Part 29 (2/2)

Then, beforeto the prisoner, he de the Gospel?”

In hardly audible accents, the answer tre to preach the Gospel ----”

”Only _trying_ to preach the Gospel, only _trying_ to preach the Gospel!” exclaiainst o, sir; but if this Court ever hears that you have succeeded in actually _preaching_ the Gospel, you will be punished, sir!”

XXVIII AMONG THE ACTORS

THE GIVING OF PLEASURE THE ACTOR'S AIM--PRAISE OF NOTABLE ACTORS --BARRETT, FORREST, McCULLOUGH, EDWIN BOOTH, WILKES BOOTH, JEFFERSON, IRVING--MACBETH'S PRAISE OF SLEEP

On the evening of October 27, 1908, a o, Illinois, in the interest of the De began a few ht, and the ie measure, of actors and actresses and their attendants from the various theatres of the city

After an eloquent political speech of the Hon Sa recitation by one of the actors, I was introduced, and spoke as follows:

”I arateful for the opportunity under such happy auspices, to bid you _good-_ I would count myself fortunate, indeed, could I contribute even the smallest mite to the enjoyment of those who have in such unstinted measure dispensed pleasure to so many of the human fa up through the centuries, has at last found honored and abiding place in a broader civilization, a calling whose subli care, to sladness to the eye, to teach that

'Behind the clouds is the sun still s';

in a word, to add to the suood fortune, in the happy years gone by, to have had the personal acquaintance of some of the most eminent of your profession Under the witchery of this inspiring presence, 'the graves of ain I hear from the lips of Barrett: 'Take away the sword; States can be saved without it!'

'How love, like death, levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook beside the sceptre!'

”Who that ever saw Forrest 'sitting as if in judget that superb presence? In the silent watches, even yet, steal upon us in oht, and then put out the light!' Corily exclaimed: 'Played Lear, played Lear?

I _play_ Hamlet, I _play_ Macbeth, I _play_ Othello; but I _aedian has known no loftier triumph than in Forrest's rendition of Lear's curse upon the unnatural daughter:

'Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her hter and conteo, I h, then at the very zenith of his fame In even measure as was the elder Booth Richard the Third, Forrest, King Lear, or Edwin Booth, Hah the born Macbeth When I first saw hie with dishevelled hair and bloody hands fro, I was, I confess, in mortal dread of the darkness I have heard another since of even greater repute in that masterful ih will reer:

'I go, and it is done; the bell invites me, Hear it not, Duncan; for it is the knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell'

”Edwin Booth has stepped fro ain appear? To hiift the Gods could bestow to the full equipment of the interpreter, the actor, the master, was his

'He was a man, take hiain'

Many moons ax and wane before from other lips, as fro had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter'

or, giving expression to thoughts froes held back fro:

'To die, to sleep; To sleep! perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams ive us pause'

”The ever-abiding ic scene that gave pause to the world, burdened the heart and mellowed the tone of Edwin Booth, and no doubt linked him in closer touch hat has, as by the enchanter's wand, been portrayed of the 'melancholy Dane'

”Two years before the assassination of President Lincoln I heard Wilkes Booth as Ro years have not wholly dimmed his