gh ever had was in 1869
and for some years thereafter, when, with Lawrence Barrett, he appeared
at the Bush Street theatre in San Francisco. Barrett's name is also
closely associated with that of Edwin Booth, for he played opposite
Booth through many seasons--Othello to Booth's Iago, Cassius to Booth's
Brutus, and so on; and the two formed a combination which for sheer
genius has never been surpassed. But Barrett never commanded the
adoration of the public as Booth did, because he lacked that power of
enchantment which Booth possessed in a supreme degree. His mind was
austere, he could win respect but not affection, and, as a result,
criticism was more captious, honors came grudgingly or not at all, and
the fight for recognition was up-hill all the way.
Lawrence Barrett was born in 1838, and he began his theatrical career at
the age of fifteen. After the usual hard stock-company experience, he
secured a New York engagement, where, for nearly two years, he
supported such actors as Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth. From New
York he went to Boston for a similar engagement, but at the outbreak of
the Civil War he left the stage, accepted a captaincy in the
Twenty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry, and served through the war with
distinction. Then he returned to the theatre, gaining an ever-increasing
reputation until his death.
Clara Morris called him "The Man with the Hungry Eyes," and they were
hungry, for life was always a battle to him. From an obscure and humble
position, without fortune, friends, or favoring circumstances he had
fought his way upward in the face of indifference, disparagement and
cold dislike.
Clara Morris has told the story of her own life better than anyone else
could tell it, and has shown in doing it the very qualities which made
most for her success--a wide sympathy, an impetuous heart, and an
invincible optimism. She, too, had a hard struggle at the
first--entering the ballet at the age of fifteen to help her mother
after her father's death, and working her way up until she secured a New
York engagement with Augustin Daly's famous stock company, where she
soon was sharing the honors with Ada Rehan. Ill health shortened her
acting career, and compelled her retirement from the stage when at the
very height of her powers.
Just the other day there died in California another woman who won a
great public a generation ago by a genius and charm seldom equalled.
Helena Modjeska's story was an unusu
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