Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/150

 This year, 1843, was the climax of Rachel's artistic career. By cultivating her love for "those works that feed the mind and guide the heart aright," she had climbed from height to height, ever aspiring, ever striving, until the ultimate goal was reached. The rest was but a descent, an anti-climax. Weary, broken down in health, she travelled over the world, computing her art only at its money value, while the brother whom she addressed in this elevated strain became nothing more nor less than his sister's showman during her disastrous tour in America.

Aided by her influence and his own handsome person, he appeared at the Comédie Française three years later in the rôle of Curiace in Les Horaces. He had no great talent, and soon gave up the stage, and became manager and organizer of theatrical tours abroad. In 1872 he undertook the direction of the Porte Saint Martin Theatre, and died in the same year when on a journey to London. Poor Raphaël! We wonder if he ever "employed his leisure time" reading his sister's letter, and meditating upon the way in which he and she had fallen away from the ideal of those early days.

Yet one or two more letters from this marvellous year, 1843, the last in which we shall see the actress indulging in that light-hearted fun which at the beginning of her career was one of her great attractions. On the 12th August she wrote from Interlaken to Madame Samson:—

,

Your daughters have gone. You must be very lonely; perhaps a letter from me will cheer you up. I have need of a stimulus to write, for I am in a state of health that makes me unfit for anything. For the last month I have been suffering from internal inflammation. My appetite has disappeared, and with it my gaiety and strength. I am at Interlaken, where I take baths of skimmed milk. I have benefited from them, I think, and begin to eat a little more. Unfor-