Identifier: lifeartofrichard01wint (find matches)
Title: Life and art of Richard Mansfield : with selections from his letters
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Winter, William, 1836-1917
Subjects: Mansfield, Richard, 1857-1907
Publisher: New York : Moffat, Yard and company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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fatally determined uponbobbing up and down and turning over sheets of music, andhe always did so just as I was going off into a trance. . . . We have met, so far, with wonderful and unexpected suc-cess. I had the gravest doubts concerning the result, when Iaccepted the Garden Theatre arrangement. The house hasbeen full, every night. I am glad to be able to say that /have not! In the season of 1897-98 he employed, as man-ager, Albert Marshman Palmer (1838-1905), sar-castically alleging a vindictive motive for that ami-able action. Palmer, who had been one of the mostsuccessful and influential of theatrical managersin New York, was infirm in health, poor in cir-cumstances, and broken in spirit, and Mansfieldspurpose, in giving him employment, was that ofpractical kindness, and not that of vengeance, ashe grimly stated to me that it was. Mansfield didnot like Palmer, for the reason, as he intimatedto me, that when a member of the Union Squarestock-company, he had suffered under the harsh
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Photograph by Sarony, Xe»- York ALBERT M. PALMER A. M. PALMER 245 exercise of that managers authority. But Mans-field was kind-hearted, and he did not oftencherish enmity. He spoke only the truth of him-self when he said that he was sorry for old people,and he was exceptional, as the world goes, in remem-bering that persons who, in the noon of their abilityand opportunity, have done much and good service,are entitled to consideration in the decadence oftheir powers and fortunes, and in the twilight oflife. It was characteristic, likewise, of his con-tradictory, perverse nature to ascribe to himselfa bad motive for doing a good deed. Palmerbecame, in fact, his agent, in which capacity sev-eral other persons were also employed at the sametime. But Mansfield managed his affairs himself,and, to the last, permitted no interference with hisbusiness schemes and policy. The theme of The First Violin had longbeen attractive to him, the peculiarly German sen-timent and atmosphere of the story,

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