Identifier: memoriesofhostes02howe (find matches)
Title: Memories of a hostess : a chronicle of eminent friendships, drawn chiefly from the diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960 Roy J. Friedman Mark Twain Collection (Library of Congress) DLC Fields, Annie, 1834-1915
Subjects: Fields, Annie, 1834-1915 Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 Women -- Massachusetts Boston Diaries Friendship -- Massachusetts Boston Authors, American -- 19th century Biography Actors -- United States Biography Boston (Mass.) -- Intellectual life
Publisher: Boston : Atlantic Monthly Press
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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g. It was pure and beautiful.Being R.s benefit, she made a short speech, and ex-quisitely simple as it was, her fine voice and the slightdifficulty of enunciating the English words made herspeech one of the most touching features of the time. Saturday. — Morning at home. Went to see Ristorifor the last time, as Elizabeth, perhaps her finest char-acterization. Longfellow and Whittier had both prom-ised to go with us, but the courage of both failed at thelast moment. The house was crowded. Mr. Grau askedMr. Fields to go and speak with the great actress, buthe excused himself. Whittier had never been inside of a theatre and couldnot quite feel like breaking the bonds now — besides hesaid it would cost him many nights of sleep. Longfellowdoes not face high tragedy before a crowd. January 16, 1868. — Fanny Kemble read The Mer-chant of Venice in Boston last night — the old way oflosing her breath when she appeared, as if totally over-come by the audience. We could not doubt that she
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a -J I? STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 223 felt her return deeply and sincerely, but — however, thefeeling was undoubtedly real if short-lived, and we willgive her credit for it. Her voice is sadly faded since thebrilliant readings of ten years ago; she has had muchsorrow since then and shows the marks of it. It is inter-esting to compare her work with Mr. Dickenss; he isso much the greater artist! You can never mistake oneof his characters for another, nor lose a syllable of hisperfectly enunciated words. She speaks much moreslowly usually, and there is a grand intonation as theverses sway from her lips, but one cannot be sure al-ways if Jessica or Nerissa be speaking, Antonio orBassanio. Her face is marvellous in tender passages,a serenity falls upon it born of immortal youth. It isbeautiful enough for tears. She enjoys the wit too her-self thoroughly, and brought out Launcelot Gobbo withgreat unction. An enormous and enthusiastic audiencegave her hearty welcome. Longfellow could not comeH

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