he pulled himself and his company out of total failure by bold and intelligent backing of a horse.
Horse-races and stage-management, work and gambling, filled his life. The three graces that appealed so to Martin Luther played no part in Hawtrey’s life so far as can be judged from The Truth at Last. Only those who knew and admired Charles Hawtrey will be able to enjoy the book with unmixed pleasure. They will have but to recall his ease and grace, his smile, his utter lack of affectation (or so it seemed on the stage) to find excuses for the stilted and unbending presentation of his autobiography. Evidently, Charles Hawtrey was no writer, and self-consciousness, which was unknown to the actor, was his constant companion when “he took his pen in hand.” And then too, he lacks a sense of proportion although this may be due to his determination not to allow his personality, his emotions, likes and dislikes to creep into the record of his life. He devotes the same number of words to the death of his father, of whom he was very fond and to whose guidance he owed the best there was in him, as he does to the purchase of a blanket used on board a steamer; he mentions his second marriage, the War, the impressions left on him by Rome and America, much more casually than he does the receipt of a cheque from Australia, and his first marriage is mentioned only by way of reference. Timidity, self-consciousness, delicacy, lack of self-absorption? Probably a combination of all of them, and an extreme desire to live, to live rapidly, an unchecked interest in the display of life, in horses and in the life of the stage are responsible for that lack of laisser aller which is the greatest charm of autobiographies. It is The Truth at Last, and a truth that can probably compare point by point with facts, but it is not the truth about the man who was one of England’s most beloved actors.