Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/278

254 She played in apparent, and, we believe, in real unconsciousness of her audience. After her feet touched the stage she was the thing, in outward semblance and in inward truth, that she personated. There was more subtle wit, more delicate humor, more abandon, simplicity, tenderness, or pathos shown by her than the author, whose character she adorned by her genius, ever suspected could be put into it. She took the bald creation of his mind, and informed it with the hot blood of life and passion that ebbed and flowed to and from her own heart.

Her nature was wide as the air, beautiful, generous, and strong, full of those delicate sensibilities which permitted her to dissolve in tenderness, to be gentle, grave, or hoydenish, to fly from the maddest burlesque to profoundest depths of passion. She wrapped her soul in "measureless content," was witty, strong, weak, stupid or passionate, grave or tender, all in a moment. She could express, as no other actress could, all shades and moods of passion; she could do so because they were in her heart, and were as real and tangible to her as the revolving years that made up her sum of life. She had learned all degrees of feeling in her husband's and her children's love—she had felt all sorrows and the extent of mortal suffering in their early death, in her prolonged and beautiful widowhood—she had known the stings of poverty, and had only learned pity and charity from them; the charms and graces of society were her daily companions, teaching her those refinements which adorned her life and made more potent her art. There was nothing weird or startling in her acting; she did not lift the soul higher than nature, but gave the true and perfect type of all that was pure and womanly. She spoke only in the true language of nature and passion, and as her most brilliant triumphs were achieved without effort, the applause attendant upon them was never tumultuous. It began in a low murmur of laughter, or followed the utter silence of tears. She touched no vulgar springs to elicit the loud shout or evoke the whirlwind of commendation. To the last she was sublimely unconscious of the "golden rigol that bound her brows withal;" from first to last, a wondrous simplicity possessed and ennobled her life. One who knew her well has laid this passing tribute on her new-made grave. "Her whole private life was passed in doing good to others, and her whole public life in contributing to the amusement of everybody."

Mr. Lester Wallack, a great artist himself, and whose dramatic career was contemporary with Miss Gannon's, in writing of his friend, says of her:

"I shall not in my time look upon her like again.' She has left a void that cannot be completely filled. Her appearance on the stage was always (aside from the hearty applause which greeted her) marked by a low murmur of delight among her audience, as if they were congratulating one another on the certainty of a bright and pleasant evening.

"It is my opinion, as it was that of my father and other experienced artists, that she was by far the most accomplished actress in America. Her acting in the higher walks of comedy was marked by a perfection of finish and ease that no other lady artist could approach.

"In private life, she possessed the rare faculty of compelling the regard and affection of all about her; she was generous and charitable to a fault."

Mr. Wallack further says: "I think Miss Gannon's best performances were Sophia, in 'The Road to Ruin,' Hester in 'To Marry or not to Marry,' Miss Hardcastle in 'She Stoops to Conquer,' Gertrude in 'The Little Treasure,' and Flora in 'The Wonder.' These were her best impersonations, I think, but