ACTORS.
ONE day, no matter how many years ago, our eye was caught, while passing an " external paper-hanging station," by a theatrical broadside announcing, among other novelties, " The Juvenile Actress of All Work." It was not the youth of the performer that struck us—" infant phsenomenons" have long ceased to be novel- ties ; but the name recalled an acquaintance some ten years earlier with the parents of the prodigy. They were then provincial stars of some repute, who had en- countered each other for the first time in the — company. Both were persons of irreproachable character, and of manners (espe- cially the lady) which admitted of their being received into good society. Both were performers of talent, though neither could be regarded as an artist. With excitable temperaments, and more sentiment than imagination, they liked to suppose themselves in the position of the character they assumed, and to declaim as they thought themselves would have done in similar circumstances. They had no conception of the mimetic art as an art : but youth, agreeable persons, a dash of sentiment, and enthusiasm, made them pass muster with the crowd as well as if they had. The stage was their profession ; yet they followed it with all the slovenly inexpert- ness, though with all the enthusiasm, of amateurs. Years of ex- perience of its disagreeable realities had not killed in them that dreamy enthusiasm which makes so many young people imagine the professional exertions of the actor a source of pleasure to himself. From that time we had not met : we had heard of their marriage, and that was all. And here, when least thought of, they reappeared before us with a child, which they had evidently taken a pride and pleasure in training to their own profession. The enthusiasm of youth had survived ; their profession had been worn with its first gloss ; they had entertained the same comfortable faith in the talents of their child as in their own. And yet this comfortable opinion must have fought hard to keep its ground against ten years of employment, in the first line it is true, but in the first line of third-rate houses ; for this their first emerging from the provinces was into a very minor theatre. It might on first thoughts appear that this undying enthu- siasm could only be found in persons such as we have been de- scribing—in such as never become artists, but remain through life what may be called professional amateurs. MUNDEN, who in his way was a perfect artist, could not endure that his son should see him on the stage, much less could he have thought of training him to the profession. On the other hand, Gentaex, who was an artist of the fisst class, retained to the last a childish delight in exhibiting himself. MecazAni, again, is said to participate in the feelings of MURDER.
Previous page
