"Do you know," he continued, "how race-horses are cared for, how they are tenderly groomed, coddled, given luxurious stalls and protected from discomfort and annoyance? The purpose of this care and solicitude is to keep them in the best condition for their work. Now I am a sort of human race-horse. I must go over the course at top speed and in the best possible form every night. If I stumble, go lame and make a poor run I am severely criticized and suffer a loss of

MANSFIELD AS BEAU BRUMMEL

reputation. Yet when I insist upon special care, and attempt to surround myself with the comforts and luxuries essential to peace of mind and good condition, I am called a crank and a self-indulgent egotist. Complaining of an unwholesome and generally disreputable dressing-room, the manager responds with insults. Objecting to live engines with their horror of hissing steam located near my private car all night, I am roundly damned by the railroad official and invited to visit a certain famous locality which could not possibly be hotter or more uncomfortable than the typical railroad yard. Incensed by the careless and indifferent work of actors, my protests are distorted into personal abuse and the newspapers blaze forth with exaggerated reports and slanderous statements, declaring with majestic sweep of yellow verbiage, that I wish to transform my actors into inconsequential menials and harvest all the glory and honor myself.

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"Well, it may sound egotistic, but it is a fact that the public comes to see me and not the company. Should you advertise the Mansfield Company without Richard Mansfield Hamlet without the Melancholy Dane how many people would buy tickets? As you know, I take pride in employing the best company I can obtain and in presenting the most complete ensemble, but after all I am the essential figure and can not satisfy public expectation if I am constantly rasped and harassed by discomfort and hectoring annoyances. Perhaps the petty stings and arrows that wound me and interfere with my work would not affect a less sensitive person, but I am as I am and must work out my own destiny in my own way, without attempting or pretending to be something that I am not.

These expressions may illustrate better than any extended analysis, Mr. Mansfield's point of view, and explain the feeling that prompted many acts for which he was ruthlessly criticized. His sense of duty to himself and to the public was so painfully insistent that anything, real or imaginary, which seemed to hamper him was an offense which he could not overlook or easily pardon. When such incidents occurred, friend and foe alike fell under his displeasure, and his own discontent over the belief that he had failed, or

was likely to fail in some measure, through mistakes that might have been avoided, was harrowing to himself and to all within the circle of his influence, no matter if they shared in the offense or not.

As we reflect calmly upon these characteristics even through the medium of a short and inadequate perspective, it becomes evident that Mr. Mansfield's success was largely due to his flintlike determination to do everything well, accepting no excuses from himself nor any apologies for dereliction from others. His desire for the fame of a great artist, for worldwide distinction as an actor, was so insatiable that he was driven almost to madness if any act, no matter how insignificant, seemed to impede his progress or mar the symmetry of his work.

Individuality, without which no man can create an impression in any art, is the product of certain personal gifts and peculiarities which, in combination, denote power and originality. In comparison with the ordinary humdrum man of every-day life the person who is individual and original may often seem eccentric, and his manners, since they are apart from those of the conventional man, are called affected mannerisms by those who worship the smug commonplace. Yet all the great men of history have been eccentric when measured by ordinary standards, and Richard Mansfield was no exception to the rule. His impulses were not those of the plodding farmer content to sow, till and reap only to die unwept, unhonored and unsung. He could find no inspiration along the beaten path of law or medicine. Every fiber of his soul was sensitive, vibrating, artistic. As a boy he heard the call to a career and Ambition marked him for her own. He dreamed dreams and saw visions while his early companions contented themselves with. themselves with skittles and small beer. With the pride, dignity, and more than the gifts and education of a Spanish potentate, he walked with his head erect, scorned the mass of petty littleness he saw about him and fixed his serene gaze upon the stars. Such purpose and individuality as this was not a pose but the expression of superior power and the indicating hall-mark of a genius who, recognizing his own mission, brooks no denial nor recognizes defeat.

If we look for the specific elements of

MANSFIELD IN THE CHARACTER OF SHYLOCK

histrionic greatness in Richard Mansfield they are found at every turn. His was an aggressive and commanding personality from the influence of which there was no escape. His presence invariably filled the stage. His authority was undeniable. Speaking or silent he pervaded the scene. That occult influence which critics call magnetism was invariably felt, even by those who were antagonistic to him. Strive as they might, none could escape this silent but impressive evidence. of his great and surpassing ability. To these essential attributes of a great actor were added the most subtle and delicate appreciation of character, and marvelous ability in portraying and differentiating widely contrasted rôles. The individuality of the actor obtruded at times as

frequently happens with artists of distinction, but "Beau Brummel," "Baron Chevrial," "Prince Karl," "Richard," "Heinrich" "Brutus" and "Ivan" were each separate and distinct types overlapping at no point and finished individually with those deft touches and characteristics of which only an artist is capable.

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Technique and stagecraft were Mansfield's finger-tips. The dramatic value of a situation appealed to him instantly. Its artistic effect was an open book. Intuition guided him where others groped in vain. In his case absolute confidence was the product of natural gifts and of assured knowledge. No one believed more implicitly in the divine right of kings than Richard Mansfield did in his own God-given power and authority. The masterful man must be conscious of his mastery and this sense of power was the key-note of Mansfield's career. He never for a moment doubted himself or questioned his own superiority. He felt his power and realized that he had a dramatic message to deliver which was worth the hearing. Constantly embittered by the shafts of envy and malice, he never faltered along the path of his ambition. Every impulse of his life was sturdily directed toward the goal upon which he had turned his face when the die was cast for a dramatic career, a goal which was achieved so completely that he died in the full knowledge that his original triumphs had been equaled by no other actor figuring in the history of the American stage.

In his life away from the stage Richard Mansfield was equally unusual, extraordinary and unique. A many-sided man of infinite and whimsical peculiarities, he was often a sore trial to his friends and foes alike. A punctilious gentleman, bred

in the school of the cavalier, he could wound to the quick, even though his impulses were noble and most generous. A man of few friendships, he desired affection but unconsciously repelled it. He was indeed apart from the multitude and one of whom it might well be written as it was of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose career Mansfield admired beyond the power of words, that "grand, gloomy and peculiar he sat upon his throne a sceptered hermit."

Hermit indeed! And there was one night of many when this truth of great aloofness and loneliness, of sovereignty in solitude, was brought home to me with vivid force. The Mansfield special was speeding across the State of Michigan while we sat in the little dining-room of the actor's private car and smoked the hours away, talking meanwhile of things that were or might be. Both in retrospect and in prospect we spoke and spoke again of fortunes good and ill, of hopes and fears and heart throbs. The rosy dawn came creeping in upon us from across the sleeping farms and restful valleys, and still we sat building castles and making plans for the years to come, some of which were not to be for the one they most concerned. At last, after all was said and hope seemed to bloom more radiantly than ever, a shaft from the rising sun fell upon the thoughtful face of the actor as if from some celestial calcium and he reached across the board, placed his hand on mine, and exclaimed in a tone of deep pathos:

"After all, despite success, honor and every hope, I am, alas, the most lonesome man in all the world.

But now, old friend, your longings are stilled. Peace has spread her comforting wings over your troubled soul. God give you good rest.