Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/124

 interpreter, not a creator, and therefore must be denied the higher qualities of genius. But Rachel stepped beyond the domain of interpreter. She was never lost in her part; the part was lost in her. It was not Corneille, it was not Racine, but more than these had ever dreamt. Corneille never intended to represent all that she represented in her conception of Camille; and Racine never imagined or created anything so magnificent or soul-stirring as she imagined or created in Phèdre.

This comprehension and inspiration was not invariably with her. On the first, and even second, representation of a new rôle she often disappointed her most ardent admirers. All her study and preparation seemed in vain, and, sad and depressed, they murmured the word "failure." But, when all seemed lost, an illumination came to her. "Les dieux sont avec moi," as she herself once said; and when they were, she electrified her audience by her eloquence and power. She said to those about her, when attempting a new rôle, "I am paralysed; I feel as if I had chains on," stretching out her arms as she spoke like a bird spreading out its wings. She was always oppressed on first nights, too, by the preponderance of newspaper critics.

"Ah! once inspiration comes to me," she said one day, "I feel as joyous as a lark, that rises, and rises, and rises, ever higher, singing as it flies. I have felt drunk with success. But then the reaction comes; there is no more ascending, and I fall back tired in the grass, having failed to reach the highest point. Thus it is with everything. We aspire to everything but grasp nothing." Rachel's words are confirmed by all those who saw her act. By imperceptible degrees