Page:Eminent women of the age.djvu/522

478 were hollow phantasms. Conspicuously has she done so with the 'Lady of Lyons.' I saw her when this play was first produced, and memory is sufBciently strong to compare the actress of that time with the actress of to-day. She can be compared with none other than herself; for no actress, since Helen Faucit made the character so essentially her own, has approached her in its delineation. It was then acting of rare grace, and truth, and power ; it is now all that, but m'uch more. Time, and study, and refined judgment have enabled her to perfect that which was admirable in its earliest conception. I recall the sensation that moved a crowded house after the curtain fell on the first representation of the ' Lady of Lyons.' There was a rumor that it was the production of Lytton Bulwer, — a rumor only, which, so carefully was the secret kept, some of his most intimate friends emphatically denied. The play, it is peedless to say, made an immediate success. It has retained its place as one of the stock pieces of the stage ever since. There is now, indeed, no Claude Mdnotie to be compared with Mac- ready, although he was by no means young when he per- formed that youthful part ; nor has any one ever approached him in it. But Helen Faucit is far nearer the ideal Pauline now than she was in those days ; and it is easy to imagine the delight of Lord Lytton in witnessing that which it is not too much to say surpasses, in refined grace and intellectual power, the part as he created it.

"Her Pauline is in truth a perfect performance. It has that charm which comes only from the inspiration of genius; for at the root of all art lies the passion, which, as the great French actor Baron said, sees farther than art. But it is also the perfection of art where art is never, even for a moment, seen; the result of careful and continuous study, but with the ease and force of nature in every word, look, and motion. So is the character worked out from the beginning to the end."