Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/39

 porting ancient tragedy like the blind and bleeding Oedipus. On the one side was ranged, as we have said, public opinion and fashion, led by the members of the Romantic school, numbering in their ranks the names of all the greatest poets and artists of the day; on the other this insignificant, uneducated little Jewish girl, embued with all the courage of genius, convinced of the justice of her perceptions, undaunted by praise or blame, trampling under her little foot, not only the tenets of the Romanticists, but setting at nought all the preconceived notions of the classicists themselves. Where tradition and custom had sanctified rant, she was quiet and subdued. Where violent, quick gestures were expected, she was calm and dignified. In the celebrated imprecation launched by Camille against Rome, "Rome l'unique objet de mon resentimentressentiment [sic]," instead of casting off all restraint and passionately shrieking it, as almost every actress had done hitherto, she began in a low voice, standing motionless, as though petrified to stone, and gradually mounted, step by step, gradation by gradation, to the supreme moment of anguish and despair. The public were taken by surprise; they did not know what or when to applaud, and sat stupefied, gazing at this child who thus dared to violate ancient usages. They felt there was something unconventional, something that moved them in spite of themselves, but did not consent for weeks to acknowledge that the power the young girl exercised was genius, and genius of the very highest order.

Again it was Mars who had the discrimination to appreciate the genius of the young girl who, as a child, she had encouraged four years before. Daughter of MonvalMonvel [sic], who had acted with Talma, and herself a con-