Yet Emilie Schaumburg was a very young girl when she stepped upon the amateur stage of the Seventeenth-Street Drawing-Room, and had never had a lesson in declamation nor a suggestion from any one to help her in the study of her parts. To be able to forget one's identity, and to make one's audience forget it, is, after all, the acme of high art in acting, or, rather, it is the touch of genius which is above art, since it cannot be taught.
As Peg Woffington in "Masks and Faces," and as the Countess in the "Ladies' Battle," she carried conservative and critical audiences by storm. Ristori, who was present at one of the performances, expressed unqualified admiration at the high order of Miss Schaumburg's talent, for both rôles are considered tests to trained actresses.
She scored another success in the little operetta, "Les Noces de Jeannette," which she sang and acted in French, and in which the pièce de résistance is the great air du rossignol. There are many people in Philadelphia to-day who yet recall the brilliancy and daring of those tours de forces between the voice and the flute, each one in turn taking up the refrain and soaring higher and higher in imitation of the nightingale; yet there was never a harsh or strained note in her perfect voice, but all as liquid, pure, and full-throated as the warbling of the veritable bird.
Another of the gifts she possessed was for versification. She brought it into frequent and graceful play, but only for the enjoyment of those who were admitted to the privilege of an intimate friendship with her.
It is little wonder that Emilie von Schaumburg should have made an impress upon the city of her nativity which has remained proof against time and absence. No woman ever won a more spontaneous admiration than fell to her lot. She never appeared upon the streets that she was not surrounded and followed by both men and women, who, frequently without knowing her, came simply to look upon her beauty and glory in her possession.
She married, in England, Colonel Hughes-Hallett, of the Royal Artillery, and member of Parliament for Rochester. She resides now during the greater part of the year at Dinard, in France, where she built, some years ago, the beautiful château of Montplaisir.
Still a strikingly handsome and distinguished woman, she gathers about her the aristocracy of both France and England as well as the most eminent and charming of her compatriots. She entertains during each season with that same graciousness of hospitality with which she once presided in her uncle's home in Philadelphia.
She recently added a ball-room to Montplaisir which she inaugurated by a series of concerts and balls, among the picturesque features of the latter being minuets, gavottes, and a cotillon.
Gowned in a white and silver brocade Watteau, with panniers, over a pink satin petticoat trimmed with flounces of old lace, headed with wreaths of roses of a deeper pink, her powdered hair crowned with a black Gainsborough hat with black, white, and pink plumes, Mrs. Hughes-Hallett took part in one of the stately gavottes, making a beautiful picture against the delicate blue background and Louis Quinze decorations of her artistic ball-room.
A life filled with adulation, that would have been the undoing of a less wise woman, has in no way impaired her charm of character. Her fine mental poise, her exquisite humor, together with the generosity and sweetness of her nature, have preserved her from that calamitous sense of satiety that has overtaken many a man and many a woman who have lost their balance completely in an altitude of admiration much below that in which Emilie von Schaumburg has passed her life.