Identifier: lifeartofrichard02wint (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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the figure of Richard, orits brilliancy, or its final significance. The embodi-ment was splendid with it, and would have beenequally splendid without it. The presence of heartand conscience in that demoniac human creatureis denoted by Shakespeare and must be shown bythe actor. Precisely at what point his heaven-defying will should begin to waver is not defined.Edwin Booth, in his great performance of the part,allowed the first signs of incipient dread and ofvacillation to appear after the queen-mother hadspoken her curse upon her son. Mansfield choseto indicate the operation of remorse and terrorin Richards mind as early as the throne scene andbefore yet the king has heard that the royal boyshave been murdered, and the effect of his action,equally with the method of it, was superb. Theobserver presently saw him possessed of the thronefor which he had so terribly toiled and sinned, andalone upon it, bathed in blood-red light, the piti-able personification of gorgeous but haunted evil,
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Photograph 6y Stereoscopic Cmnixnui. London MANSFIELD AS RICHARD THE THIRD(Act IV.) RICHARD THE THIRD 53 marked off from among mankind and henceforthdesolate. Throughout that fine scene Mansfieldsportrayal of the fearful struggle between wickedwill and human weakness was in a noble vein ofimagination, profound in its sincerity, affectingin its pathos, and pictorial in its treatment. Inthe earlier scenes his mood and his demeanor hadbeen suffused with a cool, gay mockery of elegantcynicism. He killed King Henry with a smile, ina scene of gloomy mystery. He looked upon themourning Lady Anne with cheerful irony and hewooed her with all the fervor that duplicity cansimulate in the behavior of a hypocrite. His dis-simulation with the princes and with the mayor andthe nobles was, to the last degree, specious. Oneof his finest points was the temptation of Buck-ingham to murder the princes. There, and indeedat all points, was observed the absence of even thefaintest reminiscence of the rantin

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