dians
in London began on June 10, 1890, at the Lyceum theatre, and lasted ten
weeks; and this was signalised by Ada Rehan's impersonation of Rosalind.
The fifth London season extended from September 9 to November 13, 1891.

This is an outline of her professional story; but how little of the real
life of an actor can be imparted in a record of the surface facts of a
public career! Most expressive, as a comment upon the inadequacy of
biographical details, is the exclamation of Dumas, about Aimee Desclee:
"Une femme comme celle-la n'a pas de biographie! Elle nous a emus, et
elle en est morte. Voila toute son historie!" Ada Rehan, while she has
often and deeply moved the audience of her riper time, is happily very
far from having died of it. There is deep feeling beneath the luminous
and sparkling surface of her art; but it is chiefly with mirth that she
has touched the public heart and affected the public experience. Equally
of her, however, as of her pathetic sister artist of the French stage,
it may be said that such a woman has no history. In a civilisation and
at a period wherein persons are customarily accepted for what they
pretend to be, instead of being seen and understood for what they are,
she has been content to take an unpretentious course, to be original and
simple, and thus to allow her faculties to ripen and her character to
develop in their natural manner. She has not assumed the position of a
star, and perhaps the American community, although favourable and
friendly toward her, may have been somewhat slow to understand her
unique personality and her superlative worth. The moment a thoughtful
observer's attention is called to the fact, however, he perceives how
large a place Ada Rehan fills in the public mind, how conspicuous a
figure she is upon the contemporary stage, and how difficult it is to
explain and classify her whether as an artist or a woman. That blending
of complexity with transparency always imparts to individual life a
tinge of piquant interest, because it is one denotement of the
temperament of genius.

The poets of the world pour themselves through all subjects by the use
of their own words. In what manner they are affected by the forces of
nature--its influences of gentleness and peace or its vast pageants of
beauty and terror--those words denote; and also those words indicate the
action, upon their responsive spirits, of the passions that agitate the
human heart. The actors, on the other