Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/271

1868.] unite in prolonged and deafening applause, or yield to the more subtle flattery of tears, let us hope that she has not forgotten her author.

It is not alone that nature has done so much toward making Maggie Mitchell what she is, but she has of her own self a subtle intuition of, and a living sympathy with, the character of Fanchon, and to its development and representation she has been a close and patient student.

Nature might have seemed churlish and niggardly of her gifts, if this character had not been especially created for the actress; but as it is, her stunted growth, her child-like voice, which, while it has all of youth's tenderness and humor, is full of age's melancholy and bitterness, her petulant manner, and her elfish, tiny gestures, are great aids to her success. For she, more than any other, is essentially the actor of a single part.

It would be interesting to know, if it were possible, how nearly her own early career resembled in its hard knocks, stern religious teachings, and the utter absence of girlhood's ordinary pleasure and tenderness, that of the orphan Fanchon; for that there is in her disposition something closely interwoven with it, no one who has seen the performance can doubt. This fancy is strengthened by the fact, that Miss Mitchell plays no other part with marked success, and further, by her inability to make anything of this same character in the last two acts, where Fanchon, lifted out of the surroundings which established the peculiarities of her disposition, becomes a fine young lady of the stereotyped sort, with nothing more interesting about her than her 20,000 francs.

The abiding charm of the first three acts is, that Miss Mitchell has so entirely assimilated herself with the character, that the illusion of the real presence of Fanchon, of her trials, sorrows, joys and triumphs, is never destroyed. The simple girl, battered of fortune, jeered at and avoided by the village boors—she of whom George Sand told us the beautiful story—is the very same we see upon the stage.

The impression that the reader of the novelist's story obtains is that Fanchon is a little touched "o' the moon," though the author nowhere broadly asserts or even insinuates that such is the fact, nor does the play itself contain such an imputation—yet both play and story lead the auditor or reader to that conclusion. Miss Mitchell, with rare refinement and delicacy, both of conception and execution, preserves this illusion, yet never oversteps the line which would change suspicion to assurance. In overcoming the difficulties encountered in maintaining this nice balance of doubt in the minds of her audience, she gives one of the finest assurances of her power and of her right to be considered one of the great artists of the stage.

The burthen Fanchon is made to bear, is a heavy one; her way of life, through being the grandchild of a reputed witch, and being herself suspected of dealings with the devil, is rough and hard in the extreme; yet through it all, there is a noble dignity in her childish struggles, a charm in her simple goodness which yield to no temptation, and which Miss Mitchell portrays with such truth and fidelity to nature as are rarely seen upon the stage.

The elfish and eccentric elements of her character, which easily lead the spectator to believe in the existence of some hurt to Fanchon's intellect, underlie and affect her neighbors opinions and treatment of her. To them she appears half witch, half-crazed, one with whom it is best not to be too intimately associated. Before them, before any person, she is never still, never in repose.