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9[mcricau Victor Series 
 
 EDITED BY LA U RENTE HUTTON 
 
AMERICAN ACTOR SERIES 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER 
 
 BY 
 
 KATE FIELD 
 
 WJA\) Cllitstratioits 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 JAMES R, OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 
 1882 
 
Copyright, tSSs, 
 By James R. Osgood and Company. 
 
 A/i rights reserved. 
 
 University Press : 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 42: sat 
 
C O X T E N T S. 
 
 pa(;e 
 
 Fechter in Europe, 1S24-1S69 3 
 
 Fechtek in the Untied States, 1S70-1879 .... 65 
 
 Fechter's " H.xmlet " 87 
 
 Fechter's "Cl.vude Melnotte" 121 
 
 Fechter in Four Cha.r.\cters 131 
 
 Recollections ok Cii.\rles Fechter 145 
 
 Press Notices on Fechter's Acting 177 
 
 Index 
 
 193 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Fechier in Paris Frontispiece 
 
 Fac-simile of Letter of Fechter 24 
 
 Fechter as Hamlet, — in London 50 
 
 Fechter as Hamlet, — in New York 87 
 
 Fechter as Monte Christo, — in New York . . . 136 
 
FECHTER IN EUROPE. 
 1824-1869. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER 
 IN EUROPE. 
 
 o>*:c 
 
 1824-1869. 
 
 Genrts is no more a matter of accident than the 
 rising of the sun. Though genius dazzle with the un- 
 expected brilliancy of a comet, like the comet it has 
 its regular orbit, and when the science of art has been 
 discoveretl, as it will be ere the dawn of the millennium, 
 the world will know the cause as well as the effect of 
 human greatness. 
 
 Blood tells under all circumstances, and never has it 
 told a more straightforward story than in the character 
 of Charles Albert Fechter, in whose ancestors we see 
 the beginnings of himself. It is not a little significant 
 that his mother bore the kingly name of Regis, with 
 which name, too, royalty took personal interest, it be- 
 ing an old Piedmontese custom that the king should 
 stand sponser to the twelfth child of any of his subjects. 
 Now it happened that Fechter's maternal grandfather 
 was the twenty-first of twenty-six children ; consequently 
 the king became godfather to his twelfth and twenty- 
 
4 • CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 fourth great-grand-uncles ! Italian by birth, this grand- 
 father was equally Italian in his profession of carver, 
 yet not so Italian but he could make his home in 
 Flanders, where Fechter's mother, Marie Ang^lique 
 Regis, was born. Arcaghon, France, was the birth- 
 place of his father, Jean Maria Guillaume Fechter, his 
 paternal grandfather being a native of Cologne and of 
 German lineage. This grandfather's tendencies were 
 likewise in the direction of art. He found congenial 
 employment in polishing court-suit buttons and in 
 making sword-handles, the latter of which occupations 
 was not scorned by Benvenuto Cellini. 
 
 The alphabet of art having been acquired by Fech- 
 ter's grandparents, it was not strange that they should 
 bequeath greater abilities to their children. Jean Ma- 
 ria Fechter was not only an excellent sculptor, but a 
 born comedian, who, however, confined his acting to 
 private life ; while his wife, whom he married in Lisle, 
 was more than usually gifted. Though uneducated, 
 she possessed literary and artistic tastes, wTiting verses 
 and stories of considerable feeling and defdy turning 
 her fingers to account by the manufacture of artificial 
 flowers. She would take the delicate, almost impalpa- 
 ble tissue that lines the shells of eggs, and, fashioning 
 it into roses, would simultaneously color and scent 
 them with, rose-water. But these flowers were too 
 fragile for mortal use, so Madame Fechter resorted to 
 stouter material. Born of Piedmontese parents, she 
 spoke no Italian, very little Flemish, and adopted the 
 language of her husband's chosen home, France. 
 
 Gallic as was Fechter pcre in all his feelings, he 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 5 
 
 never became naturalized. Receiving an offer from 
 Storr and Mortimer, the great jewellers of England, to 
 take the position of the well-known sculptor Tamissier, 
 whose unfortunate habits had rendered him unfit for 
 work, Jean Fechter moved from Paris to London, 
 where, in Hanway Yard, Oxford Street, Charles Albert 
 Fechter was born October 23, 1824. He was the 
 youngest but one of thirteen children, eleven of whom 
 died in infancy. \\'ith artistic proclivities on both sides 
 of the house, — with the hot blood of Italy, the specu- 
 lative blood of Germany, strongly impregnated with 
 French verve, flowing through his veins, — it is not strange 
 that Charles Fechter, *' the man without a country," 
 should belong to all the world, which Shakespeare tells 
 us is a stage. Learning to read at a very early age, 
 his passion for the drama evinced itself in peculiar the- 
 atrical monologues, and in devotion to Shakespeare, 
 — the plays of " Hamlet," " Othello," and " Macbeth " 
 being especial favorites. Appropriating garments be- 
 longing to his parents, the youthful Roscius was in the 
 habit of retiring to an unoccupied room where, after 
 locking the door, he blackened his nose and arrayed 
 himself in motley attire. Thus, half-way 'twixt man 
 and woman, he spouted and strutted, to the great ter- 
 ror of the mice and the infinite satisfaction of himself. 
 During these private exhibitions Fechter dedicated his 
 energies to tragedy, but, being endowed with great vi- 
 vacity, relieved himself, when off duty, by jumping on 
 chairs and tables, drawing caricatures, and playing 
 monkey for the delectation of visitors. Not content 
 with his own interpretation of imaginary heroes, Fech- 
 
6 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 ter's passion frequently overcame Fechter's conscience, 
 and many of his father's valuable coins were secretly 
 disposed of in order that, like a bad little cherub, he 
 might sit up aloft among the gods of Drury Lane. 
 There Fechter feasted his eyes and ears on Macready, 
 Charles Kemble, the elder Vandenhoff and the elder 
 "VA'^allack, recollections of whom he retained to his 
 death. Of the four, Charles Kemble, with his charm- 
 ingly natural acting, was his favorite, and Vandenhoff 
 his '•' cold blanket." Wallack made a great impression 
 upon him, and IMacready delighted him in "William 
 Tell." But the artist of all others whom he worshipped 
 was Malibran, She often held her young lover on her 
 knee, little knowing the amount of sentiment she had 
 inspired in an eight-year-old boy. Poor ISIalibran ! 
 that she with her great heart and great genius should 
 have married a great brute and died neglected ! 
 
 Sent to Templeton's College at the age of eight, 
 Fechter stood very well, showing great aptitude for 
 Greek and Latin, great fondness for history, — although 
 he never could retain a name or a date, — and despising 
 every branch of mathematics. Largely endowed with 
 imagination, young Fechter entertained his teachers 
 with marvellous stories of adventure, and, magnetizing 
 them as he later magnetized larger audiences in more 
 romantic situations, enjoyed their favor to an unusual 
 extent. Of course a lad of Fechter's mettle could not 
 but be attractive to the bullies of his school, who, true 
 to their prerogative, set upon him in numbers and 
 nicknamed him '•' French frog." Stung to the quick 
 by this taunt, Fechter resented it, but, fighting single- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 7 
 
 handed, was always worsted. " Only come on one at 
 a time and I '11 whip every one of you," said Fechter ; 
 but no, the buUies preferred to attack him in a body, 
 and so the " French frog " vowed vengeance. Way- 
 laying the leading persecutor one day, he thoroughly 
 whipped his adversary ; the bullies cried " quits," and 
 ever after treated the " French frog " like a true 
 Briton. 
 
 England, with all its virtues, was not France to 
 Fechter /^rt', who in 1830 once more found himself in 
 Paris ; but the Revolution came, and the unhappy 
 sculptor was again driven across the Channel. Though 
 but six years old, Fechter remembered seeing the great 
 Mademoiselle Georges act, and being carried over the 
 barricades on his father's shoulders. This abortive 
 attempt at migration ser\-ed to endear Paris still more 
 to Jean Fechter's heart, and the failure of 1 830 became 
 difait accompli in 1836. Poor as the father was, — the 
 time had been when he had broken up chairs to serve 
 for firewood, — he sent Charles to school at Boulogne- 
 sur-Seine ; but at the end of two years the boy returned 
 home to aid in supporting the family. Assisting his 
 father in making bronzes and candelabras, studying 
 French with Hersant his drawing-master, reading the 
 classics, and dreaming of the theatre which he fre- 
 quented with the constancy of a passionate lover, 
 Charles led a busy life for two years, and at sixteen 
 became the hero of a duel. How did it happen? 
 Foolishly, of course. Taken to the Caf6 Militaire by a 
 friend much older than himself, — a captain in the 
 army, — young Fechter listened to stories of prowess 
 
8 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 until, excited by wine and cigars most unwisely given 
 to him, he too longed for an opportunity to prove his 
 courage. The subject of duelling being introduced, 
 there was no man present but could revive some won- 
 derful affair of so-called honor in which he had either 
 killed or wounded his opponent. At least young 
 Fechter could fight a duel if some one would be good 
 enough to insult him ; and, flushed with the insidious 
 thief that steals away even the best of brains, he found 
 an enemy in his friend and host. Taking offence at a 
 trifling remark, the aspiring youth slapped the face of 
 Monsieur le Capitaine with his own epaulet and de- 
 manded the satisfaction of a gentleman. Badly as the 
 Captain felt, he was forced by that noblesse, which so 
 frequently obliges people to make fools of themselves, 
 to accept the challenge. As the challenged party he of 
 course had the choice of weapons, and selected the ra- 
 pier. With pistols Fechter might kill the Captain ; 
 with rapiers the Captain could kill Fechter, but would 
 not. So the two met, with their seconds, in that Bois 
 de Boulogne of other days, when it was a gloomy forest 
 sacred to duellists and highwaymen. "Coward ! " was 
 Fechter's salutation to his friend ; " you have selected 
 the rapier because you know you are master of it. 
 With pistols the chances would have been more even. 
 At least I can call you Coward, and from my soul I do 
 so." Coward indeed ! The Captain's only fear was 
 lest, in giving the " satisfaction " for which Hotspur 
 panted, he should not be sufficiently expert to draw the 
 minimum of blood. These fears were realized when 
 Fechter's rapier fell and the blood flowed from his 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 9 
 
 wrist. The wound, though severe, was not dangerous, 
 and Fechter, having fought his duel and learned how 
 unjust he had been to the Captain, forgot his grievance, 
 embraced his enemy, and was taken home alive to his 
 terrified parents. Would that all equally absurd duels 
 ended as happily ! 
 
 Prom the Bois de Boulogne to the Salle Moliere, 
 from duelhng to private theatricals, seems a long step, 
 yet none too long for Fechter, who in this same year, 
 1840, made his first appearance behind those footlights 
 by which he had been dazed. The Salle Moliere is a 
 small theatre in the Passage Moliere, which at that time 
 was used by St. Aulaire, — a famous teacher of acting, 
 Rachel's first instructor, — and let once a week to 
 amateurs for private theatricals. Theirs was a unique 
 company, changing with each performance and singu- 
 larly enough brought together. A list of the pieces to 
 be played being put up, any one by selecting his part 
 and paying for it — the amount charged being in pro- 
 portion to the importance of the character — could 
 strut his brief hour upon the stage. Such a republican 
 form of government would lead to eminently doleful 
 results in this countr}-, where actors are made, not 
 born ; but France is not America. There, it is said, 
 all men and women are actors by nature, and the worst 
 become professional. 
 
 This company of the Salle Moliere was eminently 
 successful, — so much so that Fechter's brother-in-law, 
 himself an ardent admirer of the drama, paid the young 
 sculptor's fee, and put his name down for the jennc 
 premier in Dumas's " l-e Mari de la Veuve." The 
 
TO CHARLES ALBERT FE CUTER. 
 
 amount expended for acting was returned in tickets, so 
 that the aspiring amateurs were always sure of an audi- 
 ence. Fechter's success was so great that he soon be- 
 came a necessity to the company, one of whose mem- 
 bers, now a distinguished diplomatist, (diplomacy is 
 but another name for acting), insisted upon paying 
 Fechter's fees in order that he might be " stirred up " 
 by contact with so magnetic and admirable an actor. 
 
 After seeing Fechter perform, St. Aulaire came up 
 with a strange gentleman, saying, " My boy, if you will 
 come to my cours (class) , I will teach you for noth- 
 ing." " And if you make the stage your profession, I 
 will give you all my parts," added the unknown, who 
 turned out to be no other than Scribe ! Fechter could 
 not accept St. Aulaire's generous offer, for the reason 
 that his father required his assistance in the studio ; 
 but he did not forget the great compliment paid him 
 by the first of professors and the first of playwrights, 
 and longed for emancipation. 
 
 Temporary release soon came. At this time Du- 
 vernoir, a well-known singer, now a professor in the 
 Conservatoire of Paris, was organizing a company for 
 Florence, Italy, and at the last moment lost his juve- 
 nile actor, Gaston, who was unexpectedly drafted into 
 the army. Remembering the great ability displayed 
 by Fechter at the Salle Moliere, Duvernoir offered 
 him the vacant situation. A winter in Florence, all 
 the " interesting lovers," and a salary combined ! The 
 offer proved irresistible, and in spite of fatherly ex- 
 postulation the stage-struck youth set off for Italy in 
 January, 1841. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EECIITER. u 
 
 To dream of acting and to act are sadly different, as 
 le jcune premier soon found to his cost. Starting with 
 a modest wardrobe, he made the mournful discovery 
 that his requirements greatly exceeded his possessions, 
 and straightway developed latent abilities in tailoring 
 and boot-making. Fechter not only made his own 
 dresses, but cut those of actors as impecunious as him- 
 self. But top-boots, — what should he do for these 
 very expensive and very necessary articles? The 
 question was father to the answer. Is not genius ever 
 equal to an emergency? What should he do for top- 
 boots ? \\'hy, invent them, of course ! So out of thin 
 oil-cloth Fechter manufactured a pair of boots of so 
 stylish a cut and perfect a fit as to be the envy of his 
 associates. Love-making in those top-boots must have 
 possessed a double fascination. It could not have 
 been bootless. Ah, and there was that crowning glory 
 of man, a hat ! Silk hats are a poor man's natural en- 
 emy, yet a lover without a good-looking hat is about as 
 impossible as a pretty woman without a head of hair. 
 But had not Fechter an old hat? What could be 
 easier than to wet it whenever necessary and make it 
 shine like the rising sun ? Those home-made clothes, 
 those ingenious boots, and that deceitful hat carried 
 Fechter through his season in Italy, perhaps for the 
 very good reason that the season was not much longer 
 than his original top-boots. Never had Florence known 
 such a winter. The oldest inhabitant went mad in en- 
 deavoring to conjure up the ghost of alike recollection. 
 Almanacs were in vain. July invaded January, and 
 the snow on the Apennines, melted by the hot breath 
 
12 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 of summer, vanished into thin air. Of what avail to per- 
 form French comedy at the Cocomero (" Watermelon"), 
 when the astonished Florentines were longing with 
 tragic thirst to eat their accustomed watermelons in 
 the streets? Moreover, there was a rival French 
 troupe at another theatre. One might have survived ; 
 the two killed each other. 
 
 Nevertheless, Manager Duvemoir persevered in liis 
 enterprise for six weeks, and Fechter won praise from 
 the Sir Hubert Stanleys of the period. Strange to say, 
 every play advertised was by Scribe. Those were the 
 good old days of Austrian surveillance, when grand 
 dukes held their court, and censors supervised public 
 morals. Dumas was their bete ?wire, JNIoliere was sniffed 
 at, but Scribe was considered harmless ; so Scribe be- 
 came the author of "Tartuffe," wore Dumas's colors, 
 and displayed a versatihty never known before or since. 
 There was no press to tell tales, the censors nursed 
 their blissful ignorance, and the knowing public enjoyed 
 the joke. 
 
 Fechter enjoyed a joke of quite a different hue. 
 Returning one night from the theatre, he was assaulted 
 by a thief who, attracted by a very large stage jewel, — a 
 diamond-paste pin which he supposed to be real, — 
 thought it easy work to rob so slight a youth. Fech- 
 ter's hot blood and practised muscle soon undeceived 
 the robber, who, upon finding himself at a disadvan- 
 tage, drew a dirk. What was to be done ? Fechter 
 spoke not one word of Italian ; the robber not one 
 word of French. The language of pantomime was 
 common to both however, and they acted out the 
 following dialogue. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 13 
 
 " O strike, if you like," gesticulated Fechter ; " I'm 
 entirely unarmed, and you can have it all your own 
 way ; but as you want nothing of me but my diamond 
 pin, it is hardly worth while killing me, when you can 
 have it on easier teniis." 
 
 " How so ? " asked the robber. 
 
 " Why, I '11 make an exchange. Give me that 
 cameo in your shirt-bosom, and I '11 give you my dia- 
 mond." 
 
 " You 're a queer sort of fellow," replied the robber. 
 " I rather hke you. It 's a bargain." 
 
 Whereupon the exchange took place. Actor and 
 robber shook hands and separated, — the former in pos- 
 session of a very beautiful cameo, the latter sole pro- 
 prietor of pinchbeck ! ^\^^at that robber did to himself, 
 upon discovering how completely the tables had been 
 turned, remains a mystery. Certainly Fechter never 
 acted better than on this occasion. 
 
 At the end of the sbc weeks Manager Duvemoir, 
 poor in pocket and in spirits, called his company to- 
 gether, declared himself bankrupt, paid a few cents on 
 a dollar, and dismissed his friends with a tearful bless- 
 ing. With characteristic generosity Fechter divided 
 his share among the humbler actors, who expressed 
 their gratitude by immediately decamping with a por- 
 tion of his wardrobe. Penniless, Fechter applied for 
 aid to a banker friend, proposing to leave his clothes, 
 books, etc. as security. Believing the jeune premier'' s 
 word to be as good as his bond, the banker lent him 
 money and gave him a draft on a Marseilles house for 
 one thousand francs. Thus fortified, Fechter started 
 
14 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 for France with the \drtuous intention of making no use 
 of the draft; but Fechter was young, and found as 
 great difficulty in keeping as in making money, Mar- 
 seilles was attractive, he might never travel again, and 
 so in Marseilles he remained until his purse became an 
 aching void, and the letter of credit his only friend. 
 Presenting this letter he was received with unaccount- 
 able "effusion." "My dear fellow," exclaimed the 
 banker, seizing Fechter's hands and ^^Tinging them vig- 
 orously, — " my dear fellow, I am delighted to see you. 
 It 's a boy, I tell you it 's a boy, and such a boy ! A 
 marvel ! You never saw anything like it in your life 
 and you never will, take my word for it. Money.? 
 Certainly. Any amount you please to name. I never 
 was so happy in all my life. There ! there 's the 
 amount, and to think it 's a boy ! " 
 
 Entirely bewildered by this extraordinar}' conduct, 
 Fechter wondered whether he were dealing with an 
 escaped lunatic. He became convinced of it upon 
 finding that the banker asked for no receipt. On sug- 
 gesting its advisability to the banker the latter replied : 
 " Bless my soul, certainly. Did n't I take a receipt ? 
 Well, it 's a boy you know, and how can I think of 
 anything else ? There now, it 's all right ; here 's what 
 belongs to you, and I'm the happiest man in the 
 world !" "Well, he is mad," thought Fechter, as he 
 walked away; "a raving maniac," he added, when, 
 upon opening the package, he discovered his receipt ! 
 Returning, Fechter apprised the banker of his mistake, 
 and handed back the important voucher. " Great 
 Heaven !" he exclaimed, "you don't say so? Did I 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 15 
 
 do that? Well, well, — it's a boy and a beauty. We 
 have n't yet decided upon a name, but I '11 write you 
 all about it for I 'in sure you '11 want to know." And 
 again the happy banker took an affectionate farewell 
 of his young customer with the final explanation that 
 the " boy " was his first child ! 
 
 It was a welcome day to Fechter's parents when the 
 prodigal son returned. "No more theatre," said the 
 father; "I want you to be a sculptor." So Fechter 
 became a student of the Academic des Beaux Arts, 
 working there every evening after spending his days 
 over bronzes in his father's studio. Work, however, 
 did not lessen his love of fun, which found many an 
 outlet. One night he, in company with equally exu- 
 berant students, locked up an ecrivain public (letter- 
 wTiter for the ignorant poor) in his portable box of a 
 shop, and, wheehng him off, left him several miles from 
 his beat. The little man pounded, the little man 
 scolded, the little man did his best to get out of the 
 window ; but little as he was, the window was less, and 
 there in solitude and rage he passed the night, no 
 police coming to his rescue until the next morning. 
 Unable to give any explanation of his strange situation, 
 the little man got the credit of temporary insanity, — 
 a verdict of great popularity with all juries averse to 
 investigation. 
 
 Fechter's thoughts never failed to return to his first 
 love, for it was during this same year, 1S41, that he 
 entered the Conservatoire with the determination of 
 studying for the Theatre Frangais. He aspired to 
 grand roles, and wished to base his style on classic 
 
1 5 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER- 
 
 models. Fired with ambition, he went before his 
 judges. First among the inquisitors came Professor 
 Provost, who eyed young Hotspur with disdainful pity. 
 Those who knew the broad-shouldered, full-chested 
 Fechter can hardly think of him as a very thin, very 
 long, and sentimentally delicate youth ; yet such was 
 his appearance in 1841. 
 
 " Now, sir;" said the grim professor, " what do you 
 want? " 
 
 " I want to be an actor," 
 
 " An actor, indeed ! Permit me to assure you that 
 acting is out of the question. You 've no lungs, sir ; 
 you are consumptive, sir ; and my advice to you is to 
 take a great deal of exercise. When you walk, throw 
 your coat open and your shoulders back, put your 
 thumbs in the armholes of your vest, and take long 
 respirations. If you follow, my advice you may live, 
 but you can never be an actor." 
 
 Conscious of power, and by no means persuaded 
 that the gods loved him sufficiently to mark him for an 
 early death, Fechter ran the gauntlet of the entire Con- 
 servatoire. Michelot was his next critic. 
 
 " Eh bien, what will you recite? " 
 
 " I am up in Scide of Voltaire's ' Mahomet.' " 
 
 " That will do very well. Allons." 
 
 Sitting up after the manner of orchestral conductors, 
 Michelot made an imaginary baton of his right arm and 
 began to beat time as if the performance were operatic, 
 and tlie youth before him a tenor about to sing his first 
 romanza. This was too much for Fechter, whose eyes 
 and ears were of the quickest, whose sense of humor 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. ,7 
 
 was most acute, and whose audacity was almost un- 
 paralleled in the annals of the stage. Acting upon the 
 impulse of the moment he carried out Michelot's sug- 
 gestion, rushed forward wth operatic gesticulation, sang 
 Voltaire's hexameters, and turned heavy tragedy into 
 laughable burlesque. The effect upon Michelot can 
 be more readily imagined than described. There was 
 nothing to be said, because this suiting the voice to 
 Michelot's action was too clever and appropriate a 
 satire for words, especially as those present enjoyed the 
 joke immensely. 
 
 In his third trial Fechter stood up before Samson. 
 
 "You will attempt Seide," said Samson. "Very 
 well, begin at the fourth act." 
 
 "But, M. Samson," remonstrated the youth, " I 'd 
 rather begin at the beginning. I must get warmed up 
 before I can do my best in that act." 
 
 "Nonsense," replied Samson. "You ought to be 
 able to begin anywhere. Let me have the fourth act." 
 
 Obeying the sovereign command, Fechter plunged 
 /// 7ncdias res, going through the dramatic interview be- 
 tween Si-ide and Palmirc as far as the question, " Qui ? 
 Zopire?" in scene fourth. Giving this with all the 
 dramatic intensity demanded by the situation, the young 
 tragedian was taken aback by Samson's interruption : 
 "Plus bete, mon ami, plus bete. 'Qui? Zopire?' 
 doit etre plus bete ! " 
 
 " I really cannot say it like you, sir," replied Fechter, 
 and the rebellious youth was ordered down. 
 
 Last came Beauvallet, with whom Fechter had much 
 better success, being allowed to go through Seide with- 
 
1 8 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER 
 
 out comment. " That will do," said Beauvallet, " you 
 are quite as bad as any of those at the Theatre Fran- 
 ^ais," — a gruff compliment which was taken advantage 
 of by him when, after Fechter's debut, he claimed the 
 revolutionary Seide as a pupil ! 
 
 At the end of three weeks Fechter left the Conser- 
 vatoire, disgusted with a re'gime in which no two pro- 
 fessors agreed. Provost, Michelot, and Samson had 
 removed the reverential veil from his eyes, and, losing 
 respect for their judgment, he refused to submit 'to their 
 instruction. Disheartened, he discarded all thoughts 
 of the stage, although he still memorized the classics 
 and pursued his study of the French language with his 
 old professor, Didier. Putting his best energies into 
 his night work at the Beaux Arts, he labored diligently 
 for three years, and the summer of 1 844 found him one 
 of the graduating class competing for the first grand 
 medal, which includes the high honor of being sent to 
 Rome for five years at the expense of the government. 
 Each scholar becomes a state's prisoner. He is con- 
 demned to solitary confinement, with one hour's soli- 
 tary exercise per day ; and at the end of six weeks, wet 
 clay his only companion, is expected to take the form 
 of a bas-relief of original composition. The subject is 
 always given and the best work obtains the prize. 
 With emulation fully aroused, — anxious also to please his 
 father, whose fondest hope was that his son should be 
 a sculptor, — Fechter went to work with gusto upon the 
 story of the Good Samaritan. Making the composition 
 as simple as possible, introducing the bare facts of two 
 male figures and a donkey, Fechter saw in the classic 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 19 
 
 dress an opportunity for the display of his knowledge 
 of the human form, and took advantage of it. Finish- 
 ing his task long before the expiration of the time spec- 
 ified, he was yet held in durance vile until the last 
 moment, when he returned home to await the verdict 
 of the examining committee. 
 
 Meanwhile Fechter's brother-in-law had been quietly 
 working in an entirely different direction. Never for- 
 getting his own and Fechter's passion for the stage, and 
 believing that the lad was born for " only this and 
 nothing more," Monsieur le Beau Frere inscribed 
 Fechter's name on the list of applicants for debuts 
 at the Theatre Frangais. Any one is given this 
 liberty ; and if, after a test rehearsal, the applicant be 
 deemed satisfactory, he is entitled to three public 
 debuts, after which he is dismissed or received into the 
 regular company, according to the ability displayed. 
 Thus it happened that while Fechter was nervously 
 awaiting the verdict of the Academy, he received an 
 order to present himself before the tribunal of the 
 Theatre Frangais. Ignorant of the part played by his 
 brother-in-law, and concluding that he had been called 
 on the strength of merit only, he prepared himself as 
 best he could. Trembling with fear he faced the un- 
 seen and unknown judges who sat before him, swallowed 
 up in the darkness which reigns throughout the audito- 
 rium of a theatre by day. With a few footlights for 
 inspiration, and Rachel's sister, Rebecca Felix, for 
 prompter, Fechter began Seide, — the same role which 
 he had rehearsed at the Conservatoire, and again 
 selected because of its scope for the display of human 
 
20 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 passions. Slavery, religious fanaticism, and love make 
 up a character of flesh and blood very difficult to de- 
 lineate, but entirely in sympathy with a mind like Fech- 
 ter's, that sought for nature in everything it attempted 
 to grasp. Few of the French classical plays possess 
 the humanity of "Mahomet," and it is significant that 
 from the outset Fechter recognized the power of real 
 "situations." Singularly enough Talma selected the 
 same role for his debut, — a fact unknowoi to Fechter, 
 and therefore suggestive of rapport between the two 
 minds. 
 
 Fechter had not recited more than half of Seide 
 when a voice from out the darkness exclaimed, " That 
 will do ; now for comedy." Once more bracing him- 
 self to the task, he began the light-comedy part of 
 Valere, the lover in Moliere's " Tartuffe." Again, when 
 half-way through, the unknown voice broke the gloomy 
 silence with, " That will do ; call another," — and Fech- 
 ter bowed himself off the stage, utterly ignorant of the 
 effect produced upon the jury ; but before leaving the 
 theatre he overheard the dismissal of his successor, a 
 woman, without any trial in comedy. " At least I have 
 received better treatment than she," thought Fechter; 
 and la)ing this flattering unction to his soul he went 
 back to his studio in the Rue Paradis des Poisson- 
 nieres. 
 
 Left in uncertainty, Fechter led a divided life be- 
 tween studying for the stage and modelling. Racine, 
 Corneille, and Voltaire shared the honors with the 
 "Seven Capital Sins," — the subject he had selected 
 to put into clay. These Capital Sins were to be rep- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 2 1 
 
 resented around the same table, seated or otherwise, 
 according to individual character, and carrying out 
 the dominant passion in action and facial expression. 
 Surely a good idea, but immensely difficult of treat- 
 ment. It was because of its difficulty that Fechter 
 selected the subject ; and who can tell how great a 
 sculptor posterity has lost ? 
 
 Three months passed by, and, hearing nothing from 
 the Tht^atre Frangais, Fechter was again about to 
 abandon the idea of acting, when a dragoon knocked 
 at his door, and placed two official documents in his 
 hands. The first announced the award by the Acade- 
 mic des Beaux Arts of the first grand medal ; the sec- 
 ond contained a call for Fechter's d^but at the Thea- 
 tre Fran^ais ! No wonder that the youth of nineteen 
 had an acces de joie at this embarrassment of riches. 
 No wonder that Fechter pere wellnigh danced with 
 delight. 
 
 The prize had been won ; would he go ? " No, I 
 cannot," said the son. 
 
 " You must," replied the father. 
 
 " It is impossible," answered the son. " My heart 
 is wedded to the theatre." 
 
 The distress of Fechter pcre at this decision caused 
 young Hotspur to relent so far as to offer to risk his 
 future on a fencing-match with his father, the winner to 
 decide whether it should be Rome or the stage. 
 
 " No, no," said his father, " I '11 do no fencing, for 
 at that you must surely win." 
 
 " Well, then, we '11 toss up ; heads I win, tails you 
 lose." 
 
22 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 To this the father consented. Heads won, and in 
 December, 1844, Fechter made his debut in conjunc- 
 tion with Rebecca Felix. The roles were Seide and 
 Valere, for which he had but one rehearsal. Rebecca 
 F^lix performed the part of Pahnire. 
 
 From the beginning Fechter had ideas of his own ; 
 and, once convinced of having attained the tinith ni his 
 art, no one could turn him from his purpose. The scene 
 of Voltaire's " Mahomet " is laid in Mecca. Seide, Ma- 
 honiefs slave, is an Arab, and should be dressed like an 
 Arab, precedents to the contrary notwithstanding. So, 
 armed with a fine Arab costume which hung in his stu- 
 dio, Fechter went to his dressing-room on the night of 
 his debut. There on a chair lay the properties supplied 
 for Seide by the theatre, — blue and white satin, to con- 
 trast with the pink and white satin of Pahnire, who, 
 Arab as she ought to look, would be painted red and 
 white, like the fairest of Circassians ! Stern in his 
 resolve Fechter laid aside rouge, whiting, and satin, 
 gave a dark olive tint to his complexion, donned his 
 Arab costume, and went to the wings to await his 
 cue. 
 
 "Mon Dieu ! what horror do I behold?" screamed 
 Geoffroy, the administrator of the week. " ^^'hat 
 do you mean by thus insulting established custom? 
 Off with the vile stuff ! Go to your room and put on 
 the proper dress." 
 
 Flying from Geofifroy's rage Fechter, with no inten- 
 tion of obeying orders, retired under the stage, where 
 he remained until sought for by the call-boy, when he 
 rushed on to begin the second act, which is Seine's first 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 23 
 
 appearance. A murmur ran through the audience, fol- 
 lowed by a rustle which Fechter took for disapproba- 
 tion. In an agony of doubt as to what would be the 
 result of his temerity, he had almost lost his presence 
 of mind, when a burst of applause and encouraging 
 bravos assured him of sympathy before, if not behind, 
 the curtain. 
 
 The real work of Seide begins with the fourth act, 
 where, in the interview with Pabnirc, the slave he 
 loves, not knowing her to be his sister, he reveals the 
 dreadful oath he has taken to ser\e Maluvnet by killing 
 Zopire (his unknown father), to whom he is drawn by 
 an unaccountable sympathy. This passionate dialogue, 
 the appearance of Zopire kneeling at the altar of his 
 gods, Seide' s working himself up to the requisite amount 
 of frenzy for the deed, and his return to Palmire after 
 its accomplishment, wild in look and falling from ex- 
 haustion, as he exclaims, 
 
 " Ou suis-je ? et quelle voix m'appelle ? 
 Je ne vols point Palmire ; un dieu m'a prive d'elle," 
 
 were a revelation to the spectators of the Theatre Fran- 
 gais, who had been educated on declamation and pro- 
 priety. Distracted and panting, Seide lay upon the 
 ground, giving the question, " Qui, Zopire?" in answer 
 to that oi Palmire, "Zopire, a-t-il perdu la vie?" with 
 a start and a heart-rending voice that thrilled the spec- 
 tators. 
 
 " Ah ! grand Dieu ! Dieu de sang altere, 
 Ne persecutez point son esprit egare. 
 Fuyons d'ici ! " 
 
24 CHARLES ALBERT FECLITER. 
 
 exclaims Palmire. Here Seide tried to rise, but fall- 
 ing on his knees, 
 
 " Je sens que mes genoux s 'affaissent," 
 
 delivered the confession of his crime, half rechning and 
 half kneeling, not regaining sufficient strength to stand 
 until the whole is told. No wonder that the public, 
 accustomed to see SHde obey Voltaire's printed " busi- 
 ness " {II s''assicd), and sit on a chair in true Oriental 
 fashion, lost all sense of decorum, and actually called out 
 the real Arab at the end of this act. This was a rare 
 compliment for those days and never before known in 
 " Mahomet." No less effective was Fechter in the last 
 act, where, coming on delirious with poison adminis- 
 tered unknown to him by Mahojnefs orders, Seide calls 
 upon the people to avenge Zopire's death, denounces 
 Mahomet, and dies in the arms of his followers. Years 
 before, this scene had been cut out on account of its 
 difficulty, but Fechter had stomach for it all ; and, when 
 the curtain fell, his debut was pronounced the success 
 of the night. Rachel came to him, saying " You must 
 act in niy pieces ; I will play with nobody else." 
 
 Fechter selected Valere for his debut in comed)'', 
 because it gave him time to rest, VaVerc not appearing 
 until act second, and because it w-as short. There is 
 really only one good scene, quite enough however to 
 prove cajDacity, which was all that the occasion de- 
 manded. Again Fechter made a revolution in cos- 
 tume, wearing the dress of Louis the Fourteenth's time, 
 the scene of " Tartuffe " being laid in the Paris of le 
 grand monarque. Heretofore the costume had not 
 
/^. ,.^^^J>'^ 
 
 ^^c^ 
 
 ^::i>i-t.<.-^i-e^ 
 
 
 
 

 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 25 
 
 been strictly correct. The curtain fell upon a second 
 success. Fechter had won his spurs in tragedy and 
 comedy — in Voltaire and Moliere — on the classic 
 stage of the Theatre Fran9ai3, and had already gained 
 Rachel's good will. Human nature is weak, artists are 
 sadly jealous, and perhaps it is not strange that old so- 
 cietaires looked with ill favor upon the youth of nine- 
 teen who had jumped so suddenly into popularity. It 
 was easy to reap a pitiful harvest of revenge ; so the 
 following week when Fechter went upon the stage to 
 rehearse Ciiriace in Corneille's " Les Horaces " and 
 Dorante in " Le Menteur," which parts he had chosen 
 for his second d^but, he found himself without support. 
 Righteously indignant at this unseemly slight, Fechter 
 left word that he would act in neither piece, and the 
 manager might get somebody else. Later entreaty 
 availed naught ; old societaires assumed their old rules 
 and the debut was postponed another week. 
 
 What said Jules Janin, the prince of dramatic critics, 
 the man who could not be bought with money, but 
 who revenged himself upon such artists as did not 
 pay him court? "Bravo I bravissimo I " murmured 
 Janin in private ; " come and see me, Fechter." 
 Quixotically independent and indifferent to the ver- 
 dict of critics, Fechter offended Janin's amour propre 
 by staying away. So the fcuilleton that followed the 
 representations of '' Les Horaces " and " Le Menteur," 
 in both of which Fechter was supposed to have ap- 
 peared, but which he threw up as has already been 
 told, contained a most savage onslaught upon Fechter's 
 Curiace and Dorante. The actor had his critic com- 
 
26 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 pletely on the hip, but took no further ad\-antage than 
 to \\Tite the following private note : — 
 
 "■ Dear J-A>tx, — Your criticism is excellent : true 
 in every particular, except in attributing the acting of 
 Curiace and Doraiiie to me. I performed in neither 
 part!'' 
 
 In the next week's feuilleton the impartial critic 
 stated that, ownng to gross carelessness, his manuscript 
 had been misprinted. His remarks apropos of Mr. 
 Fechter were intended for his rehearsal, and not for 
 the performance, in which other artists had appeared. 
 It was quite e\-ident from this second falsehood that 
 Janin meant war to the knife ; so Fechter returned the 
 blow by pubUcly stating that, inasmuch as he had never 
 rehearsed the parts criticised by ]M. Jules Janin, the 
 explanation of the latter could hardly be called satis- 
 factory ! After this terrible and justifiable expose, what 
 was left for Janin but silence? And silence was his 
 enduring revenge. Even after Fechter's mar\-eUous 
 success in "La Dame aux Camehas " Janin made but a 
 passing notice of his name, which was recorded among 
 the supernumeraries. In Paris, as well as in America, 
 personalit}' degrades art. 
 
 The young Seide had not been three weeks a pen- 
 sionnaire at the Theatre Francais before he broke an 
 audacious lance in behalf of republican institutions. 
 Entering the green-room for the first time, he saw 
 all the societaires ranged on one side of the fireplace 
 and the pensionnaires on the other. The former re- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 27 
 
 ceived their appointment originally from the first Na- 
 poleon, who accorded to the Theatre Fran^ais a yeai-ly 
 subvention of sixteen thousand pounds sterling. Since 
 then societaires have been elected by their own body. 
 They divide the profits of the theatre among them- 
 selves, — at the end of twenty years can retire on a pen- 
 sion of five thousand dollars, or, remaining longer in 
 the profession, are entitled to a still larger pension. 
 Thus does France foster art. Societaires consequently 
 hold the reins in their owti hands ; while petisiofi/iaires, 
 being on a salary and lower in official grade, are made 
 to feel the difference between the throne and the step 
 leading to it. " What 's the meaning of this ? " asked 
 Fechter. " Why are all the societaires in one row and 
 the pensionnaires in another? Is there no equality 
 among artists ? " With this the young democrat sprang 
 from one side of the wide fireplace to the other and, 
 landing among the societaires, began talking to Beau- 
 vallet as if nothing unusual had occurred, and as if 
 pensionnaires had a right to trespass upon sacred 
 ground. 
 
 Fechter's second debuts, when he appeared in " Les 
 Horaces" with Rachel, and in " Le Menteur," were 
 received with plaudits. In the comedy Fechter again 
 taught actors and public a lesson by wearing a thor- 
 oughly correct Charles-the-Second dress. So pro- 
 nounced was the success that then and there Fechter 
 became a regular member of the Theatre Fran^ais, the 
 high powers not deeming it necessary to await his 
 third debuts. La Rue being lazy and Maillard ill, 
 Fechter at first had many opportunities of testing his 
 
28 CHARLES ALBERT FE CUTER. 
 
 ability. Rachel's desires were fulfilled, and she found 
 wonderful support in the strijDling who, ignoring 
 precedents, made human beings of Hippolyte, Oresfe, 
 Xip/iares, Bajazet, and Nerestan. It was at the 
 conclusion of " Zaire " that Regnier came behind the 
 scenes and, addressing the assembled societaires, ex- 
 claimed " Now mark my words. I tell you that he is 
 better than any of you." Such outspoken criticism 
 was not likely to promote the interests of a beginner 
 who was himself none too politic. Moreover Buloz 
 had private reasons for advancing a vastly inferior 
 actor, and Fechter was soon made to feel the differ- 
 ence between favoritism and real worth. Appearing in 
 the comedies of "Valerie," " Les Femmes Savantes," 
 " Les Precieuses Ridicules," " Le Depit," " Le Manage 
 Parisien," " Le Misanthrope," " Tartuffe," " Les Four- 
 beries de Scapin," and " La Vestale," he at last found 
 himself shorn of almost every part rightfully his own. 
 Notwithstanding that Dumas pere \\Tote the prom- 
 inent male character in " La Fille du Regent " for 
 Fechter, and spoke of having done so, when the 
 play came to be cast Fechter found a part in the pro- 
 logue assigned to him. Easy in his principles, Dumas 
 had been talked over by Buloz and others. 
 
 Though Fechter had a right to a third d^but with his 
 own selection of parts, though it is a rule that every 
 debutant shall perform the parts of every d^but at least 
 twice during his first year, or whenever the plays are 
 brought out, these rights were denied. Fechter felt 
 that the societaires never intended to give him fair play ; 
 and when, at the beginning of 1846, the salary of every 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 29 
 
 pensiounaire except himself was raised, the intention 
 could not be mistaken. After appealing in \-ain for 
 justice Fechter frankly avowed his opinion, and at the 
 end of eighteen months left the theatre in a glory of 
 indignation. A man of less spirit and more phlegm 
 might have known better how to subvert the machina- 
 tions of rivals ; but in all probability a man of less spirit 
 would not have been so good an actor, and therefore 
 could not have fared so ill. Extraordinary ability is a 
 dangerous possession, unless it be master of the situ- 
 ation and be tempered with wisdom. Wisdom and 
 Fechter were never boon companions. Thus closed 
 Fechter's career at the Theatre Fran^ais. 
 
 With illusions gone, with aspirations clouded, Fech- 
 ter returned to his studio for the fourth time, and be- 
 took himself to modelling. Once more he went to 
 work upon the Seven Capital Sins, and it is safe to 
 conclude that he put a great deal of devilish expression 
 into the flice of Envy. " Theatres ! " he said ; " never 
 say Theatre to me. I 've done with the stage. Hence- 
 forth I am a sculptor." And so the actor believed ; but 
 Fate knew better. One day it chanced — as it always 
 chances, in life as well as in books — that Dacier, the 
 celebrated baritone, brought St. Aubin, once leading 
 actor at the Gymnase and then manager of the Berlin 
 Theatre Royal, to Fechter's studio for the purpose of 
 seeing his statue. " By the way," said St. Aubin, "are 
 you related to Fechter of the Theatre Frangais, about 
 whom I 've heard so much? " 
 
 " Well, rather," replied the sculptor ; " I am that 
 identical individual." 
 
30 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 " Is it possible ? Then how is it that you are at work 
 here?" 
 
 " For the reason that I have renounced the stage. 
 I shall never act again." 
 
 " AMiat, you ? the most promising man of the day ? 
 This wiU never do. Come with me to Berhn. I am 
 forming a company for the Theatre Royal ; you shall 
 have just the parts you Hke, and as you will be paid by 
 the government, you need have no fear on the score of 
 money." 
 
 Fechter accepted this offer ; the Seven Capital Sins 
 were once more wTapped in wet cloths, and \nth the 
 agility of Harlequin the sculptor transformed himself 
 into an actor. There was nothing that Fechter did not 
 do in Berlin. He was everything by turns and nothing 
 long. He was the best actor in the troupe " either for 
 traged}", comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, 
 historical-comical, scene indindable, or poem unlim- 
 ited." He had a fine robust tenor voice, and sang, 
 entirely by ear, the music of Daftiel in the opera of 
 '■' Le Chalet." He played Paul Taglioni's ballet of " Le 
 Corsair," and executed the dances with admirable ef- 
 fect. He made a great success as Le Fere Turliil- 
 tiitu, in " One Hundred Years Old," and still another 
 in doubling Buckingham and Tyrrell in '' Les Enfants 
 d'Edouard," a piece taken fi-om Shakespeare's '" Rich- 
 ard in." Fechter was so entirely transformed in the 
 second assumption that the public failed to recognize 
 him until the end of the act. 
 
 Being a very devout Catholic the Queen abstained 
 from theatrical performances, but after repeated en- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EEC LITER. 
 
 31 
 
 treaty from the King, with whom Fechter was a great 
 favorite, she consented to assist at a court representa- 
 tion at Potsdam of Bayard and Melesville's comedy " Le 
 Chevalier de St. George," and Dupin's " La Polka en 
 Province." Reaching high-water mark, Fechter de- 
 lighted the court. In the afterpiece Fechter's comedy 
 was so inimitable that the King sent his chamberlain 
 behind the scenes to request him to be less funny, 
 — otherwise his Majesty would die. Misunderstanding 
 the message, and seeing that the King enjoyed the per- 
 formance, Fechter became more and more comical, 
 until royalty' degenerated into base humanity and was 
 carried out of his box in a state of exhaustion from 
 laughing. The Queen expressed her admiration in 
 an autograph letter, accompanied by busts of Schiller, 
 Goethe, and Herder. Not to be outdone, Fechter 
 modelled a Sister of Charity kneeling at prayer, and 
 sent it to the Queen, who placed the artist's gift in the 
 Royal Gallen,-, where it still remains. 
 
 After an unusually prolonged and successful season 
 of nine months Fechter returned to Paris in 1847, ^^i^ 
 immediately signed an engagement for three years at 
 the Vaudeville, where he looked forward to a reign of 
 peace. The manager was all grace, the public all 
 smiles ; and his rendering of the hero Albert in " Mar- 
 guerite " received the approving nod of claque and 
 critics. About two weeks after its production the man- 
 ager went to Fechter and with simulated enthusiasm 
 exclaimed : " My dear fellow, your performance was 
 admirable. You are the only man to replace Frederic 
 Lemaitre. I must make another engagement with you. 
 
32 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 The present one is not equal to your merits. Give me 
 the old contract, and I '11 have a better one made out." 
 Dumfounded at this excess of virtue, and not suspect- 
 ing foul play, Fechter complied with the request. 
 However, after waiting a reasonable time and waiting 
 in \-ain, he ventured to ask for the new contract. Mr. 
 Manager coolly ignored it. An unworthy power behind 
 the managerial desk had instigated the treachery and 
 caused the \mtten articles to be destroyed. 
 
 Stung to the quick by this baseness, and able to pro- 
 duce witnesses to the existence of a contract, Fechter 
 had about decided to go to law, when he met an old 
 artist friend, Anthony Beraud, who was manager of the 
 Ambigu. "Why, what's the matter, Fechter?" in- 
 quired the latter; "you look upset." 
 
 " Upset ! I should rather think I was." And then 
 followed a narration of what had occurred. 
 
 " Now take my advice," said the manager, at the 
 conclusion of the woful stor}\ " Don't go to law, but 
 come to my theatre. I '11 double your present salary, 
 and bind myself by more writing than you '11 care to 
 read." 
 
 " Agreed," cried Fechter ; and the threatening clouds 
 disappeared. 
 
 Prior to this engagement Fechter went to London 
 with a troupe of admirable artists, including Boc- 
 cage, Cartigny, Montalent, Josset, Mademoiselle Bap- 
 tiste (granddaughter of the great Baptiste), and others. 
 The season at the St. James's lasted four months, during 
 which time Fechter appeared in standard plays, the 
 most prominent being Sophocles's " Antigone." It 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EEC LITER. 
 
 II 
 
 was brought out with great care, and excited unusual 
 attention. The Queen and. Prince Consort were con- 
 stant in their attendance, not being absent more than 
 twenty nights. D'Orsay was seen constantly, and with 
 him Louis Napoleon, who made Fechter's acquaint- 
 ance and often went behind the scenes to compli- 
 ment his countryman. Upon bidding Fechter good- 
 by Napoleon seemed much touched at the thought of 
 his own continued exile from France, and said, " The 
 next time we meet will be in the Tuileries." 
 
 "That is somewhat doubtful," answered Fechter, 
 "for I really do not intend to be King." 
 
 "AT;," replied the man of destiny, "but I intend to 
 be Emperor I''' 
 
 To smile was impossible. Napoleon's tone and man- 
 ner were such as to convince Fechter that an oracle 
 had spoken, and when the Prince became President of 
 the Republic, Fechter knew how the drama would end. 
 Napoleon was right. The next time they met was in 
 the Tuileries, and when Fechter acted at Fontainebleau, 
 the Emperor took off his watch and chain and begged 
 the artist's acceptance of them. 
 
 Fechter made so strong an impression in London 
 that Maddox, manager of the Princess's, went to him 
 with an offer of forty pounds per week for three years 
 if he would appear on the English stage. This was a 
 large salary for those days and the joung artist felt 
 greatly inclined to accept it, but there rose before 
 him the promise to his friend of the Ambigu. He 
 wrote to be released, if release were possible. " Impos- 
 sible," was the reply. " Sue and others are ^^Titing 
 
34 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 plays for you, and I cannot let you go." So toward 
 the end of February, 1848, Fechter returned to Paris 
 with the expectation of fulfilling this engagement, mak- 
 ing his entree in a new play, " La Famille Thureau," 
 the first and only production of an eccentric painter, 
 Lorentz. During the performance of " La Famille 
 Thureau," the story of which is not unlike that of " La 
 Dame aux Cam^lias," Fechter, while engaged in a 
 dialogue of twelve or fifteen minutes, modelled a statue 
 of Poetry, three feet high. Fair as the prospect was, it 
 did not long continue. A Revolution came between 
 him and public attention ; and as the real drama sur- 
 passed in interest any that could be feigned, the Am- 
 bigu, following the example of other theatres, closed 
 after a season of twelve nights. Freed from obligations 
 Fechter wrote to Maddox, accepting his former offer, 
 but the letter arrived too late. The enterprising man- 
 ager had already engaged an opera troupe, which 
 absorbed his time and money. 
 
 Othello's occupation gone, Fechter solaced himself 
 with fencing and shooting. In those days of anarchy 
 no man knew what destiny lay in wait for him, and dis- 
 cretion led to anticipation of the worst. So Fechter 
 fenced and fired himself into an enviable notoriety. 
 No one dared to quarrel with him, lest a duel might be 
 the consequence. Rochefort always referred to him 
 with deference, and bullies gave him a wide berth. 
 While Fechter was thus vigorously engaged Adrien 
 Decourcelles went to him, saying, " I 've just wTitten 
 a reactionary play called ' Oscar XXVIIL,' which if 
 possible I want to have performed. You are the only 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FE CUTER. 
 
 35 
 
 man who has pluck enough to brave the crowd. I 've 
 burlesqued the Revolution. I anticipate what will most 
 certainly happen months hence ; and if you and I can 
 show the people themselves, as they are and must be, it 
 will be a great feather in our caps." Fechter read the 
 play, sympathized with the travesty of royalty on the 
 one side and mad democracy on the other, and with 
 his usual daring consented to play " Oscar XX\^IIL" 
 The next step was to secure a theatre, and they ap- 
 pealed to Moran of the Varietes. 
 
 " But you '11 have the theatre down," argued the 
 timid manager. 
 
 "Yes, that's one side of the argument," replied 
 author and actor ; " but, on the other hand, you may 
 make a great deal of money. Your theatre is closed. 
 Here is an opportunity of turning an ill wind to good 
 account. If you don't seize it, some other theatre 
 will." 
 
 Persuaded in spite of himself, Moran consented to 
 the production of "Oscar XXVIII." On the first 
 night none but members of the press were present ; 
 nevertheless, Moran could not be found. Antici- 
 pating trouble he had left Fechter and Decouf- 
 celles to bear the onus of it, instead of which they 
 received the plaudits of a non-paying but appreciative 
 audience. 
 
 A few hours acquainted Paris with the nature of the 
 entertainment, and for two months, during the turbu- 
 lent summer of 1848, "Oscar XXVIII." laughed in 
 the face of the Revolution, and drew crowded audiences 
 of reactionists. Instead of assaults upon the actors, 
 3 
 
36 CHARLES ALBERT FECLLTER. 
 
 there were occasional combats among the spectators, 
 at which times Fechter dehv'ered impromptu addresses 
 upon the folly of useless expenditure of force in the 
 presence of a play brought out for the express pur- 
 pose of putting the people on exhibition. " Only 
 keep the peace and we '11 show you just how it ought 
 to be done," said Fechter; and, taken aback by his 
 audacity and wit, the combatants were wont to sit 
 down and look at their own portraits. Nine months 
 later the burlesque of "Oscar XXVIII." became a 
 positive reality. Decourcelles and Fechter had merely 
 anticipated history. 
 
 Later in this year Fechter fulfilled an engagement at 
 the Theatre Historique, performing Dumas's rhymed 
 tragedy of "Charles VII.," his drama of "Angele," 
 and bringing out for the first time Dumas and Ma- 
 quet's "■ Catilina," and Paul Feval's " ]\Iysteres de 
 Londres." 
 
 1849 found him again at the Ambigu, during which 
 twelve months he created no less than seven characters 
 of totally different types, the pieces being Fournier's 
 " Pardon de Bretagne," Paul Feval's " IMauvais Coeur," 
 Charles Desnoyer's comedy of " Les Trois Etages," 
 L^on Gozlan's "Jeunesse Dor^e," Masson's "Les Fils 
 Aymon," Bourgeois's "Notre Dame de Paris," and 
 Labrousse's " Louis the Fourteenth." In the last, 
 Fechter, in the hero who attempts to save the Queen, 
 assumed seven different characters and surprised the 
 audience by his wonderful " make-ups," being es- 
 pecially effective as a cab-driver. When the " Courier 
 of Lyons " was brought out at the Gaiet^ a year later. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 17 
 
 Paulin Mcnier made an exact copy of Fechter's cab- 
 driver, and gained a success thereby. 
 
 1850 and 1 85 1 were equally divided between the 
 Theatre Historique and the Porte-Saint-Martin. In 
 this time Dumas's " Pauline " and " Corsican Broth- 
 ers," Bulwer's " Money," Emile Souvestre's " Le Lion 
 et le Moucheron," De Montdpin's " Le Vol a la 
 Duchesse," George Sand's " Claudie," and Thiboust's 
 " Le Diable " were first put upon the stage. The 
 " Corsican Brothers " ran for one hundred nights ; 
 while " Money," though pronounced a great artistic 
 success, only held the stage forty nights. It was too 
 high comedy for a melodramatic theatre. " Claudie," 
 at the Porte-Saint- Martin, rivalled the " Corsican Broth- 
 ers " in the length of its popularity, whereby " hangs a 
 tale." When the drama was first read Boccage, to 
 whom belonged the leading role, that of an old man, 
 went to Fechter saying, " We can offer you nothing in 
 ' Claudie,' as I have the first part, and no other is 
 good enough for you." 
 
 " On the contrar)'," rejoined Fechter, " I have taken 
 a fancy to the ploughboy." 
 
 " What, the third part in the piece ? " 
 " Never mind, we '11 see what can be made of it." 
 So " Claudie " was mounted, and Madame Sand 
 came from Nohant to assist at the dress rehearsal. 
 At the end of the first act Fechter overheard an excited 
 dialogue between Madame Sand and Boccage in the 
 dressing-room adjoining his own. 
 
 "It will kill 'Claudie,'" said Madame Sand. "I 
 will not permit such an outrage. If you allow that man 
 to act I '11 withdraw the play." 
 
38 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 "But, my dear madame," retorted Boccage, "you 
 don't know what you are talking about. That man, as 
 you call him, is doing you a great honor. He has 
 taken an inferior part out of compliment to you, and 
 will act it as no one else can. ^ly advice to you is to 
 keep quiet." 
 
 But Madame Sand turned a deaf ear to this advice, 
 and with threats upon her lips left Boccage to his own 
 reflections. 
 
 "What's the matter, Boccage?" asked Fechtec, as 
 soon as the lady had retired. 
 
 " Why, that fooHsh woman says you sha' n't play in 
 ' Claudie.' She 's made a ploughboy, and is very 
 much disgusted with you because you dress him in 
 peasant's clothes and give him a patois.^'' 
 
 " Ver)'^ well," answered Fechter, "' then / refuse the 
 part. I won't go on with the rehearsal." 
 
 " But we are lost if you don't. For my sake, pay no 
 attention to her, and go through your part." 
 
 Gradually soothed into complaisance, Fechter put 
 on his street dress, spoke the purest of French, and at 
 the close of the next act Madame Sand exclaimed : 
 ""\Miat a charming young man ! Why did he not look 
 and act this way before ? " 
 
 Fechter had made a gentleman of her ploughboy. 
 
 " Now," said Fechter, at the conclusion of the re- 
 hearsal, " if I can 't do that part as I feel it ought to be 
 done, I won't appear at all. Madame Sand can write, 
 but she has proved that she does n't know the meaning 
 of acting. She has insulted me, and I 've done with 
 her." 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIIIER. 3^ 
 
 Of course much expostulation ensued, and it was 
 finally decided that, Madame Sand to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, Fechter should have his own way, by 
 which he made the success of the play. • " Take me to 
 him," exclaimed Madame Sand when the curtain fell 
 upon the first night of " Claudie," — " take me to him, 
 that I may know him." 
 
 " I refuse to know Madame Sand," was Fechter's 
 answer to this message. ''Vou need not bring her. 
 I do not forget an insult." 
 
 Madame Sand did not obtain her introduction ; and 
 when she wrote " Mauprat " especially for the man 
 whom she declared would kill " Claudie," the foolishly 
 proud actor refused to accept his part. 
 
 The production of " Le Diable " being assigned to 
 Fechter, he designed the dresses, read the play to the 
 actors, supenntended the rehearsals, and brought it ont 
 five days after receiving the manuscript. It was at this 
 theatre also that Fechter gave up thirty thousand francs 
 of salary to minor actors who were suffering in conse- 
 quence of the manager's failure during the engagement 
 of another artist. 
 
 The next six years — from 1852 to 185S — Fechter 
 was the star of the Vaudeville, where ten new plays 
 were produced in which he personated the hero. These 
 creations were Gozlan's " Le Coucher d'une Etoile " 
 and " Louise de Nauteuil," Bayard's " Hortense de 
 Ceruy" and " Les Contes de Boccace," Dumas's " La 
 Dame aux Camdlias," Barri^re's " Les Filles de Mar- 
 bre," '* La Vie en Rose," and " On Demande un Gou- 
 verneur," Scribe's " La Fille de Trente Ans," and 
 
40 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Maquet's " Les Dettes de Coeur." Successful in all, 
 Fechter made a great impression in a very difficult role 
 in " Hortense de Ceruy." This, however, was eclipsed 
 by the furore he created in " La Dame aux Came'lias." 
 Fechter objected to the fourth act of this play as origi- 
 nally written, and suggested certain changes of situation 
 and dialogue, to which Dumas at first willingly assented, 
 but over which he grew exceedingly nervous as the trial 
 night approached. 
 
 " If my play is a failure I '11 lay the blame on you," 
 said Dumas to Fechter. 
 
 " Nous verrons," responded the actor. 
 
 The curtain went up, the curtain went down, and the 
 fourth act was over. " What mean that noise and tre- 
 mendous applause?" asked Fechter of himself. "Is 
 it a failure ? Is it disapprobation ? " 
 
 "Fechter, Fechter, you have made a sensation ; you 
 are called ! " And the Vaudeville witnessed an expres- 
 sion of unexampled enthusiasm. The chef of the claque 
 came behind the scenes, in great trepidation. " It 
 wasn't I!" he cried. "It was not my doing. The 
 people did it, tell the manager. I tried to keep 
 applause back for the last act, but they would have 
 their own way." Dumas hurried to Fechter and clasped 
 him in his arms ; while Madame Doche, who had had 
 nothing to do with the sensation of this act, clever as 
 she was in what followed, calmly remarked : " Ah oui. 
 II m'a bien seconde ! " 
 
 This play ran for upwards of three hundred nights, 
 and whether Doche, Jeanne Essler, or others person- 
 ated the heroine, the success, with Fechter as Armatid^ 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 41 
 
 was equally great. What Dumas thought, al) who read 
 may learn : — 
 
 " Thanks to Fechter. What can I say of him that 
 all the world does not say and know ? Fechter is the 
 most youthful, most ardent, most enthusiastic, most 
 insinuating of artists. What variety of talents, what 
 unpretending skill in conception, what marvellous, 
 thrilling, electric execution ! Be it m ' Mauvais 
 Coeur ' at the Ambigu, in the ' Corsican Brothers ' at 
 the Theatre Historique, in 'Claudie' at the Porte- 
 Saint- Martin, in ' Hortense de Ceruy' or in 'La 
 Dame aux Cami^lias ' at the Vaudeville, he is always 
 the character first . then those happy, unexpected in- 
 spirations which are the seal of great artists, which 
 transport an entire audience at once, and invest the 
 character with charms and proportions that the author 
 himself, with all his high ambition, never dreamed of. 
 In ' La Dame aux Camillas ' the illusion is complete. 
 It is not an actor playing ; it is the man taken in the 
 very act. Fechter has the action, the look, the voice 
 of our inmost emotions, of our most frequent -passions. 
 He is himself; he is ourselves. For a drama in which 
 I have endeavored to cause the footlights to disappear 
 and to bring the spectator in direct communication 
 with its characters, for this study in which I have 
 wished that a generation might live over even its errors, 
 where could I have found a surer accomplice than 
 Fechter, young in years, mature in talent? I am 
 happy ; it is but my duty to avow it. I seek, I ask in 
 vain : who could have given to Armand Duval the con- 
 vincing poetT}-, the noble jealousy, the indescribable 
 
42 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 susceptibilities of feeling, — the naturalness, the terror 
 — with which he shaded the first three acts ? As for the 
 frenzy of the fourth, at the end of which the entire 
 audience rose to cheer and to recall him, — him and 
 IMadame Doche, — if I were not so satisfied at having 
 WTitten tlie piece, I should wish some one else to have 
 been its author that I might say of Fechter all that 
 ought to be said. His heart beat in every part of the 
 theatre. In the fifth act he gave the most piercing cry 
 of which human grief is capable. Happy the brother 
 author who next has Fechter for his hero ! Happy I, 
 who, taking my turn in representing the public, shall go 
 to hear him and to clap my hands ! " 
 
 Did ever actor receive greater praise from dramatist ? 
 And well might Dumas applaud, — he who had done 
 all for the heroine, making Ari7ia7id z. secondary figure 
 and expecting no more from him than is down in the 
 book ! It is cleverness that succeeds in doing well 
 what the author has made pre-eminent ; it is genius 
 that carries the author's conception beyond the letter, 
 and makes the less appear the greater. After seeing 
 Fechter in Arf/iaJid, Lemaitre went to him, saying : 
 "You are a great fool, my dear fellow. You throw 
 yourself away. You always do justice to e\-ery portion 
 of your role. Your performance is so even, so good 
 throughout, that the audience doesn't appreciate you 
 half as much as it ought. Now take my ad\-ice ; follow 
 my example. Save yourself for your great points, 
 and the people will be so startled by the strong con- 
 trast as to go quite wild. Don't you do anything in 
 Annand until the fourth act, and then you '11 see a 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 43 
 
 hurricane of enthusiasm." But Fechter refused to take 
 Lemaitre's advice. He was too true an artist to play 
 for effects ; and the great Frederic left him with the 
 final remark that of all fools he was the biggest. 
 
 Looking back upon " La Dame aux Camelias," it is 
 interesting to know that, though rehearsed on the stage 
 of the Consen-atoire during the Revolution, the moral 
 censors of the Republic would not consent to its pro- 
 duction ; and not until the days of the Empire did 
 Dumas's masterpiece receive gracious treatment. 
 Count Momy attended the first rehearsal expecting to 
 be greatly shocked. '• What fools those Republicans 
 were ! " he muttered, and immediately withdrew every 
 objection. 
 
 Simultaneously with Scribe's " La Fille de Trente 
 Ans " came Sardou's " Pattes de Mouche." " Which 
 shall we accept?" asked the manager. 
 
 " ' Pattes de Mouche,' by all means," said Fechter. 
 " It is admirable. Scribe's play will fail, in spite of 
 acting." When Scribe heard the verdict he went to 
 Fechter and upbraided hmi. " Say no more about it," 
 replied Fechter. " It was poHcy, not fi^endship, that 
 prompted my decision. As a friend I will do an\thing 
 for you, Scribe. Your comedy shall be accepted." 
 
 It was produced ; it failed. The theatre was saved by 
 a revival of " La Dame aux Camelias ; " and Sardou's 
 " Pattes de Mouche "' fulfilled Fechter's predictions by 
 running one hundred and fifty nights at the Gymnase. 
 
 In " Les Contes de Boccace," a five-act comedy, 
 Fechter sustained no less than nine characters ; while 
 in " La Vie en Rose " he became the hero of a lawsuit 
 
44 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 as well as of the play. Not having read the piece be- 
 fore its acceptance by the manager, Fechter declared 
 that he would not perform in it unless the last two acts 
 were entirely changed. He would not be connected 
 with another failure. The parts had been given out, 
 the date of production announced, and the manager 
 in despair resorted to law. Law, however, did not 
 produce the desired effect, as the verdict accorded 
 three months' grace to Fechter, after which he was 
 expected to comply with the manager's demands. 
 Fechter asked for no better terms, as it only needed 
 delay to kill the obnoxious play. Completely at Fech- 
 ter's mercy, the manager went to him, sa}"ing, — 
 
 '•' Dictate your ov\-n terms. Barriere is down stairs in 
 a hack. He wiU do an}-thing you please, provided 
 you '11 play in his piece immediately." 
 
 "Very well," responded Fechter; "let him alter 
 those two acts as at first suggested, and I '11 rehearse." 
 
 Thus, while the company rehearsed the first three 
 acts, Barriere reconstructed the last two, and "' La Vie 
 en Rose " had a rose-colored reception from the 
 pubUc. 
 
 One night, diiring the performance of the comedy 
 " On Demande un Gouvemeur," Fechter was greatly 
 inconvenienced by talking that proceeded fi-om a stage- 
 box. Nothing so embarrasses or mortifies an artist as 
 this most brutal of insults, and nothing so justifies 
 resentment Louder and louder grew the noise until, 
 in righteous exasperation, Fechter impulsively flung his 
 cane into the box with such force that it whizzed Hke a 
 bullet. He then coollv rang a bell, and ordered the 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 45 
 
 astonished sen'ant to stop the noise and fetch him his 
 cane. A dead silence took possession of the previ- 
 ously boisterous spectators ; and a cold shiver passed 
 over the rest of the audience, who saw in this act a 
 speedy challenge, followed by a duel and the possible 
 death of one of the combatants. " Fechter 's done it 
 agam," whispered those of his friends who knew his 
 readiness to resent injustice and insult; and Fechter 
 himself was quite prepared for the worst, so that when 
 
 the card of M. le Comte was sent to him in his 
 
 dressing-room, he expected to be called out. 
 
 " Monsieur Fechter," said M. le Comte, upon enter- 
 ing the dressing-room. '' I owe you a very humble 
 apology for my conduct. A short time ago I was 
 intoxicated and insulted you unconsciously. Your 
 cane brought me to my senses, and I now come to you 
 for pardon." 
 
 Of course Fechter's \\Tatli was quickly appeased, and 
 M. le Comte rook his departure with protestations of 
 everlasting friendship upon his lips. 
 
 Leaving the Vaudeville Fechter made a successful 
 tour through the provinces, ending with Lyons, where 
 he was to give six representations of "La Dame aux 
 Camelias." Hisses greeted his first appearance, the 
 Lyonnais having given their allegiance to another actor 
 in Armand, and being determined to make Lyons 
 thoroughly uncomfortable for Fechter. " Ladies and 
 gentlemen," said Fechter, approaching the footlights, 
 " it makes no possible difference whether you Uke or 
 dislike me, whether I act or do not act ; I merely wish 
 to say that, if I hear another hiss, I shall leave the 
 theatre and never enter it again." 
 
46 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Silenced by this independence the Lyonnais kept 
 their madness in the background, but preser\-ed a dis- 
 couraging gloom until the end of the fourth act, when 
 Fechter's passion broke down their prejudice, and 
 former enemies became ardent admirers. Before Fech- 
 ter bade farewell to Lyons his six nights had length- 
 ened into three months. 
 
 Returning to Paris Fechter accepted a profitable 
 engagement at the Porte-Saint-Martin, where at the 
 end of ten months, after having appeared in two new 
 parts — in Segour's " Fils de Nuit," and Maquet's " Belle 
 Gabrielle " — his engagement was cut short by a danger- 
 ous attack of typhoid fever which seized him suddenly 
 while acting. Singularly enough he had but just 
 climbed a wall, and been fired upon from below by an 
 actor who was supposed to be pursuing him, when he fell 
 upon the stage as if he had been shot. A short time 
 before, an actor at the same theatre had barely escaped 
 death, owing to the pistol being loaded ; and imagin- 
 ing a similar accident, Fechter's fellow-player startled 
 the audience by crying out, " I have killed him ! " but 
 afterwards pacified the excited multitude by assuring 
 them there was no wound. For five months Fechter 
 did not leave his bed ; nor was he able to resume his 
 profession until seven months later. Overwork had 
 brought on disease, and rest was his only salvation. 
 During the last five months of his stay at the Porte- 
 Saint-Martin he had rehearsed pieces for the Odeon, 
 the management of which he was about to assume. 
 Exhausted Nature took her revenge. Upon recovery 
 Fechter carried out this intention and, before himself 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 47 
 
 reappearing, mounted "Andrd Gerard" for Frederic 
 Lemaitre. He made his rcnircc in Ponsard's " L'Hon- 
 neur et I'Argent.' ' 
 
 Loving the art of acting quite as much if not more 
 than his own personal advancement, Fechter assumed 
 the management of the Odeon with the intention of 
 producing standard plays m a manner heretofore un- 
 known. Racine, Comeille, Voltaire, Moliere, and 
 Beaumarchais were to be humanized for the first time. 
 Rhyme and hexameter were to be given colloquially. 
 History was to be respected in mhe en scene and 
 costume. Turks were not to sit on French upholstery, 
 nor was imperial Rome to be longer shorn of its splen- 
 dor of appointments. If the socUtaires of the Theatre 
 Frangais were content to \ iolate the laws of eternal fit- 
 ness, at least Fechter aspired to better things. Such 
 audacity filled the societaires with anger and dismay. 
 " AVhat ! a minor theatre dare to produce our pieces, 
 and in a st}ie superior to ourselves? We mil show 
 Fechter our superiority.'' 
 
 So when Fechter brought out " Tartuffe," he playing 
 Tarluffc for the first time, the same comedy was an- 
 nounced at the Tht^atre Fran^ais. It would be given 
 three nights a week until the freebooter of the Od^on 
 was sufificiendy punished ; but the public failed to 
 appreciate this consideration, and the irate societaires 
 were obhged to withdraw " Tartuffe " after the second 
 night. Not so Fechter. His interpretation of the en- 
 tire comedy was a revelation to playgoers. Night after 
 night found Meissonnier at the theatre, making sketches 
 of the costumes and scenery. " II a mis ' Tartuffe ' 
 
^8 CHARLES ALBERT FECLITER. 
 
 dans ses meubles," said the journals. Fould, INIinister 
 of State, wrote to Fechter, expressing his delight and 
 declaring that he enjoyed it with all the relish of a new 
 play. But Fould was first a sen'ant of the government, 
 then a man ; and when the sacred powers of the sacred 
 Theatre Fran^ais demonstrated to him the impropriety 
 of Fechter's poaching upon their ground, Fould re- 
 quested the withdrawal of " Tartuffe." " No," replied 
 Fechter, '' I cannot. A success of thirty nights proves 
 that my efforts in behalf of dramatic art are appreciated 
 by the public. When the sun of ' Tartuffe ' sets, that 
 of ' Britannicus ' will rise with equal splendor." And 
 he meant what he said. While acting in two new 
 plays, "Le Rocher de Sysiphe " and Emile Augier's 
 "La Jeunesse," '-Britannicus," and "Macbeth" were 
 receiving the most elaborate and careful rehearsals. 
 When Fechter closed his first season of nine months, 
 he determined that his reopening should mark an era 
 in dramatic art. 
 
 Going to England during the summer of i860 for 
 the purpose of regaining his health, Fechter received 
 flattering offers from Harris, who had superseded ]\Iad- 
 dox in the management of the Princess's ; but all aglow 
 with the idea of bringing out French and English clas- 
 sics in his own language, he refused to be tempted. 
 Then, going to the Tuileries, he applied to the Emperor 
 for what is called la liberie des theatres, — that is, the right 
 to perform such plays as had heretofore been the exclu- 
 sive property of the Theatre Fran^ais. Receiving 
 Fechter with cordiality. Napoleon declared that, if his 
 own consent were alone required, the despotic law 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 49 
 
 should be .immediately rescinded. Unfortunately he 
 could only recommend its annulment to the Chamber 
 of Deputies, and this he would do most gladly. For 
 once the Chamber of Deputies failed to agree with 
 their imperial master; and Fechter impulsively bade 
 farewell to the Paris he loved so well, declared he had 
 no intention of devoting his life to melodrama, and 
 crossed over to England. Had he waited patiently 
 his dream would have been realized, for Napoleon 
 never forgot Fechter's request, and two years later 
 brought about the necessary reform. " Come back," 
 said the Emperor ; but the battle had been fought and 
 Fechter could not resign his victor}'. He had con- 
 quered a foreign tongue and a foreign audience, and 
 would not leave Shakespeare for Racine. 
 
 Understanding English perfectly when spoken, Fech- 
 ter flattered himself that it would cost little effort to 
 speak it equally well ; but the mystified What / of the 
 cabman, to whom he gave directions upon arriving in 
 London, convinced the voluntar)' exile that there was 
 no royal road to Shakespeare. Devoting himself for 
 four months to our stern Anglo-Saxon language, he 
 studied sixteen and eighteen hours out of the twenty- 
 four. 
 
 Selecting " Ruy Bias," which had never been acted in 
 English, as less likely to display his deficiencies of pro- 
 nunciation than a native play, Fechter made his debut at 
 the Princess's Theatre on the 27th of October, i860. 
 The novelty of seeing an eminent French actor trans- 
 lated into English created more than a momentar}' sen- 
 sation. The papers were enthusiastic, and Ruy Bias 
 
50 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 became the hero of a hundred nights. Not yet daring 
 to trust himself with classical language, Fechter's next 
 venture was in the " Corsican Brothers ; " after which, 
 feeling more glib with his tongue, he made his comedy 
 entree on February ii, 1861, in "Don Csesar de 
 Bazan." Six weeks later, the date being March 20, 
 he first essayed Hatnlet. It was aiming high, but not 
 higher than he could attain. Courage is the friendly 
 breeze that ever fills the sails of genius ; and Fechter, 
 long familiar with Shakespeare, did not feel as if he 
 were undertaking anything new. His conception of 
 Hajiilet was so thoroughly original that it became the 
 open-sesame to conversation in households and clubs. 
 The actor was transformed into a lion, — members of the 
 royal family, the aristocracy and gentry rivalling one 
 another in offers of hospitality. 
 
 " Perhaps," wTOte Charles Dickens, "no innovation 
 in art was e\er accepted with so much fa\or by so 
 many intellectual persons, precommitted to and pre- 
 occupied by another system, as Mr. Fechter's Hamlet''' 
 There were those who exclaimed, as they exclaim in 
 America, " C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la 
 guerre," but he had powerful support from the best 
 minds. It was after seeing Fechter in Hamkt that 
 Dickens sought an introduction, which took place at a 
 dinner given by Chorley, the musical critic, and which 
 led to a lasting friendship. So great an impression did 
 Fechter make, that " Hamlet " continued running for 
 one hundred and fifteen nights, from the 20th of 
 March until the end of August ! For twent>--one 
 nights it was acted six times in the week ; but the 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FEC LITER. 
 
 51 
 
 strain being too great on Fechter, who felt his text 
 most acutely, it was limited to four nights a week. 
 
 " Mr. Fechter," declared that captious critic the 
 Saturday Reviciv *'is a most logical actor. With all 
 his intention to be original and unfettered, he does not 
 deviate from the prescribed path without warrant from 
 the text, or at any rate, without full conviction that 
 there is nothing in the text that can be opposed to his 
 innovations." 
 
 "Mr. Fechter does not act; he is Hatnlct,'" asserted 
 the AthencEum ; while G. H. Lewes, who rarely 
 praised any acting, admitted that Fechter's conception 
 was " fine," "consonant in general with what the text 
 of Shakespeare indicates." In Lewes's book on " Actors 
 and Acting " we read that " Fechter is l}-mphatic, deli- 
 cate, handsome ; and, with his long flaxen curls, quiver- 
 ing sensitive nostrils, fine eye and sympathetic voice, 
 perfectly represents the graceful Prince. His aspect 
 and bearing are such that the eye rests on him with 
 delight. Our sympathies are completely secured." 
 
 Taking a vacation of two months, Fechter reap- 
 peared, on the 23d of October, in " Othello." Here 
 was another hard nut for the critics to crack, and the 
 war of pro and con waxed fierce and loud. Fechter's 
 Othello was his own, and for forty nights the theatre 
 overflowed with deeply curious and deeply interested 
 audiences. 
 
 On the night of his d^but in the " Moor of Venice" 
 Fechter's acting edition of the tragedy was widely cir- 
 culated. In his dedication to Richard Lane, Esq., 
 Fechter declared the convictions that were in him. 
 
52 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 He avowed his firm belief that Shakespeare's plays were 
 I certainly written to be acted not recited, and that his 
 conclusions were the fruit of nearly twenty years' un- 
 ceasing labor of love for the scenic representation of 
 the Great Master. After expressing his disregard of 
 Tradition, Fechter presented his views of how " Othello " 
 should be acted. Elaborate stage directions supple- 
 mented the text and gave a precise idea of the actor's 
 intentions. 
 
 These intentions were not received with general 
 favor. " His Hamlet was one of the very best and his 
 Othello one of the very worst I have ever seen," wTOte 
 the uncompromising Lewes. " On leaving the theatre 
 after ' Hamlet,' I felt once more what a great play it 
 was, with all its faults, and they are gross and numer- 
 ous. On leaving the theatre after 'Othello,' I felt as if 
 all my old admiration for this supreme masterpiece of 
 the art had been an exaggeration." 
 
 For years there had been no such excitement over 
 legitimate drama as this GalHc Othello created, — an ex- 
 citement, however, that was cut short by the approach 
 of the pantomime season.^ Fechter refused to act in 
 conjunction with Columbine and Harlequin, retired 
 from the theatre, and left Mr. Harris to ruminate on 
 the fallibility of managerial judgment ; for, in accordance 
 with Fechter's predictions, the public that had ap- 
 plauded Shakespeare failed to recognize the superiority 
 of his successors. 
 
 " Come back," implored VLx. Harris at the close of 
 the third week. 
 
 1 For Press Criticisms, see page 177. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 53 
 
 " No, I am not a feather to be blown about at will," 
 replied Fechter. " You said you would run your pan- 
 tomime ten weeks, and run it you may. When I 
 return, it will be to perform lago and not Othello.'' 
 
 Mr. Harris did not love Fechter for thus paying him 
 in his own coin, — human nature never enjoys retorts 
 of this description, — but being helpless, submitted to 
 the actor's terms and gathered a rich harvest in conse- 
 quence, lago attracted large audiences for several 
 weeks. Then Fechter brought out " The Golden Dag- 
 gers," a drama taken by himself from Paul Feval's 
 novel of the same name, the scene being laid in Mex- 
 ico. Admirably as the drama was acted, and beauti- 
 fully as it was put upon the stage, it failed to be a 
 pecuniary success. A modem story, and perfectly 
 quiet natural acting, disappointed the general public. 
 " There 's no use in going to see that," they said ; " it 's 
 just what people do at home." 
 
 So " Hamlet " was revived. At this time Fechter 
 received a fine offer from Ullman to visit the United 
 States ; but not wishing to leave England during the 
 great Exhibition, when he expected to continue acting 
 at the Princess's, he declined. Then came Harris's re- 
 venge. Fechter had dared to dictate to him, and would 
 not perform " Hamlet " more than four nights in the 
 week. London would teem with people ; the theatre 
 would be patronized, no matter what the attraction. 
 Fechter should be sacrificed. Going to the generous- 
 hearted Frenchman with a pitiful ston,- of woes, Harris 
 declared that Harrison (the tenor) stood ready to take 
 the theatre off his hands and pay him a handsome 
 
54 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECffTER. 
 
 bonus, provided Fechter could be induced to cancel 
 his engagement. Touched in his weakest point, his 
 heart, Fechter consented to withdraw, and on a Satur- 
 day morning wTote Mr. Harris to that effect. On the 
 following Monday night Mr. Charles Kean appeared 
 at the Princess's in '' Hamlet " ! The story about 
 Harrison had been a ruse. " Hamlet " with Kean 
 will take as well as vdi\\ Fechter, thought INIr. Harris, 
 but again did he reckon without his public. Finding 
 out the mistake, ]Mr. Kean conveniently managed to 
 turn his foot on this first night, and did not appear for 
 a fortnight, when " Hamlet " was quietly ignored. 
 Once more did the manager beg Fechter to return 
 and once more did he refuse. 
 
 This scur\y trick was most unfortunate for Fechter, 
 as it prevented him from acting during the Exhibi- 
 tion, — a consummation he had devoutly -nashed. 
 Weary of managerial chicanery, he became lessee of 
 the Lyceum, which opened on the loth of January, 
 1863, with "The Duke's Motto." Foj seven months 
 this drama drew great houses, until Fechter, satiated 
 with Henri de Lagardere, dropped it in the full tide of 
 success. Reopening with '• Bel Demonio " on the 15th 
 of October, this highly colored drama bade fair to rival 
 " The Duke's Motto " in popularity, when Fechter's 
 e\-il genius stepped between him and fortune. On the 
 one hundred and sevent}--fifth night Fechter, in mak- 
 ing his entrance through a window, caught his spur in 
 the siU, and fell so violently as to drive the hook of his 
 scabbard through his right hand. Ready to faint with 
 pain, he yet went through the scene, and even finished 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 55 
 
 the play, not realizing how dangerous a wound he had 
 received. Arising the next morning with the intention 
 of acting, his physician found him shaving himself. 
 
 " You had better go back to bed," said the doctor. 
 
 " O no, I shall act to-night." 
 
 " Indeed ! we '11 see about that. Do you feel any- 
 thing queer about the jaws?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, keep ver}' quiet. I '11 return in a few hours." 
 
 Return he did, and, as he expected, found Fechter 
 in bed, but fortunately with no symptoms of lockjaw. 
 The exhausted actor and manager lay for three weeks 
 in a state of stupor, rarely conscious, saving when food 
 was administered. Escaping the terrible death of lock- 
 jaw, he went to the Isle of Wight, where he gained 
 strength so rapidly as to venture to act " Bel Demonio " 
 for the benefit of the sufferers from the Sheffield inun- 
 dation. In acknowledging the generous donation of 
 two hundred and three pounds, the entire receipts, the 
 Mayor of Sheffield offered to return eighty pounds, 
 the fund having reached the sum necessary to meet 
 the most desperate cases. " Give the rest to the poor," 
 Fechter replied. 
 
 The night following this benefit Fechter broke down, 
 and three more weeks passed before he was able to 
 resume his profession. Such contretemps were not 
 likely to advance the interests of a theatre of which he 
 was the pecuniar^' attraction ; and the Shakespeare ter- 
 centenary celebration being announced for April 23, 
 1864, Fechter determined to bring out " Hamlet " 
 with every possible effect. His orders were not ful- 
 
56 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 filled until a fortnight later, and the indignant manager 
 indulged in the luxury of a lawsuit. " Hamlet " then 
 ran forty nights. 
 
 The autumn season of 1864 opened with Paul T^Ieu- 
 rice's comedy-drama of "The King's Butterfly." 
 Splendidly gotten up, and introducing Fechter's favorite 
 blood-mare Minerva, who understood French and 
 English equally well, — knew almost as much as her 
 namesake, and acted in a wonderfully human way, — 
 the new sensation endured three or four months, when 
 it was \\-ithdrawn to make way for " The INIountebank," 
 which was no more nor less than " Belphegor " entirely 
 rewritten by Charles Dickens, with a child's part intro- 
 duced to display the great dramatic ability of Fechter's 
 son Paul, then a child of seven. The counterpart of 
 his father in appearance, — it was like seeing him 
 through the small end of an opera-glass, — the lad 
 astonished everj'body by his acting. On the first night 
 he brought tears into the eyes of the old artists around 
 him, and introduced bits of "business" that amazed 
 even his father; but Paul soon tired of the many 
 repetitions and, being a pet with the ladies, found it 
 much more interesting to play to the boxes, and be 
 showered with bonbons, than to lose himself in his'part.-' 
 
 " How can you smile at those women when the situa- 
 tions are so tragic ? " asked the father in despair. 
 
 1 On November 29, 1S47, Fechter married M'Ue Roebert, 
 a most estimable woman and a pensionnaire of the Comedie 
 Fran9aise. The offspring of this marriage were a son Paul and 
 a daughter Marie. The former is studying for the law. The 
 latter is an operatic singer. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 57 
 
 " ^^'ell, but father, you don't really die, you know. 
 It is n't true. It 's only make-believe. We all come 
 Lome alive and enjoy ourselves, so where 's the 
 harm?" 
 
 Fechter saw that the stage would be Paul's ruin, and, 
 regardless of pecuniary loss, withdrew the drama, bring- 
 ing out '* The Roadside Inn," a new version of " Rob- 
 ert Macaire." This novel rendering of an old friend 
 drew immense houses for three months, and might 
 have continued indefinitely but for the Prince of 
 Wales's desire to witness a performance of " Ruy 
 Bias." 
 
 " If I comply with your request, I '11 surely ruin the 
 future of ' The Roadside Inn,' " said Fechter. 
 
 " Not if you give ' Ruy Bias ' on a Saturday night 
 and by royal command," argued the Prince. 
 
 Ver)^ doubtful as to consequences, Fechter complied. 
 The papers waxed furious at the idea of royalty leaving 
 native talent unhonored, and commanding a perform- 
 ance at the theatre of what they were pleased to call 
 "a French importation." The treasury took t\vo 
 hundred and thirty pounds, ten pounds more than the 
 theatre held, and enthusiasm ran riot. But alas for 
 " The Roadside Inn " ! The next Monday's receipts 
 droopeil to seventy pounds, and the previously success- 
 ful drama fell into a rapid decline. The public is a 
 queer monster, far queerer than his Royal Highness 
 the Prince of Wales ever dreamed, and the only sop 
 Fechter could throw to it was " Ruy Bias." Victor 
 Hugo reigned until the close of the summer season 
 of 1865. 
 
58 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Fifteen years ago the Lyceum was not a theatre 
 adapted to the legitimate drama. When Fechter 
 assumed its management he did so as 2. pis aller ; and, 
 while earnestly longing to produce other Shakespearian 
 plays, he found himself hedged in by fate. He thought 
 in prose what no less a man than Garrick had written 
 in verse : — 
 
 " If an empty house, the actor's curse, 
 Shows us our Lea?-s and Hamlets lose their force, 
 Unwilling we must change the nobler scene. 
 And in our turn present you Harlequin, — 
 Quit poets and set carpenters to work, 
 Show gaudy scenes, or mount the vaulting Turk ; 
 For though we actors one and all agree 
 Boldly to struggle for our — vanit}?-, 
 If want comes in, misfortune must retreat; 
 Our first great ruling passion is — to eat ! " 
 
 With this idea of eating in view, Fechter began the 
 autumn of 1865 with "The Watch-Cry," a drama in 
 three acts, founded on the story of the three brothers 
 Salviati. It held up its head quite firmly for two 
 months ; but as Fechter represented a dumb man, and 
 confined his language to that of pantomime, the people 
 declared that he did not talk enough. " We want to 
 hear as well as see him." Wishing to gratify this ami- 
 able desire Fechter produced " The Master of Ravens- 
 wood," on December 23, 1865, and made so deep an 
 impression in the romantic Edgar that he played noth- 
 ing else for tlie remainder of the season. 
 
 September, 1866, saw Fechter personating Hamlet 
 for two weeks. Going from one extreme to the other 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 59 
 
 he revived "The Corsican Brothers," which attracted 
 excellent audiences for one month. Then came Fech- 
 ter's own drama of " Rouge et Noir," founded on 
 "Thirty Years of a Gambler's Life." It was pronounced 
 good work, and lived luxuriously for one hundred and 
 fifty nights. 
 
 Feeling himself utterly incompetent to circumvent 
 the harpies who fattened upon his treasury, Fechter 
 determined to retire from the lesseeship of the Lyceum, 
 and henceforth confine himself to his proper sphere of 
 acting and stage direction. Behind the scenes Fechter 
 was a master ; before them he was, hke most artists, a 
 child. Wishing to close his theatre with eclat he pro- 
 duced " The Lady of Lyons," and created so great a 
 furore in Claude Melnotte as to astonish even Bulwer. 
 It ran seventy nights, the curtain falling last upon it on 
 November i6, 1867. Then followed the great success 
 at the Adelphi of "No Thoroughfare," dramatized by 
 Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Fechter, and acted one 
 hundred and fifty-one times. Fechter's powerful ren- 
 dering of Obenreizer made the drama ; and no sooner 
 was it withdrawn than he went to Paris with Dickens to 
 superintend the rehearsals of its French adaptation, 
 " L'Abime." Returning to the Adelphi, Fechter won 
 double laurels for one hundred nights in his clever 
 drama of " Monte Cristo," after which he appeared in 
 " Black and White," the joint work of himself and Wil- 
 kie Collins. 
 
 Not having visited the provinces since 1865, when 
 his circuit had been limited to Glasgow, Birmingham, 
 and Liverpool, Fechter gave eight months of 1869 to a 
 
6o CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 tour through Great Britain and Ireland. E\en Li\-er- 
 pool acknowledged his power. This city is not greatly 
 given to legitimate drama ; nevertheless Li\erpool 
 wanted to see Fechter in "Hamlet." "Very well," 
 said Fechter, " ' Black and ^^'hite ' cannot be with- 
 drawn,, because it is filling the theatre ; but if you like 
 I will give you one act of ' Hamlet ' ever\' night imtil 
 finished, and you shall have it after the drama." 
 
 The liverpudhans readily assented to this arrange- 
 ment, and, putting all his intensity into each act, Fech- 
 ter never acted Ha77ilet as equally as on those five 
 nights. Liverpool was an easy conquest, but not so 
 Manchester. This good town had a grievance. Years 
 before, Manchester had commanded, had petitioned, 
 had finally implored Fechter to come to them, but it 
 was not until this season that he was able to respond 
 to the prayer. Then Manchester arose in all her might 
 to resent a prolonged absence, which she chose to con- 
 sider a slight. The world may think what it pleases 
 of London as the heart and head of Great Britain, 
 but Manchester has opinions of its own, pre-eminent 
 among which is the religious conviction that Man- 
 chester is the centre of the solar system. Conse- 
 quently, when Fechter did appear at the Theatre Royal, 
 it became incumbent upon a club clique to punish him 
 for his pre%"ious indifierence. So the clique decided 
 that Fechter should play to empty benches until the 
 production of " Hamlet," when the entire solar system 
 should shine upon the star. Feeling the injustice of 
 such treatment, and determined to presence his per- 
 sonal as well as professional dignit}-, Fechter held the 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EECHTER. 6 1 
 
 cards .in his own hands and won the game. Playing to 
 audiences of three and four hundred, he never acted 
 better in his life. For those who did come to see him 
 he felt that he owed all that he could give ; for those 
 who childishly attempted to humiliate him he inserted 
 a card at the head of the play-bills, in which Mr. Fech- 
 ter took great pleasure in announcing that his engage- 
 ment would not be prolonged after the performances of 
 " Ruy Bias " and " Black and White " ! He was as 
 good as his word, and the clubs of Manchester dis- 
 covered that for once they had found their match. 
 
 Acceptmg an offer to visit the United States, Fechter 
 hurried back to London, and, after fourteen farewell 
 performances at the Princess's of " Ruy Bias," " Lady 
 of Lyons," and " Hamlet," set sail for America. 
 " Come back soon," said the Prince of Wales on that 
 last of farewell nights. " Remember that we cannot 
 get on without you." Well might royalty confess as 
 much, for it will be long ere England salutes the peer 
 of that " French importation," Charles Albert Fechter. 
 
FECHTER IN THE UNITED 
 STATES. 
 
 1870-1879. 
 
 " My fame is a mere ephemeron, at the command of caprice. 
 The same breath that nourishes the flatne to day, puts it out 
 to-morrow. ^^ 
 
 Edmund Kean. 
 
FECHTER IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 TwEU'E years have passed since Charles Albert 
 Fechter, unheralded save by a few words of praise from 
 the pen of that best of dramatic critics, Charles Dickens, 
 made his debut in New York. He came, he was 
 heard, he conquered. An eager public assembled in 
 Niblo's Garden on the loth of January, 1S70, to witness 
 " Ruy Bias." The effect produced was identical with 
 that produced in London and recorded in the Times, on 
 Fechter's first appearance as an English actor : — 
 
 " As to the manner in which M. Fechter would speak 
 English the mind of the audience was soon at ease, 
 and there is that music in his voice which would sound 
 equally well through the medium of any language. 
 jRuy's narrative of his sufferings and his love, and the 
 small delicate touches by which he indicated his unea- 
 siness under a master's control, carried him well 
 through the first act, and though the great scenes of 
 the piece were yet to come, it was easy to foresee that 
 the manner of their execution would be in ever)- way 
 satisfactor)'. The second act was an immense advance 
 on the first. Nothing could be finer of its kind than 
 J^ujs declaration of love to the Queen, so exquisitely 
 
^Q CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 was the fire of passion tempered by the feeling of re- 
 spectful devotion, and with such eloquence of words 
 and action was the text poured forth. There are 
 not many actors who succeed even in ordinary love- 
 scenes ; and few indeed could effect an exhibition of 
 that idolatrous form of passion which inspired so many 
 poets of the chivalric ages. The misery to which the 
 virtuous impostor is exposed when his master suddenly 
 reappears and compels him to do petty menial offices 
 while he is still in the plenitude of his power, — the 
 terribly jarring conflict between the aspiring mind of 
 the statesman and the bounden condition of the lackey, 
 — was represented with wondrous force and abun- 
 dance of detail. But it was in the last act that the 
 triumph of the actor reached its culminating point, — 
 the act in which the valet appears as the defender of the 
 Queen against the machinations of his villainous master. 
 The concentration of passionate rage with which he ac- 
 costed his oppressor, the obvious feeling that he was 
 throwing from his soul a burden that had long crushed 
 it to the dust, elicited that continued succession of 
 plaudits which is only heard when an audience is ex- 
 cited in the highest degree. From the moment wheti 
 Ruy snatches the sword from his master's side (an ac- 
 tion which of itself produced an electrical effect) to 
 the fall of the curtain, when the valet dies happy in the 
 conviction that he is loved not under false colors, but 
 with the livery actually present to the mind's eye of his 
 royal mistress, M. Fechter had the audience completely 
 in his grasp and could do with them as he pleased. 
 The shouts which invited him to the front of the curtain 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 67 
 
 were the certain indications of an unequivocal and 
 brilliant success." 
 
 To me this Anglo- Franco- Piemontese-Teuton was a 
 revelation. I had been, from childhood, under the 
 influence of the natural school of acting. The exqui- 
 site comedy of the Theatre Frangais, the grandeur and 
 force of Ristori and Salvini, the incomparable humor 
 of Charles Dickens the reader, had been a liberal edu- 
 cation in dramatic art. I wondered if I should ever see 
 upon the stage such a lover as Garrick and Barry are 
 said to have been. It seemed to me twelve years ago, 
 and it seems to me in the present year of our Lord, 
 that he is the finest actor who best depicts the noblest 
 of all passions. " O Art, my art, thou art much I " ex- 
 claims Aurora Leigh, " but love is more ! Art S}Tn- 
 bolizes heaven ; but God is Love and means Heaven." 
 If love be the divine passion, the delineation of love 
 should be the actor's highest aspiration. To attain his 
 ideal should be the actor's crowning glorj-. When 
 Charles Fechter as Ruy Bias uttered those five small 
 words, " I madly love the queen ; " when he dared to 
 exclaim before Don Ccesar, '' I love her, that 's all I " 
 when, dying, he gazed upon his sovereign for the last 
 time, throwing into his face an expression absolutely 
 marvellous in beauty and pathos, I felt that the deline- 
 ation of love could no further go. 
 
 Fechter's appearance in "The Duke's Motto," on 
 Januar)' 26, confirmed the public in their enthusiastic 
 admiration. The dual parts of Henri de Lagardere and 
 y£sop the Hunchback were so thrillingly portrayed as 
 to make the illusion complete. The actor lived in his 
 
^S CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 assumptions, and proved the justice of John \\'eiss's 
 criticism : — 
 
 " When I saw that great genius, Fechter, before he 
 had spoken a word I felt he was the man he was to 
 stand for, and from that time every word and move- 
 ment was but added proof to my feeling. I had to 
 tear myself away from the man he stood for when I 
 would think of the man he was ; and I doubt not, if 
 I could have seen the working of his nature within, I 
 should have found that he was not himself in that hour, 
 but the embodiment of the poet's conception." 
 
 Successful in the romantic drama, Fechter, on the 
 14th of February, played Hamld, a character about 
 which every critic, every confirmed play-goer, and ev- 
 ery Shakespearian reader has a preconceived opinion. 
 That he produced a sensation is unquestioned ; that 
 his conception was severely criticised is equally true. 
 It was not until he appeared at the Boston Theatre, on 
 February 21, that Fechter received such recognition 
 in " Hamlet " as England had given him. Boston 
 took the new actor to its inmost heart. The enthusi- 
 asm excited by his interpretation of Shakespeare in- 
 creased with representations of " Ruy Bias " and " The 
 Lady of Lyons," and the farewell matinee of Bulwer's 
 play was such an ovation as I have never seen equalled 
 in any countr}'. Gray-headed men shouted with de- 
 light at the close of the fourth act. Not content with 
 the frantic wa\ing of handkerchiefs, women took off 
 their hats and bonnets, and performed strange g}'mnas- 
 tics with them. Again and again were Fechter and his 
 excellent assistant, Miss Carlotta Leclercq, called before 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 69 
 
 the curtain, and applause only ended when physical 
 exhaustion set in. 
 
 People were Fechter mad. No dinner was com- 
 plete without him. The man fascinated as much as 
 the actor. He possessed the animal magnetism with 
 which great actors and orators are generally endowed. 
 
 After visiting Philadelphia professionally, Fechter re- 
 turned to the Boston Theatre and, on the 20th of 
 March, opened in "The Duke's Motto " with all his 
 previous success. " No Thoroughfare " followed. 
 
 " Who wrote ' No Thorouglifare ' } 
 Surely not Boz. 
 Collins it was, — 
 He wrote ' No Thoroughfare.' " 
 
 During his visit to this country, Dickens took up a copy 
 of the last of the " Christmas Stories," and marked with 
 a pencil such portions as w-ere his own. The book thus 
 marked, which would be highly valued now, was by some 
 ill luck mislaid, but the clever man of letters, to whom it 
 belonged, declares the proportion of Dickens to Collins 
 to have been exceedingly small. " No Thoroughfare " 
 will never be known to posterity as other than a child of 
 Wilkie Collins's brain, as like its father as a child can be 
 that has been fed on Dickens. To say what portions of 
 " No Thoroughfare " Dickens actually wrote would be 
 presumptuous ; but it is probable that after talking 
 over the plot together, — a plot that is pre-eminently 
 Collinsish, — Dickens started the story, conceived the 
 character of jfocy Ladle, and, with a touch here and 
 there, left the rest to his collaborateur. " Gentlemen, 
 it is all wery well for you, that has been accustomed to 
 
70 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 take your wine into your systems by the conwivial 
 channel of your throttles, to put a lively face upon it ; 
 but I ha^•e been accustomed to take my wine in at the 
 pores of the skin, and, took that way, it acts different. 
 It acts depressing. It 's one thing to charge your 
 glasses in a dining-room with a Hip Hurrah and Jolly 
 Companions Every One, and it 's another thing to be 
 charged yourself, through the pores, in a low, dark cel- 
 lar and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the dif- 
 ference betwixt bubbles and wapors. I 've been a 
 cellarman my hfe through, with my mind fully given to 
 the business. What 's the consequence ? I 'm as 
 muddled a man as liv'es — you won't find a mud- 
 dleder man than me — nor yet you won't find my 
 equal in moUoncholly. Sing of Filling the bumper 
 fair. Every drop you sprinkle O'er the brow of care 
 Smooths away a wrinkle ? Yes. P'r'aps so. But try 
 filling yourself through the pores, under ground, when 
 you don't want it." If Dickens did not originate jfoey 
 Ladle and his quaint conceit, Dickens never originated 
 anything. Successful as a story, " No Thoroughfare " 
 was no less successful when, dramatized in 1867, it 
 was brought out by Fechter at the Adelphi, in Lon- 
 don, and acted one hundred and fifty-one times. It 
 was only withdrawn in England to be produced in 
 Paris under the name of " L'Abime," the French adap- 
 tation being Fechter's, and the rehearsals being super- 
 intended by Dickens and himself. 
 
 With such prestige, the announcement of the pro- 
 duction of this drama furnished tea-tables with no 
 small amount of gossip. Boston's first and last fami- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 71 
 
 lies and Boston's brains were at this premiere. All 
 the cultivated clever women, whose society makes 
 this city so exceptional, were there. There sat Long- 
 fellow, looking like an intellectual " King Lear," 
 editors whose hands were oftenest the first to start 
 applause, James T. Fields, and many another. And the 
 drama itself? It is clever. Though the first perform- 
 ance dragged its slow length along to the witching hour 
 of twelve, few left the theatre. This is the greatest 
 compliment Boston can offer an artist, as the suburban 
 population, tied to inflexible trains and horse-cars, gen- 
 erally get up and walk out in agonizing ignorance of 
 denouements. There are those who have never seen 
 the last act of anything, and await a future existence 
 before they shall be able to finish their uncompleted 
 lives. Apart from the prologue, which can never be 
 interesting, as no interesting characters appear in it, 
 and apart from bits of scenes for subordinate charac- 
 ters that must always bore more 'or less, for the reason 
 that little parts are rarely well played — " No Thor- 
 oughfare " commands constant attention. Of course, 
 it is sensational. Wilkie Collins never \\TOte anything 
 that was not highly so, and the drama is a condensa- 
 tion rather than a dilution of the stor}', altered by 
 Fechter in several important respects to meet the re- 
 quirements of the stage. 
 
 In delineating Obcnreizer, a passionate villain, Fech- 
 ter gave one more proof of his great versatility. His 
 easy colloquial acting in the beginning was delightful, 
 and in the fourth tableau he was masterly. His quick 
 transitions from repose to action, at one moment giv- 
 
72 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT EEC LITER. 
 
 ing advice, at another stealthily endeavoring to gain 
 possession of the receipt ; his equally stealthy attempt 
 to overcome Vendale, thwarted by the entrance of 
 jfoey Ladle ; his relapse into the old familiar manner, 
 and final urging of Vetidale to go himself to Switzer- 
 land and bear him {Obenreizer) company, who, 
 strangely enough, is forced to make the same journey ; 
 his inviting Vendale to dine, that they may start to- 
 gether and he see Ala rgue rife, — were phases as mar- 
 vellous in combination as the changes of the kaleido- 
 scope. 
 
 When, in the fifth tableau, (9^i?;/rm^r returns after the 
 drug has taken effect, his cat-like approach to the bed 
 in search of the forged receipt ; his terror upon dis- 
 covering that Vendale sleeps in the chair by the fire ; 
 Vendale^s momentary return to consciousness, and 
 the story upon Obenreizer's lips that he has had a 
 bad dream about his friend that caused his return ; 
 Vendale^ s invitation tb remain ; Obenreizer' s inclina- 
 tion to kill Vendale while asleep ; his feeling for the 
 receipt in VendaWs pocket, and the unexpected ap- 
 pearance of a guide rapping out four o'clock, the hour 
 of starting over the Alps, just as he is about to seize 
 the receipt, were all so thrilling in pantomime as to 
 make the spectator watch the scene with bated breath, 
 believing it to be real. 
 
 The seventh and last tableau showed Fechter at his 
 best in the exquisite pathos of action and expression, 
 as Obenreizer, dying of despair and nervous exhaus- 
 tion, looked upon the woman he loved. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 73 
 
 " No Thoroughfare " was succeeded by " Don Coe- 
 sar de Bazan " and " Ruy Bias." The universal favorite 
 bade farewell for the season on April i6, when he 
 acted in French for the benefit of the French Comedy 
 Company that sorely needed financial help. No one 
 was readier than he to give his services to a worthy 
 cause. 
 
 Again in New York, Fechter played an engagement 
 at the French Theatre (now Haverly's Fourteenth 
 Street Theatre) which lasted from April 27 to May 
 23, during which time "The Lady of Lyons," "Don 
 Caesar de Bazan," "Ruy Bias," "Hamlet" and "The 
 Corsican Brothers " were produced. In New York 
 Fechter "was admired, in Boston he founded a religion. 
 Small blame to him then for preferring the Modem 
 Athens. He dreamed of what might be done for 
 dramatic art in the town which he said should here- 
 after be his home. He found a loving friend and dis- 
 ciple in Arthur Cheney, proprietor of a new theatre, 
 the management of which Fechter accepted with en- 
 thusiasm. He would give up starring ; no one better 
 appreciated the evils of a system which abolishes stock 
 companies. He, Fechter, would prove theories by 
 example, and the land of his adoption should have a 
 school of acting the influence of which would be uni- 
 versal. It was delightful to hear Fechter talk on dra- 
 matic art, of which he was master, and it was no less 
 delightful to witness Arthur Cheney's eagerness to carry 
 out Fechter's plans. All Boston was alive with excite- 
 ment. A new dramatic era was about to dawn. 
 
 First came the naming of the theatre. The amount 
 
74 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 of brains required in this matter is only known to such 
 as have attempted to cliristen a book, a play, a boat, or 
 a patent. 
 
 " Master Field, the player," \\Tites Taylor the water- 
 poet, " riding up Fleet Street at a great pace, a gentle- 
 man called him, and asked him what play was played 
 that day. He being angry to be staled on so frivolous 
 a demand, answered that he might see what play was 
 plaied upon every poste. ' I cry you mercy,' said the 
 gentleman, ' I tooke you for d^postc, you rode so fast.' " 
 This IMaster Field, otherwise Nat Field, one of the 
 earliest dramatists, Httle dreamed that two hundred 
 and seventy years after Shakespeare, himself, and com- 
 rades had strutted their brief hours upon the stage of 
 that Globe which may be called the mother of English 
 theatres, a new world would seek, by the resurrection of 
 a name, to link itself with an illustrious past. Yet this 
 came about in the baptism of Fechter's theatre, the cur- 
 tain of which rose September 12, 1870, upon the plot 
 and passion of " Monte Cristo." It was a glad night 
 for Boston. Our fathers had grown garrulous over the 
 palmy days of the drama. What would they say to a 
 stock company including Fechter, James W. Wallack, 
 C. H. Vandenhoff, G. H. Griffiths, W. J. Lemoyne, the 
 brothers Leclercq, H. F. Daly, !Miss Carlotta Leclercq, 
 Mrs. Chanfrau, Mrs. Mehnda Jones, IMiss Mary Gary, 
 and a score of lesser though most useful hghts? A 
 king among pygmies is a sorry sight. To be king 
 among princes is the only ambition worthy of genius. 
 The Drama was to be cared for irrespective of in- 
 dividual actors. The system of starring was to be 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 75 
 
 abolished. The motto of the Globe was to be '■' Equal- 
 ity and Fraternity." There was to be a constant 
 succession of new works, in which the honors of per- 
 formance were to be equally divided, and Victorien 
 Sardou was to be asked to v\Tite specially for the new 
 theatre. 
 
 Boston thought the millennium in art had come. 
 Alas, Boston reckoned without its master of revels. I 
 wish it were not necessar}' to show other than the 
 bright side of Fechter's career, but the truth must be 
 told. Boston's dreams, Arthur Cheney's dreams, of a 
 model theatre, were to vanish into thin air. There were 
 dissensions, misunderstandings, from the beginning, all 
 of which might have been avoided had Fechter been a 
 reasonable man of business instead of an undisciplined 
 genius. There was a twist in Fechter's mind that no 
 human being could make straight by argument or any 
 other means. Personally I never held him responsible 
 for either words or deeds. His blood was too hot for 
 reason. His father possessed an ungovernable temper, 
 aggravated by drink, which he bequeathed to his 
 brilliant son. Xo one was ever less fitted to command, 
 for the reason that he had never learned to command 
 himself. 
 
 Poor Arthur Cheney's life was not a bed of roses. 
 Devoted to Fechter, anxious for the success of his own 
 theatre, he saw with dismay a storm arise between 
 Fechter and Wallack, the story of which is told by the 
 combatants in the following correspondence relating to 
 the part of Don Sallustc, for which Wallack had been 
 cast by his manager, Fechter : — 
 
7^ 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT EECHTER. 
 
 " My Dear Fechter, — I have received the play, 
 and do not like the part of Don Salluste at all. I 
 would rather not play it. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 J. W. Wall.\ck." 
 
 " Mv Dear Wall^ck, — I sent you the part of Don 
 Salluste to study, not to judge. I should as soon think 
 of asking your permission to cast you as Joseph Sur- 
 face as Don Salluste. I beg of you to reconsider your 
 note and accept the part, or your ser\-ices will be use- 
 less here, and your engagement at an end this very 
 week. I consider Don Salluste the best part in the 
 play, and would much rather act it than Ruy Bias. 
 If you say so we will alternate the part .... And I 
 am, my dear WaUack, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Ch.\rles Fechter." 
 
 " Sir, — I consider that no other prefix is necessary 
 after your letter o^f this date .... I shall have no 
 further correspondence with you in relation to my 
 engagement at the Globe, as I in no way recognize 
 your right to interfere. INIr. Cheney is the sole party 
 to whom I am engaged and to whom I shall look for 
 fulfilment of the business contract made. Had you 
 adhered to the agreement as understood by us, or had 
 you intended to keep your word as given in the pres- 
 ence of Islr. Cheney, this need not have occurred. As 
 it is, I decline further correspondence of any nature 
 with you. Yours, 
 
 T. ^^■. Wall.^ck." 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 77 
 
 Surely so serious a tempest never arose in so small 
 a teapot. But, with all Fechter's irritability of temper, 
 he certainly had the right of it in casting Wallack for 
 Don Sai/itstc' ; and why that usually sensible actor re- 
 fused the part is beyond present comprehension. 
 
 Like a shuttlecock Arthur Cheney was tossed from 
 one battledoor to the other, reporters from all over the 
 country interviewed both actors, and great was the 
 scandal thereof. 
 
 " The difficult)' with Fechter," said Wallack to a 
 journalist, "is that he doesn't understand men, and 
 especially me. He 's too high and might)'. All he 
 had to do was to slap me on the back and say ' Here 
 Jim, let's take a drink ; I dare say we are both \\Tong,' 
 and I would have given in at once. Instead of that, 
 he gets his back up, won't play at all, and puts the 
 management in a hole." When this same journalist 
 called on Fechter, the actor-manager said, " Nobody 
 can manage Wallack but myself. I can't manage him 
 in this matter at all. All he had to do was to ask me 
 to take a glass of wine and arrange it amicably, but he 
 is so stubborn. He 's Uke a mule, my dear boy ; and 
 so I wait till he is ready to make the advance, for after 
 all I am in the right." It is said that in less than an 
 hour the two actors met at the house of this common 
 friend, and both laughed heartily when their host nar- 
 rated his experience with each of them. Actors have 
 been called children of a larger growth. Were there 
 ever greater proofs thereof than are found in this epi- 
 sode ? At last there came the climax ; and on Decem- 
 ber 14, 1870, Fechter, in an injudicious letter addressed 
 
73 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 to the editor of the Boston Traveller, unveiled the secrets 
 of the coulisses. He therein declared his intention 
 of resigning the management of the Globe Theatre, 
 " notwithstanding the prayers of and his sincere affec- 
 tion for his friend Cheney." The story Fechter then 
 told need not be repeated. Quarrels die as well as. 
 people. The truth lay in the fact that Fechter was the 
 right man in the wrong place. It is no more than just, 
 however, to Fechter to reaffirm his statement that '• in 
 assuming management, at a great pecuniary loss, he 
 had no other views than the benefit of art, the whole- 
 some amusement of the public, and the pride and 
 comfort of his hearty friend Cheney." Fechter was 
 always indifferent to money ; he spent it as fast as he 
 made it. He held Boston in high esteem, — and well 
 he might, as there he found his best friends and warmest 
 appreciators. He truly longed to advance dramatic 
 art. He did not know himself. 
 
 Boston's millennium was brief. After holding the 
 stage for twelve weeks, " Monte Cristo " made way for 
 " Hamlet," " Lady of Lyons," " Ruy Bias " and '• Don 
 Caesar de Bazan;" and on December 26 Fechter pro- 
 duced for the first time in this country the drama of 
 " Black and White," written by Wilkie Collins and 
 himself. The public were greatly impressed by Fech- 
 ter s acting, and liked the drama j but on January 14, 
 18 7 1, Fechter trod the stage of the Globe Theatre for 
 the last time. The occasion was made a testimonial 
 benefit to himself, at which he appeared as Ruy Bias, — 
 Miss Carlotta Leclercq playing "A Sheep In ^^'olf's 
 Clothing " as an afterpiece. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 79 
 
 From this point Fechter's downfall begins. The 
 unhappy temper that wrecked the fortunes of the 
 Globe Theatre lost none of its malign influence on 
 being transplanted to New York. Fechter believed 
 that his dream of a theatre might be reahzed in the 
 •metropohs. The capitahst was found ; the French Thea- 
 tre was selected. Certainly Fechter showed his fine 
 knowledge of theatrical requirements, both before and 
 behind the footlights, in the changes which were made 
 under his direction ; but the day of misunderstandings 
 set in, and the Lyceum, named after Fechter's London 
 theatre, never knew its creator as manager. 
 
 Returning to Europe for a few months in 1872, 
 Fechter reappeared at the Adelphi, London, in March ; 
 when, according to the Times, " he was heartily 
 greeted by a numerous and expectant audience, who 
 burst into one unanimous shout of welcome as soon as 
 he became visible on the stage." The drama was 
 " Ruy Bias," in which Fechter exercised all his old 
 charm, — the Times declaring that " devotional love, 
 which is the life and soul of so many poems and ro- 
 mances, is expressed by Mr. Fechter with an intensity 
 which is peculiarly his own.'' 
 
 Fechter's next appearance in New York was on 
 April 28, 1873, as Monte Crista, at the Grand Opera 
 House. This drama was followed on June i by " The 
 Corsican Brothers," and on June 9 by " Ruy Bias," 
 which was played a week. On December 1 1 of the 
 same year, Fechter began an engagement at what was 
 to have been his o\v-n theatre, the Lyceum. The doors 
 suddenly closed after nine nights of "The Lady of 
 
So CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Lyons." It was pathetic to watch the decadence in 
 popularit)'- of a great actor, a decadence due to the 
 faults of the man. 
 
 Four months later, on April 13, 1S74, Fechter 
 opened the Park Theater on Broadway, near Twenty- 
 second Street, under William Stuart's management. 
 The attraction was " Love's Penance," a play in tliree 
 acts, and a prologue adapted by himself from " Le 
 Medecin des Enfants." The first night's audience 
 knew what acting meant, and gave to Fechter the 
 enthusiastic approbation he desen'ed. 
 
 After ? The sequel is told by WiUiam Winter, in the 
 Tribune : " The play was too long and too sombre, but 
 Fechter never acted better ; and in a more artistic com- 
 munity the actor would have saved the piece, and put 
 money in the manager's purse. But New York was not 
 Paris. Personally Fechter had ceased to be popular, 
 through no one's fault but his owni, I grieve to admit ; 
 and after tvventy-three performances, 'Love's Penance* 
 was -ftithdrawn." Here is the stor\% in five words : 
 New York was not Paris. Paris, as a rule, recognizes 
 art, irrespective of indi\iduals ; New York looks at art 
 through personahty. Fechter ignored or quarrelled with 
 those upon whom his success depended. It was pitiful. 
 
 Karl in " Love's Penance " was Fechter's last crea- 
 tion. From this time forward he was content with the 
 repertoire that had made him famous. In some towns, 
 especially Boston, he exercised all his old power ; in 
 others, he was not appreciated. In 1876 Fechter fell 
 upon the ice, and broke his leg. This misfortune made 
 him physically infirm, and cast additional gloom upon 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. gl 
 
 his career. The end was not long in coming. Ap- 
 pearing in public by flashes, Fechter sought seclusion 
 on his farm, which he bought in July, 1873, having 
 always declared that the farmer was the happiest and 
 most independent of men. To begin a career in Paris, 
 and to end it in the Uttle village of Rockland Centre, 
 Bucks Count)', three miles from Quakertown, and two 
 hours from Philadelphia by the North Pennsylvania 
 Raihoad, is as strange a contrast as can well befall 
 mortal. In an old unpretentious country-house, a few 
 feet from the highway, the ideal stage-lover passed the 
 greater part of the last three years of his Ufe. The 
 farm consisted of fifty-seven acres. Fechter's summer 
 sitting-room was hung with fire-arms ; for he delighted 
 in field-sports, and was as fine a shot as he was a 
 fencer. Dickens did not love dogs more dearly. Five 
 of these noble brutes shared the actor's room and 
 table. They were his companions in all his excursions, 
 saving when he wielded the fishing-rod, with which he 
 was very skilful. 
 
 Nature could not restore Fechter to health. For 
 years — ever after the attack of typhoid fever in Paris — 
 his digestive organs were greatly impaired ; and it was 
 not unusual for his stomach to be distended with gas 
 like a drum, causing great suffering, and rendering cloth- 
 ing insupportable. Yet in this condition he enchanted 
 many an audience ! Imagination triumphs over mat- 
 ter. But matter has its revenge in the end. Fechter 
 disappointed the public again and again, — the public 
 taking their revenge by attributing his non-appearance 
 to dissipation. He was on the road to the grave. The 
 
82 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 spring of 1879 found him in precarious health, and bad 
 became worse as summer appoached. The malady 
 being of the liver and digestive organs, Fechter's agony 
 was intense. At last Fechter was confined to the house, 
 and, gradually sinking into a stupor, died at six o'clock 
 on the morning of Aug. 5, 1879. 
 
 Had Fechter been as complete a man as he was 
 an actor, his death would have been a calamity. Ac- 
 cepting facts, his best friends realized that he passed 
 away none too soon for his reputation. Months pre- 
 vious, he had in his own mind bade farewell to the 
 stage. When, on his last visit to New York, he 
 consulted physicians concerning his disease, Fechter 
 exclaimed mournfully, after witnessing a dramatic per- 
 formance : " Poor ! he little knows how his fat 
 
 stomach affects his cavaliership ; but in his ludicrous- 
 ness, I read my own fate. I am done with the stage 
 forever." Friends laughed ; whereupon he grew elo- 
 quent on the necessity of physical fitness to artistic 
 success. Love was opposed to obesity, and he would 
 renounce Ruy Bias before Ruy Bias renounced him. 
 Is it not pathetic that an actor's brains should not 
 weigh in the balance against an actor's paunch ? Romeo 
 may be divine, yet if Romeo be fat, the world wants 
 him not. 
 
 He who lives in the glare of the footlights is doomed 
 to have his failings proclaimed from the housetops. 
 Human nature is prone to believe the worst, and at- 
 tributed Fechter's death to drink. On being told that 
 report gave credence to such a belief, Fechter's physi- 
 cian replied, after a post-mortem examination : " There 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 83 
 
 is nothing to indicate such a condition. I do not 
 believe that he has been a drinking man of late. We 
 had great difficulty in getting him to swallow stimulants 
 to keep up his strength. He refused at first. He was 
 conscious until nearly the last, and suffered very much. 
 I don't believe his illness was brought on by the use of 
 hquor." 
 
 Followed by one or two intimate friends and a 
 iQ.\i acquaintances, Charles Fechter's remains were on 
 August 8 placed in the receiving vault of Mt. Vernon 
 Cemetery, Philadelphia. On the 20th of June, 1880, 
 they were laid in the grave. Fechter's monument, 
 representing a bust of the actor with bay leaves and 
 laurel carved around it, bears the inscription, " Genius 
 has talien its flight to God." In taking that flight, the 
 soul has found the light that genius failed to give. 
 
 Those of us who believe in Fechter's greatness do 
 not care to remember the blots on the escutcheon. 
 He was a benefactor in dramatic art. Let that fact 
 suffice. Personally he could be delightful, end I owe 
 to him hours upon hours of instruction as well as of 
 entertainment. He believed in the stage, and no one 
 was ever more lucid or fluent in its exposition. He 
 was not one to brook contradiction, however, and I 
 should have sooner thought of playing Hamld than of 
 opposing his pet opinions. Like Landor he possessed 
 "a proud complacency and scornful strength," a re- 
 sentful impatience ; like Landor he was choleric. Like 
 Landor he had that to impart which was worth learn- 
 ing. In Dickens's household the master was called 
 " Mr. Always Right," while his friend Fechter received 
 
84 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 the sobriquet of " Mr. Never Wrong." Here was 
 the rock which ^^Tecked a noble career. Faiblesse 
 vaut vice was his hfe-long motto ; it was his inher- 
 ited curse. If nature has endowed us with less way- 
 wardness and more self-control than fell to the lot of 
 Charles Fechter, the more reason have we to thank 
 God and to encircle with charity the memor}' of an 
 unhappy genius. 
 
 " Rest, perturbed spirit." 
 
FECHTER'S "HAMLET." 
 
FECHTER'S "HAMLET." 
 
 Of all Fechter's repertoire given in this countr}% 
 Hamld was the only character that fully called out 
 his resources ; and, whether or not his conception be 
 acknowledged as Shakespeare's, he strangely moved 
 his audiences. Who, however, is presumptuous enough 
 to proclaim Shakespeare's conception of " Hamlet " ? 
 From Voltaire, who declared "Hamlet" to be the 
 work of a drunken savage, to Goethe, who would have 
 made innumerable changes in the plot, — from Coleridge 
 to our own brilliant Lowell, — " there has been much 
 throwing about of brains." That Shakespeare has not 
 " revisited the glimpses of the moon " to tell us what 
 he does mean, is strong evidence against the theory of 
 modem Spiritualism. Never have written words, the 
 Bible excepted, inspired a like amount of controversy ; 
 and as Catholic and Protestant, Episcopalian and 
 Radical, Presbyterian and Unitarian, find their creeds 
 in the Testaments, so do critics find authority for 
 their various dogmas concerning " Hamlet." While 
 no two entirely sympathize, shall the right of private 
 judgment be abolished ? and because a great actor dis- 
 agrees with certain great writers, shall he be crucified 
 and told that his is not Shakespeare's Hamlet ? It is 
 
88 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 an easy criticism to make, — Shakespeare being "safely 
 stowed," and no contradiction possible. It is so clieap 
 as to fall first from the lips of those who have never 
 given " Hamlet " a thought, and are, therefore, quite 
 prepared to pass judgment. 
 
 " It is n't Shakespeare's Hamlet,^'' exclaimed an 
 illiterate man who sat behind me at the theatre one 
 night. " It is n't right, you know. He does n't give 
 you the proper accents. It 's a foreigner's interpreta- 
 tion." 
 
 "Well, but — Hamlet'<i a foreigner, isn't he?" 
 asked a timid little woman, in a timid little voice. 
 
 " Yes," responded the critic, with a somewhat puz- 
 zled, expression of face, " he 's a foreigner, he 's a for- 
 eigner, but," and then exultation broke through the 
 trouble, — " but yoii see it 'j- a7i English play .' " 
 
 Argument ceased. Everybody was carried away by 
 the illiterate man's superior intelligence. Neverthe- 
 less, the timid little woman did murmur that it was 
 very interestmg and there must be something in it, 
 as heretofore she had always gone to sleep over 
 " Hamlet." 
 
 If people would only cast commentators aside and 
 read " Hamlet " by the light of their own understand- 
 ing, they would be surprised to find how much clearer 
 the text is than WTiters are willing to have it appear.^ 
 
 1 One is tempted to " wrangle gently " with Mr. "White 
 for his statement that the Ghost does not appear in the third 
 act, Hamletht'mg the victim of an optical delusion. Does not 
 the Ghost speak to Hamlet ? Why is not the Ghost as real in 
 the third as in the first act ? Merely because invisible to the 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 89 
 
 Fechter's ZT^zot/c'/ was not the introspective student of. 
 tradition. He was a man of the world, in the noblest 
 sense of the term, of joyous disposition, whose tem- 
 per — and here he agreed with Goethe — assumed its 
 mournful tinge upon the death of his father and the 
 unseeml)- marriage of his mother. " Not reflective or 
 sorrowful by nature, reflection and sorrow had become 
 for him a heavy obligation." The Queen refers to him 
 as " my too much changed son," and the A7//y mar- 
 vels at HamlcVs transformation : — 
 
 Queen, and visible to Horatio and Marcellus ? This is nothing 
 new in supernatural scenes. "Be subject to no sight but thine 
 and mine," says Prospero to Ariel, " invisible to every eyeball 
 else ; " and Ariel curvets unseen of mortals. Hamlet would have 
 doubted his senses had not the Guards and the cooler-headed 
 Horatio beheld the Ghost ; but how contrarj' to the dead King's 
 tender nature to make himself visible to the Queen, who, already 
 plunged in agony, would probably be crazed l)y so awful a spec- 
 tacle as the apparition of her murdered husband .' 
 
 And with regard to Wittenberg, which seems to be the 
 source of so much discussion, there is nothing to indicate 
 Hamlefs still being a student. Overcome with grief, disgusted 
 with the world, he talks of going to his old university town 
 where he passed his youth, and where he is most likely to meet 
 true friends, among them Horatio. He is easily dissuaded by 
 his mother, and Wittenberg is brought to him in the guise of 
 fellow-students. From first to last the te.xt infers Hamlefs long 
 acquaintance with the court and outside world. His welcome 
 to his old friend, " Horatio, or I do forget myself," denotes that 
 the two have not met for some time. Rosenerantz and Guilden- 
 stern are spoken of as 
 
 " Being of so young days brought up with him ; " 
 and Hamlet conjures them " by the consonancy of our youth." 
 
go CHARLES ALBERT EECHTER. 
 
 " So I call it, 
 Since nor th' exterior nor the inward man 
 Resembles that it was." 
 
 " I have of late lost all my miith, foregone all custom 
 of exercises," Hamld states ; by which we get a 
 glimpse of a boon companion, " the obsen-ed of all 
 observers," one " loved of the distracted multitude," — 
 who delights in all manner of sports, who up to the 
 last moment is so sensitive of his prowess in fencmg as 
 to be somewhat jealous of Laertes's reputation, and 
 long to cross weapons with him. 
 
 His first impulse in grief is to commit suicide, — 
 ever the panacea of hot-blooded sanguine tempera- 
 ments. No civihzed country can rival France in the 
 number of its suicides, yet no people are possessed of 
 equal esprit and buoyancy. But Hamlet is a good 
 Catholic. The Everlasting has " fixed his canon 'gainst 
 self-slaughter; " and, though he twice meditates taking 
 his life, he is restrained by religious faith. He is brave 
 and daring, as a soldier ought to be. He is not afraid 
 of his father's Ghost^ for, on hearing of its appear- 
 ance, he quickly exclaims, '•' I Avould I had been 
 there," and " I will speak to it though hell itself should 
 gape, and bid me hold my peace." Hence he is awed, 
 not terrified, by the Ghosfs presence. The Ghost 
 makes night hideous, because it shakes his disposition 
 " with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls." Is 
 this the language of a man given to cloistered musings 
 and inward living ? How can Hamlet possess 
 
 " Courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword," 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EEC /ITER. 
 
 91 
 
 and lead the life of a seer? It is impossible. He is 
 first courtier and lastly scholar, be it observed. He is 
 a lover of acting, he is an acute critic, and therefore 
 must be of the world, as well as /// it. Introverted 
 minds take little pleasure in the studies to which Ham- 
 let evidently gave much time. Hamlcfs humor is so 
 deeply implanted that even in the most solemn mo- 
 ments he cannot refrain from apposite punning. It is 
 carried even to grimness over " this fellow in the cel- 
 larage." This extreme from grave to gay is not an 
 attribute of introversion, but quite accords with the 
 nature of such a man as Fechter put before us. 
 
 Fechter left no doubt as to HamlcVs passionate love 
 for Ophelia, and truly it was grateful to see the mean- 
 ing of the text fulfilled. A man who " hath given 
 countenance to his speech with almost all the holy 
 vows of heaven," -who begs " dear Ophelia " to 
 
 " Doubt that the stars are fire ; 
 Doubt that the sun doth move ; 
 Doubt truth to be a liar ; 
 But never doubt I love ; " - 
 
 who over her grave declares " that forty thousand 
 brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make 
 up his sum," and who immediately upon the assump- 
 tion of madness falls to such perusal of Ophelia's face 
 "as he would draw it," and 
 
 " Raised a sigh so piteous and profound. 
 As it did seem to shatter all his bulk 
 And end his being," 
 
 must be a much more intense lover than actors and 
 Shakespearian commentators have heretofore admitted. 
 
92 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FE CUTER. 
 
 If words mean anything, they mean that Hamlet's 
 passion is far stronger than Ophelia's. \\'ith his in- 
 tellect and unusual depth of feeling it must of neces- 
 sity be so ; and if Ophelia goes mad, it is because she 
 has less character to withstand sorrow. 
 
 Never was Fechter's Hajiilct at any time really mad, 
 Coleridge and the Kembles (Charles Kemble excepted) 
 to the contrary notwithstanding. He carried out what 
 Lowell has since admirably written : " If Shakespeare 
 himself, without going mad, could so observe and re- 
 member all the abnormal symptoms as to be able to 
 reproduce them in Hamlet, why should it be beyond 
 the power of Hamlet to reproduce them in himself? 
 If you deprive Hamlet of reason, there is no truly tragic 
 motive left. He would be a fit subject for bedlam, but 
 not for the stage. We might have pathology enough, but 
 no pathos. Ajax first becomes tragic when he recovers 
 his wits. If Hamlet is irresponsible, the whole play is 
 a chaos. That he is not so might be proved by evi- 
 dence enough, were it not labor thrown away." 
 
 True to his times, Hamlet does not scruple to take 
 life when it comes between him and the work of his 
 destiny. " By Heaven, I '11 make a ghost of him that 
 lets me," is the threat launched at even so dear a 
 friend as Horatio. " I find thee apt " in revenge, says 
 the Ghost : and quicker than thought Hamlet dedicates 
 his life to one fell purpose, beginning by wiping away 
 all "trivial fond records," — Ophelia's love. Never- 
 theless he is held back by " a wise skepticism," " the 
 first attribute of a good critic," which suggests the pos- 
 sibility of the spirit's being a devjl. Fechter's Hamlet 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EEC LITER. 
 
 93 
 
 was restrained by reasonable doubt, not vacillation of 
 purpose, and no sooner caught " " the conscience of 
 the King " than he could drink hot blood. He did 
 not kill the King at prayers, because of that Catholic 
 faith which would send this same villain to heaven, and 
 thus kill all revenge, which is the motive of his action. 
 
 " Would I had met my dearest y^t? in heaven. 
 Or ever I had seen that day," — 
 
 his mother's second wedding day, — is the heaviest 
 curse that Hamlet can invoke upon his own head. 
 Would he then be likely voluntarily to bring about its 
 fulfilment? He keeps himself in training by self-re- 
 proach of cowardice, of which there is not the slightest 
 evidence in deeds. He cannot, as he has promised 
 the Ghost, 
 
 " With wings as swift 
 As meditation, or the thoughts of love, 
 . . rwccp to . . . revenge," 
 
 and he falls " a-cursing like a very drab,"' unpacking 
 his '• heart with words," as such natures are very apt to 
 do when circumstances stay their actions. Without a 
 moment's hesitation he stabs Polonius, but repents the 
 deed, and is engaged in drawing aside the body when 
 he is seized and brought guarded before the King, in 
 which condition he is unarmed. Hurried with " fiery 
 quickness " on board a bark for England, there is no 
 opportunity for action ; but, thoughts being bloody, he 
 forges letters whereby Guildenstern and Rosencrantz 
 — " they are not near my conscience," pleads Ham- 
 let — are doomed to death the moment thev reach 
 
94 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 their destination. Chased b)^ pirates, Hamlet alone 
 becomes their prisoner, and returns to Denmark. 
 Ho)-atio goes to meet him ; and as they tarry in a 
 graveyard, the burial of Ophelia drives him to moment- 
 ary frenzy. A^'ithout weapons, he cannot then and 
 there kill the King, nor is the most desperate mind 
 controlled by more than one great passion at a time. In 
 the next scene, which must be immediate, — as not till 
 then does Hamlet refer to his escape and plot against his 
 treacherous fellow-students, — he does not hesitate to 
 tell Horatio of his puqDose to " quit the King with his 
 arm " during the short interval that must elapse ere the 
 fate of Giiilde?isteni and Roseucra7itz is known in Den- 
 mark. Being sorry for having forgotten himself to 
 Laertes, whom he loves and whom he has wronged, he 
 accepts the challenge of a bout at fencing, that he may 
 then and there apologize to the brother of his adoption, 
 and also gain easy approach to his intended victim, the 
 King. He cannot kill the Ki7jg with bated rapier; 
 but the moment he learns that the weapon in his hand 
 is unbated and envenomed, Hamlet stabs the evil 
 genius of the play. The King has no doubt of Ham- 
 lefs capability of murder, as proved by his saying after 
 hearing of the death of Polonius, " It had been so with 
 us, had we been there," and by his haste in sending 
 him to England. 
 
 Such, from his acting, was Fechter's conception of 
 Hamlet, sympathetic to me in all things, except per- 
 haps in this matter of vacillation ; and even here one 
 may make out a strong case. The only lines that can 
 be quoted against Fechter's theory are the few apper- 
 taining to the Ghost's reappearance. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EECIITER. ^r 
 
 "Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 
 That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by 
 Th' important acting of your dread command ? 
 O, say ! " 
 
 inquires Hamlet. 
 
 " Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation 
 Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose." 
 
 Hamlet but repeats the self-accusation prompted 
 by over-sensibility as to the • performance of an awful 
 duty. 
 
 "Ah, but what blunted purpose does the G/iost 
 come to whet?" asks the reader. Suppose this visita- 
 tion be to whet Hamlefs almost blunted purpose of 
 speaking daggers, but using none ? The Ghost unlike 
 his former self, says not one word about Claudius. He 
 straightway exhorts Hamlet to step between his mother 
 and her fighting soul ! ^^'hereupon Hamlefs tone 
 changes from violent denunciation to soft questioning, 
 " How' is it with you, lady? " One moment more and 
 the passion that made a corpse of Poloniiis might have 
 wreaked \engeance on the guilty Queen ; for though 
 Hamlet declares that he is neither splenitive nor rash, 
 yet is there " something dangerous " in him, a some- 
 thing tliat might have led him to strangle Laertes liad 
 he lost entire self-control. That the Queen believes 
 her son capable of the deed is seen at the opening of 
 this scene, when Hamlet says : — 
 
 " Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge ; 
 You go not, till I set you up a glass 
 Where you may sec the inmost part of you." 
 
96 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FEC LITER. 
 
 These are not desperate words, and yet the Queen cries 
 
 out : — 
 
 " What wilt thou do ? Thou wilt not murder me ? 
 Help, help, ho ! " 
 
 Killing the Queeji was not impossible to the Hamlet of 
 Fechter, who was convinced of her complicity in his 
 father's murder. 
 
 " O Hamlet ! speak no more , 
 Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul ; 
 And there I see such black and grained spots 
 As will not leave their tinct." 
 
 Mere marriage with a brother-in-law, even after two 
 months of widowhood, hardly admits of so fearful a 
 confession ; and her fear of being murdered by Hamlet, 
 leads to the inference that she knows she deserves the 
 punishment. Further coloring for this hypothesis may 
 be obtained in Hwilefs response to the Ghost : — 
 
 " Do not look upon me ; 
 Lest, with this piteous action you convert 
 My stern effects ; then what have I to do 
 Will want true colors ; tears, perchance, for blood." 
 
 Surely this does not indicate absence of will on Ham- 
 let's part ; and as stage ghosts always produce the 
 effect they desire, the dead king attains the purpose 
 of his "pale glaring." Certainly he had no such tear- 
 ful influence over Hamlet during the first interview. 
 Is the object, then, the same? Indeed it would seem 
 not ; and since I find Shakespeare so ready to agree 
 with Fechter, I doubt my ability to withhold allegiance 
 to this startling innovation. 
 
 The critic may one day entertain one opinion of 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 97 
 
 Hamlet, and another the next ; he may be very positive 
 in some particulars, and not quite sure in others. He 
 can leave a door open by which his opinions may make 
 a dignified exit, should an intellectual breeze threaten to 
 overthrow them ; but the actor enjoys no such privi- 
 lege. He must thoroughly understand his intentions 
 before being able to interpret them. He must feel 
 certain that, according to his light, his conception is 
 right, or he cannot render it with force or send convic- 
 tion to the hearts and heads of his audience. l"he 
 business of the critic, therefore, in this matter of " Ham- 
 let," is not so much with the conception of the character 
 as with the manner in which the actor's conception is 
 carried out. If it is consistent from beginning to end, 
 if it takes such strong hold as to prevent any escape 
 from it, if its great power absolutely bullies one out of 
 cherished theories, if its humanity makes one look 
 back upon previous Hamlets as so many lay-figures 
 galvanized into spasmodic action, if it absorbs attention 
 and creates a positive sensation, then does the actor 
 merit critical enthusiasm ; for the critic's business is to 
 appreciate, to appreciate is to estimate justly, and just 
 estimation calls for as much delight at what is fine as 
 disapprobation of what is false. Fechter produced all 
 these effects. He was great not only in his originality 
 but in his rendering, the greatness of which I will do 
 my poor best to show by photographing his Hamlet 
 in such details as are food for critics and actors. 
 
 Fcchter's study was not confined to his own part, as 
 was seen immediately in the reading of Horatio, upon 
 the entrance of the Ghost : — 
 
^8 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 " But, soft ; behold ! lo, where it comes again ! 
 I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion 1 
 If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, 
 Speak to me. (Ghost stops.)" 
 
 In Pre-Fechterian days Horatio s senselessly crossed 
 the Ghosfs path, as if such a step would stay its pro- 
 gress. Not so with Fechter, whose Horatio made the 
 sign of the cross, at which the Ghost stopped as a 
 Catholic ghost should. Once interpreted thus, intelli- 
 gence exclaims "Of course !" and yet Ho ratios have 
 been crossing the stage for three hundred years ! 
 
 He was gloomy enough, was Fechter's Hatnlet, as 
 he sat beside his mother, — starting when the King ad- 
 dressed him as " our son,'' yet gently exclaiming while 
 kissing the Queen's hand with courtly grace, and giving 
 by almost imperceptible accent a key to the estimate 
 in which he held his uncle-father, 
 
 "I shall in all my best oh&^ you, madam." 
 
 Left to himself, he gazed fondly at his father's portrait, 
 worn about his neck, and illustrated the beautiful apos- 
 trophe by reference to it. Thus did Fechter prepare 
 his audience for the text. Misunderstanding was im- 
 possible. His Hamlet deceived no one. He was as 
 honest as the day is light. He drew his lines plainly 
 between friend and acquaintance, and his fondness for 
 Horatio was strongly defined from the moment of meet- 
 ing. There were three distinct shades of tone in " My 
 good friend '' (meaning Horatio), " I am very glad to 
 see you" (meaning Marcellus), and "Good even, sir" 
 (meaning Bernardo). Hamlet wasted no affection. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EEC LITER. 
 
 99 
 
 He was generous ; but he was losing faith in mankind, 
 and trusted few. 
 
 An expression of great and tender beauty passed 
 over Fechter's face as, with clasped hands, he mur- 
 mured 
 
 " My father, — methinks I see my father ; " 
 
 while there was filial pride in his explanation, with 
 hand upon Horatio's shoulder, 
 
 " He was a mati : take him for all in all, 
 I shall not look upon his like again." 
 
 When Horatio described his encounter with the 
 Ghost, Fechter crossed his hands the moment his 
 father was mentioned, as if praying for the unhappy 
 spirit. The action was entirely natural to a Catholic. 
 Appealingly sweet was his 
 
 " Did you not speak to it ? " 
 
 addressed to Marceilus, to which his Horatio replied, 
 
 "My lord, /did." 
 
 Doubting, not willing to believe without strong evidence, 
 he gave the line, " Then saw you not his face ? " as if 
 it read " Then you did not see his face ; " which seems 
 reasonable from Horatio's answer : — 
 
 " O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up. 
 
 Hamlet. I would / had been there. 
 Horatio. It would have much amazed you. 
 Hamlet. Very like, verj- like." 
 
 These lines have alwa)^ been given as a response to 
 Horatio. Fechter, meditating on the startling mteUi- 
 
100 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 gence that the apparition wore his beaver up, mur- 
 mured "Very like," as if the sentence read, "Very 
 like — my father." Of course the Ghost wovXA amaze 
 Hamlet. He is already amazed, — therefore the " very 
 like " fits far more gracefully into Fechter's setting. 
 Tears filled his eyes as he asked, 
 
 " Stayed it long ? " 
 
 When Ha7nlet, Horatio, and Marcelhis appear in the 
 fourth scene, Fechter caused Hamlet to come from an 
 opposite direction. Why? Because he had previously 
 said that he would visit them " upon the platform, 
 'twixt eleven and twelve." They meet for the first 
 time, and the dialogue says as much. Strange that it 
 took a Frenchman to find this out. 
 
 -Enveloped in a gray picturesque cloak and black 
 velvet cowl, Fechter's Hamlet dropped the former, 
 and, with hands on Horatio at sight of the Ghost, de- 
 livered the invocation with solemn tender earnestness, 
 removing the cowl at the word king, and throwing a 
 filial pathos into father. 
 
 " Go on, /'ll follow thee." 
 
 His exit was slow, but in no way unnaturally measured, 
 — with sword unsheathed and held in the left hand as 
 if it were a cross. 
 
 " Alas, />oor ghost ! " 
 
 was given with pitying sweetness of tone. Kneeling at 
 the words, " I am thy father's spirit," Fechter did not 
 rise until the adjuration, " Haste me to know," etc. ; 
 and though his back was turned to the audience during 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER, iqi 
 
 the Ghosfs confession, there was much expression in 
 his pantomime. Nevertheless, but for the exceedingly 
 clever management of the Ghosfs instantaneous dis- 
 appearance, — the invention being Fechter's, — it was 
 a pity to lose the play of feature which Fechter could 
 have thrown into his eager, listening silence. He bowed 
 profoundly at the Ghosfs, " Fare thee well at once ! " 
 and when Horatio called without, " Heaven secure 
 him ! " meaning Hamlet, Fechter, intent upon the 
 Ghost, prayerfully added "So be it," — turning the 
 words to a deeper significance than they had ever pos- 
 sessed. What immediately followed was no less admi- 
 rably treated. Horatio alone was his valued friend, 
 Horatio alone had so far sworn not to reveal the news, 
 and Hamlet hurriedly began to tell his story, " There 's 
 ne'er a \illain dwelling in all Denmark," — when, 
 suddenly remembering and doubting Marcellus, he 
 turned from his purpose and added, " but he 's an arrant 
 knave ; " at which platitude Horatio has reason to 
 criticise his friend. The line, 
 
 " Vou, as your business and desire shall point you," 
 
 was addressed to Marcellus. Hamlefs "wild and 
 whirling " words were because of his presence. He was 
 talking to conceal thought. Taking Horatio's hand 
 (according to stage direction) he remarked to him, 
 
 "Touching this vision here, — 
 It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you." 
 
 Then, looking at Marcellus, he continued, 
 
 " Tor your desire to know what is between us, 
 O'ermaster it as you may." 
 
102 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Fechter's Hamlet did not insult Horatio by assum- 
 ing superior wisdom and exclaiming, " There are more 
 things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of 
 Vii your philosophy," but dJZZ&xAQ^ philosophy, by which 
 the pronoun possessed the same significance as when 
 Edmund Kean substituted our for your. 
 
 With arm linked in Horatio's, Hamlet said, " Let us 
 go in together," and leaving Marcel lus down the stage 
 addressed to him the parting injunction, "And still 
 your fingers on your lips, I pray." The hne is cer- 
 tainly intended for Marcellus, who cannot be included 
 in Hatnlefs invitation, inasmuch as, after the exit, 
 Hamlet must impart the Ghosfs secret to Horatio, 
 the two friends not meeting again until the third act, 
 when Ha7nlet, in referring to the play, says, — 
 
 " One scene of it comes near the circumstance 
 ^Yhich I have told thee, of my father's dearh." 
 
 If circumstantial evidence proves aught, it proves the 
 truth of Fechter's conception. There was no ranting 
 in his rendering of the couplet, 
 
 " The time is out of joint," etc. 
 
 Its power was in its concentrated desperation. 
 
 The admirable shades and touches in the second 
 act were equally pertinent. Dialogue never received 
 more varied or more thoughtful treatment. Polonius 
 never attempted to master such keen madness. " Con- 
 ception is a blessing ; but as your daughter may con- 
 ceive, — friend, look to 't." It was a mad laugh that 
 followed " friend." Hamlet pointed to his open book 
 as he muttered, " look to 't ; " and Polonius, Uteral in all 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 103 
 
 things, ran his eye over the page to learn the " cause 
 of this defect." Hajulct watched him narrowly, as if 
 to see how the simulated madness took effect, when 
 the old man delivered his side speech beginning, " How 
 pregnant sometimes his replies are ! " and there was a 
 world of weariness pent up in his reiterated exclama- 
 tion, " Except my life ! " Tired, tired, tired ! Revenge 
 and sorrow were never nature's heritage to such as he. 
 Too brave, too conscientious to shake duty off, rehef 
 was sought in word and expression. 
 
 Hamlet's reception of Roseiicrautz and Guildcnstern 
 was most cordial, until he saw his uncle's portrait around 
 the neck of the latter; then expression and manner 
 changed, and the question, " Were you not sent for? " 
 was put eagerly, with suspicion of foul play which waxed 
 stronger as he bade them speak " to the purpose." 
 Words mean something when thus interpreted. Ham- 
 let's rejoinder, " And those that would make mouths 
 at him while my father lived, give tAventy, forty, fifty, an 
 hundred ducats apiece for his picture in Uttle," was 
 illustrated by his taking up the picture pendent from 
 Guildensteni s neck. Upon dropping it, he crossed to 
 the right, and made an "aside," perfectly comprehen- 
 sible to all, of the succeeding sentence, " There is 
 something in this more than natural, if philosophy 
 could find it out." Were audiences given to acute 
 criticism, and did reason rule the day, theatres would 
 resound with bravos at such renderings as this, rather 
 than at the tearing of passion to tatters. 
 
 One knew by the tender music of Hamlet's voice in 
 exclaiming, "O Jephthah, Judge of Israel, what a 
 
104 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 treasure hadst thou ! " that his thoughts were with " the 
 fair OpheHa," and it was this memory that rendered 
 him so gentle in checking Polonius for interrupting the 
 player. Hushing him, commanding silence by putting 
 finger on lips with as much kindliness as if the old 
 courtier were indeed a big baby, Hamlet took up the 
 text, " So ; proceed you," and for the first time the little 
 word so was set in its proper action. Hamlet lis- 
 tened with such interest to the Actor's speech as to 
 accompany it with unconscious pantomine and silent 
 repetition of the words ; but this was not original 
 with Fechter, Garrick having done the same. 
 
 " But who, all, woe ! had seen the mobled queen." 
 
 " The mobled queen ! " repeated Fechter's Hamlet, 
 thinking of his mother ; and, struck by the coincidence, 
 became so absorbed as to leave Polonius unchecked 
 when he again interrupted the First Actor. There was 
 genuine respectful sympathy in Hamlefs manner of 
 instructing that the players be well treated ; such s)^!!- 
 pathy as, if prevalent in society, would raise the stage 
 to its proper level, — beside the pulpit. Equally won- 
 derful in its humanity was the pity breathing through 
 Hamlefs command to the first actor, that Polonius be 
 not mocked. 
 
 The tremendous soliloquy closing this act was mar- 
 vellous in variety. Its gradual crescendo and diminu- 
 endo were most artistic, while the climax, 
 
 " The play 's the thing. 
 Wherein I '11 catch the conscience of the King." 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 105 
 
 came like a sudden revelation to a tortured brain, and 
 was clutched at (if I may say so) with all the energy 
 with which nature seizes upon forlorn hopes. 
 
 Fechter pointed the moral of the soliloquy, " To be 
 or not to be," by bringing on an unsheathed sword, as 
 if he had again been contemplating the suicide that 
 would free him from his oath. 
 
 Very beautiful and equally original was Hamlcfs 
 scene with Ophelia. He was a lover the moment his 
 eyes fell upon her, and he cast aside every semblance 
 of madness until Ophelia returned his letters, when the 
 change of Fechter's expression was as great as the 
 change of language ; but when listening to the gentle 
 maiden's reproaches, there was pictured such agonized 
 regret, at throAving away every chance of happiness, as 
 made the heart ache, for Fechter's Hamlet was always 
 real, always a suffering man, never an actor. 
 
 How pantomine illuminates a sentence was seen 
 in ffa7nlcf's reference to the power of Beauty, which 
 " will sooner transform Honesty from what it is to a 
 bawd, than the force of Honesty can translate Beauty 
 into his likeness ; this was sometimes a paradox," — 
 here Fechter paused, looked sadly at the letters in his 
 hand returned by the woman Hamlet loved, and then 
 added, — " but no7v the time gives it proof." Still his 
 heart was bursting to speak the truth, and the confes- 
 sion, " I did love you once," was given with tearful 
 eyes and choked utterance. When Ophelia exclaimed, 
 " I was the more deceived," Fechter's tender action, 
 unseen by her, denoted that he must fold her in his 
 arms ; but, forced to restraint, he honestly, earnestly 
 
I06 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 begged her to get to a nunnery, as the only sanctuary 
 worthy of her. Then seeing Polonius, he, to test Ophe- 
 lia's truthfuhiess, asked, " W'here 's your father? " and, 
 finding her false, burst into frenzied raving, intended 
 far more for the ears of her father than for the helpless 
 creature trembling before him. Again subdued by love, 
 Hamlet approached Ophelia with extended arms, almost 
 embraced her, but, recollecting that he was watched by 
 Polonius, cried pathetically, " To a nunnery, go," and, 
 thoroughly overcome, rushed off the stage. In this 
 scene Fechter did not allow Hamlet to see the King, 
 for this espionage would so convince him of his uncle's 
 guilt as to render the play unnecessary. 
 
 Nothmg could be finer of its kind than Fechter's in- 
 telligent and colloquial delivery of Hamlefs advice to 
 the players ; and in this connection it should be stated 
 that he was the first to introduce a boy with chopins, in 
 lieu of a woman actress.^ 
 
 Hamlet gazed fondly at Ophelia when announcing 
 the Court's coming to the play, showing first the lover 
 before putting on the mask. 
 
 " I eat the air, promise-crammed ; you cannot feed 
 capons so," said Hamlet. 
 
 " I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet ; these 
 words are not mine," rejoined the King. 
 
 " No, nor mine, now ; " and Fechter, by an exquisite 
 action of the hand, made you see why those words were 
 
 1 It may be said of Fechter, as Hazlitt said of Kean, that if 
 Shakespeare had written marginal directions to tlie players, in 
 the manner of German dramatists, he would often have directed 
 them to do what Fechter did. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 107 
 
 no longer his. They had passed into the air for all 
 time, and belonged to space. Pantomime has its prose 
 and its poetry. This action was rhythmic. 
 
 He never forgot to spare Polonius in the presence 
 of others. " I did enact JuHus Ctesar," maunders 
 the old man. " I was killed i' the capital ; Brutus 
 killed me." •• 
 
 " It was a brute part of him," Hcvnkt replied, and 
 then, walking away, added as an aside, " to kill so capi- 
 tal a calf there." The very word there suggests this 
 treatment of the sentence, and yet again Fechter dis- 
 covered it. 
 
 " Nay, then, let the Devil wear black, for I '11 have a 
 suit of sables," reads the customary text ; but what 
 said Fechter ? " Let the Devil wear black 'fore / '11 
 have a suit of sable." The mystery is solved at once, 
 and, turning to the Folio Shakespeare, the line is so 
 written down. As the Folio is supposed to have been 
 printed from a playhouse copy, Fechter's version was 
 probably as correct as it was intelligible. 
 
 "Ophelia. 'Tis brief, my lord. 
 Ilamld. As woman's love." 
 
 Most Hamlets insult Ophelia by hurling this reply at 
 her. Fechter gave it as if communing with his own 
 thoughts, and looked the while toward his mother. 
 " That 's wormwood," was addressed to Horatio ; and, 
 " If she should break it now," to King and Queen. 
 
 Admirable was Fechter's action after the discovery 
 and call for " lights." Throughout the play Hamlet 
 had lain at Ophelia^ s feet, but had amused himself (so 
 
I08 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 reads the conventional stage business) with nothing, 
 not even with the specified fan. Before him lay the 
 text of tlie play, which he followed closely, thus antici- 
 pating it and watching the effect upon the royal pair. 
 Discovery made and audience gone, Fechter tore the 
 leaves from his play-book and scattered them in the 
 air, as he rose and delivered the well-known quatrain. 
 His utterance was rapid ; excitement at last rendered it 
 thick. The blood rushed to his head, he put his hand 
 to his throat as if choking. " Ah, ha ! " became a gasp ; 
 he leaned upon Horatio and, for relief, for solace, 
 called for music. There was no bridging over an inex- 
 plicable chasm, such as we have seen from childhood. 
 It was perfect nature. Upon the entrance of Giiildcn- 
 stern and Rosencraiitz, Ha7nlct fell into a chair from 
 exhaustion, until his mother's name was mentioned, 
 when, out of that courtesy which was rarely forgotten, 
 he rose. 
 
 Guildc7istcrn, with the locket about his neck, was 
 far more hateful to Hamlet than the less treacherous 
 Rosencrantz. 
 
 " Hamlet. Sir, I cannot. 
 
 " Guildenstern. What, my lord ? 
 
 " Hamlet. Make you a wholesome answer ; . . . but, sir, such 
 answer as I can make, you shall command ; or rather, as you 
 say, my mother ; therefore, no more, but to the matter : my 
 mother, you say — 
 
 " Rosencrantz. Then, thus she says : your behavior hath 
 struck her into amazement and admiration." 
 
 Here Ha7nlct snubbed Guildenstem, and " my motlier, 
 you say," was addressed to Rosencrantz, who immedi- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 109 
 
 ately took up the thread of argument as shown. Haz- 
 litt declares that acting Hafnlet is Uke the attempt to 
 embody a shadow. He would never have made this 
 statement had he seen Fechter's key to the character. 
 
 The whole scene with the Queen was one panorama 
 of tragic pictures. Haxing killed Polonius, Fechter 
 elaborated Shakespeare's few words by the agony of 
 his expression at having made so fatal a mistake, and 
 by throwing away his sword that it might not be 
 repeated. 
 
 The excitement produced by the Ghost's appear- 
 ance yielded to regret at his departure ; and there was 
 also a tenderness toward his guilty mother, who finally 
 knelt before him, being raised up gently at the words, 
 " Confess yourself to Heaven," etc. When Hamlet 
 bade her good-night, she attempted to bless him, but 
 was firmly, not unkindly, repelled. This action was 
 followed by the lines, 
 
 " And when you are desirous to be blessed, 
 I '11 blessing beg of you." 
 
 Before the sobbing Queen retired, she once more turned 
 to her son, exclaiming, " Hamlet " (this was Fechter's 
 introduction), and stretched out her hands for a filial 
 embrace. Hamlet held up his father's picture, the sight 
 of which spoke volumes to the wretched woman, who 
 staggered fi-om the stage. Kissing this picture, Ham- 
 let murmured sadly, 
 
 " I must be cruel, only to be kind ; " 
 
 then, taking light in hand and raising the arras, gazed 
 at Folonius, exclaiming, 
 
 " Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind." 
 
no CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 After the third act Ha7nlet is but half his former 
 self. The actor would wiUingly stop short, leaving the 
 last two acts to the imagination, and in the present 
 condition of stock companies the critic would gladly 
 assent to curtailment ; but it must be five acts or 
 nothing, and patience endures to the last. Fechter's 
 treatment of the King, in the fourth act, was that of 
 undisguised contempt. " If your messenger find him 
 \_Polonms\ not there [in heaven], seek him in the 
 other place yourself; " and it was seen that if ffamkt 
 were not guarded, he would then and there have sent 
 the Kingio "the other place" in search of his courtier. 
 
 When Fechter produced " Hamlet " in his own the- 
 atre, the time of the churchyard scene was that of a 
 brilliant sunset, making a fine contrast between the 
 thoughtless joy of nature and the grief of humanity. 
 Moreover, it is neither customary nor practicable to dig 
 graves by the fickle light of the moon feebly assisted 
 by one small lantern ; and when truth is compatible 
 with art, — for my part, I believe the two walk hand in 
 hand, — it should be adhered to. Fechter's apostro- 
 phe to poor Yorick was singularly tender : " Here 
 hung those lips, that I have kissed I know not how 
 oft ; " and Fechter carried the skull almost to his lips, 
 when he put it away with a shiver. From time imme- 
 morial Ophelia's body has been borne from church to 
 churchyard, when the text tells us that her burial in 
 sanctified ground is granted under protest. 
 
 " She is allowed her virgin crants, 
 Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home 
 Of bell and burial. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. i i j 
 
 We should profane the service of the dead 
 To sing a requiem, and such rest to her 
 As to peace-parted souls." 
 
 Hence Fechter caused Ophelia to be brought through 
 the churchyard gateway, and the oflficiating priest wore 
 none of the insignia of his office. 
 
 " What, the fair Ophelia ? " 
 
 and, overwhehiied \\\\\\ agony, Hamld fell on his 
 knees beside a tomb and buried his face in his hands. 
 In the controversy between Hamlet and Laertes, Ma- 
 cready and Kemble leaped into the gr-ave, and there 
 went through the grappling in true Punch and Judy 
 fashion. The illustrious example has been often fol- 
 lowed ; but Fechter wisely abstained from the absurd- 
 ity, not approaching the grave until his last word was 
 spoken, when, gazing in agony at the gaping void and 
 at Ophelia's corse, he was dragged off the stage by 
 Horatio. 
 
 In the art of fencing Fechter was consummate ; 
 consequently the final scene was full of spirit and in- 
 terest. His arrangement of the stage was likewise ad- 
 mirable. In the background ran a gallery, to which a 
 short flight of stairs led on each side of the stage, and 
 by which all exits and entrances were made. To the 
 left stood the throne, where sat the King. The mo- 
 ment Hamlet exclaimed, 
 
 " IIo ! let the door be locked. 
 Treachery! seek it out." 
 
 the King exhibited signs of fear ; and, while Laertes 
 made his terrible confession, the regicide stole to the 
 
112 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 opposite stairs, shielding himself from HamleVs obser- 
 vation behind a group of courtiers, who, paralyzed with 
 horror, failed to remark the action. Laretes no sooner 
 uttered the words, "The King 's to blame," than Ham- 
 let turned suddenly to the tlirone in search of his victim. 
 Discovering the ruse, he rushed up the left-hand stairs, 
 met the King in the centre of the gallerj'^, and stabbed 
 him. It would be difficult to conceive a more eifective 
 manner of despatching Claudius, or one more in har- 
 mony with good taste. He was not butchered as in 
 the old "business," and the stage was reUeved of one 
 dead body. As he descended the stairs the potent 
 poison stole upon Ha7nlet, who, murmuring " The rest 
 is silence," fell dead on the corpse of Laertes, thus 
 showing his forgiveness of treachery and remembrance 
 of Ophelia. There was no contortion in Fechter's 
 manner of dpng. Edmund Kean was no doubt right 
 in illustrating a death by poison ; but if Hamlet dies 
 thus, surely Laertes must meet his doom in like man- 
 ner. Two such exhibitions would be beyond human 
 endurance ; and, as Laertes dies first, Hamlefs effects 
 would be lost. Therefore Fechter was not without 
 reason in abstaining from literalness. 
 
 Does not the photogi'aph, dim as it is, show Fech- 
 ter's power in Hamlet? Does it not give evidence of 
 ideas and ideality? 
 
 The fair hair of Fechter's Hamlet was not an origi- 
 nal conception, though from the criticisms one might 
 have imagined as much. Goethe declares that " as a 
 Dane, as a Northman, Hamlet is fair-haired and blue- 
 eved bv descent." " Absurd ! " cries a voice ; " how 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 113 
 
 is this possible, when we are distinctly told that his 
 father's hair is 'sable silvered '? " Does it follow that 
 Hamlet the younger must therefore be dark haired? 
 To my way of thinking, Fechter, when he first arrived in 
 this country, gave us the ideal Havilet, who, with all his 
 manly beauty, " is fat and scant of breath." " Brown- 
 complexioned people in their youth are seldom plump," 
 argues Goethe. Fechter was thoroughly manly, as 
 Hatnlef, who is much given to exercise, should be. No 
 contrary opinion can take comfort in Hamlcfs declara- 
 tion, that Claudius is no more like his father than he to 
 ' Hercules ; for Hercules performed such feats of prow- 
 ess as astounded both gods and men. Fechter was 
 robust without being unpleasantly so ; he was graceful, 
 supple as an athlete, courdy, wondrously picturesque ; 
 and his beautiful flaxen wig so transformed his coloring 
 as to cause his dark-hazel eyes to be mistaken for blue. 
 
 There has been something said of Fechter's liberties 
 with Shakespeare's language. Curious to know how 
 much truth lay in this accusation, I have followed him, 
 while acting, with book in hand. Fechter spoke no 
 more than was set down to him, — nor less. He was 
 what is called, in stage parlance, "letter perfect." 
 There w^ere a few trips of accent, — very few, — made 
 with the lips entirely ; for when the offending passages 
 were aftenvards sho\ni to Fechter, he spoke them cor- 
 rectly, showing that the head had not been at fault. 
 And here lies the secret of the charge that Fechter 
 had no settled convictions as to the reading of Hamlet. 
 Rarely repeating the same error, he supplemented it 
 wath another, — as, for example, 
 
 " O horrible, horrible, most horrible ! " 
 
114 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FE CUTER. 
 
 intending " w^^j'/ horrible," and so delivering the passage 
 on the following performance. These were slight blem- 
 ishes to weigh against a beautiful work of art. 
 
 " When reason yields to passion's wild alarms, 
 And the whole state of man is up in arms, 
 What but a critic would condemn the player 
 For pausing here, when cool sense pauses there ? 
 Whilst, working from the heart, the fire I trace. 
 And mark it strongly flaming to the face ;' 
 Whilst in each sound I hear the very man, 
 I can't catch words, and pity those who can.'" 
 
 Nor is there much more foundation for the accusa- 
 tion of " cutting " Shakespeare. No actor has ever 
 spoken the whole of Hantlet. Betterton took many 
 liberties ; and what Garrick did finally shall be referred 
 to. When the latter performed this character in Dub- 
 lin, an Irish critic suggested the advisability of his 
 leaving out Hamkfs " abominable " soliloquy while 
 the King is at prayers. Garrick carried out the sug- 
 gestion, and not until recently has it been restored to 
 English theatres. Fechter's version was that of Kem- 
 ble and of the stage. If, in the last act, he did not al- 
 ways deliver the frenzied speech addressed to Laertes, 
 and cut short his dying words, it was because of excep- 
 tional circumstances. 
 
 Whether there ever lived a thoroughly satisfactory 
 Hamlet is extremely doubtful. Wliat Burbage was, 
 nobody knows. What Betterton made of the character 
 it is possible to conceive ; for, with all Gibber's praise 
 of this actor, Quin owned that he " would not go down 
 in Garrick's days," — and as Quin himself, grounded on 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. n^ 
 
 Booth's and Betterton's school, died artistically as soon 
 as Garrick's genius illuminated the English stage, the 
 critic has very grave doubts as to any standard set up 
 by Gibber, who showed his bad taste by cordially hat- 
 ing Garrick's acting. Then as to Garrick's Hamkt, it 
 comes in " questionable shape ; " for, though the great 
 little man was the first to produce the play in 1742, 
 shorn of every objectionable word and the traditional 
 music, he gave the address to the players like a peda- 
 gogue, — walked backward and forward, twirling a white 
 handkerchief, while exclaiming, 
 
 " Some must laugh, while some must weep," 
 
 and performed other antics hardly compatible with 
 Shakespeare's Dane. That he failed to appreciate 
 the character is evident from the manner in which 
 he slaughtered the play thirty years after, when he 
 " improved " Shakespeare out of sight in the last acts, 
 and contemplated turning the grave-diggers and Osric, 
 " the Danish macaroni," into a farce ! Yet this "mass 
 of deformity " held the stage eight years with a Ham- 
 let that exemplified the theory of perpetual motion ! 
 Cooke in Hamlet was " one mass of awkward er- 
 ror ; " neither does Kemble, nor does the elder Kean, 
 owe his fame to his personation of the character. 
 Knowing this, Fechter acquires additional respect for 
 his rendition of Hamlet. 
 
 Possessing good height, small hands and feet, a face 
 so like Garrick's in contour and complexion as in a 
 Garrick wig to render the resemblance astonishing, and 
 so wonderful in expression as, like Talma's to need but 
 
Il6 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 the passing of a hand to transform broad comedy into 
 deepest tragedy ; with a large magnetic ever-changing 
 hazel eye, with pantomime that rivalled Ristori's, with a 
 rich melodious voice that ran the gamut of tlie passions, 
 with abundant sentiment and humor equally developed, 
 with a sculptor's knowledge of form, a painter's love of 
 costume and color, and a Frenchman's education in 
 the best school of acting, Fechter took his place among 
 the few great actors of the world. With regard to his 
 pronunciation of English there was really very little fault 
 to be found. In private it rarely occurred to the most 
 careful listeners that Fechter was not, so far as con- 
 cerns accent, an EngUshman. On the stage, however, 
 there were times when, if he did not feel well, his 
 speech became thick, or when, if carried away by pas- 
 sion, his delivery was somewhat indistinct ; but ordi- 
 narily his enunciation was wonderfully clear and his 
 English far purer than that spoken by the actors around 
 him. It is somewhat amusing to hear Americans, who 
 are proverbially inelegant in their language, finding 
 fault with Fechter's occasional slips of the tongue. 
 What would they say to Garrick, with his shiipreiiie^ 
 shuperior, vurtue, fersely (for fiefcely), Isrel iox Israel, 
 villhi for villain, and appeal for appall ? Churchill, in 
 his " Rosciad," declared that "■ Garrick never did or 
 never could speak ten successive lines of Shakespeare 
 with grammatical propriety." Nevertheless Garrick 
 was great. What would they say to Kemble's " foggy 
 throat," that was wont to 
 
 " Fill all thy bones with a-chcs," 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 117 
 
 and whose vitiated orthoepy induced Leigh Hunt to 
 publish a lexicon, that theatre-goers might have a key 
 to the text ? The elder Kean had countless vulgarisms 
 of pronunciation. Vulgarity is inexcusable. A foreign 
 accent may not be desirable, yet it is far more grate- 
 ful to a musical ear than the common variety of nasal 
 twang in which both our pulpit and stage indulge to 
 an intolerable extent. 
 
 Writer, as well as sculptor and actor, Fechter was 
 the author of French plays to which he never appended 
 his name, as well as of several English dramatizations. 
 No mean poet, he rendered " Romeo and Juliet " into 
 French verse. 
 
 " Hence, to thy praises," Fechter, " I agree, 
 And pleased with nature must be pleased with thee I " 
 
FECHTER'S 
 "CLAUDE MELNOTT E." 
 
FECHTER'S "CLAUDE MELNOTTE." 
 
 Of the popularity of maudlin sentimentality there 
 can be no doubt ; othenvise the " Lady of Lyons " 
 would long since have been consigned to an early 
 grave with never a -headstone to mark it. Thriving 
 like a green bay-tree, it brings forth fruit even in chill 
 December, breathing, apparently, no other atmosphere 
 than that of its own tropical passion. To deny its 
 cleverness as an acting play is as absurd as to deny its 
 bathos ; yet, clever though it be in effects, no one but 
 Charles Fechter ever elevated it out of its drivel into 
 romance. In reality Claude Mclnotte is a " cad." He 
 lies like a dozen troopers, he appropriates other people's 
 rings and snuff-boxes, he pretends to be a gentleman. 
 After undergoing a grand moral reform by taking 
 part in the French spoliation of Italy, he returns to 
 woo his wife, and establishes his title to the privilege 
 by paying his father-in-law's debts with the silver 
 spoons, "old masters," and objcts d'art stolen from 
 pillaged palaces. A fine record, surely. 
 
 Had Mclnotle served in our civil war, the press would 
 have united in one prolonged howl over the infamy of 
 such vandalism ; but the glamour of the footlights stifles 
 the expostulations of conscience, and Fechter, despising 
 
122 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Bulwer's character while appreciating the effectiveness 
 of the play, lifted Melnotte out of his very self and 
 made a hero of him. If this is not creation, what is it ? 
 Men and women, girls and boys, old maids and bache- 
 lors, were spellbound. Hating Pauline for not imme- 
 diately surrendering at discretion, they lived over past 
 or dreamed of future joys. An effect hke this renders 
 actor far greater than play and proves the magic of real 
 art, without which mock sentiment is — mock senti- 
 ment. 
 
 English journals pronounced Fechter's Aldnotte 
 the best that had ever been seen, and the verdict was 
 doubtless correct, notwithstanding that IMacready first 
 brought out the " Lady of Lyons " at Covent Garden 
 Theatre in 1838. With all Macready's ability — 
 and that he was great in Werner, Virginius, Riche- 
 lieu, Lear, and William Tell, no one who values the 
 opinions of the best critics of a past generation can 
 doubt — he did not shine as a lover. He invested his 
 mistress with no reflected glory. He did his duty to 
 the situation and text ; and, doing but this, deprived 
 passion of its sentiment. Love drops " like the gentle 
 rain from heaven," and has no more to do with duty 
 than the north pole has to do with the equator. " Mr. 
 Macready's Claude,'^ says the London Times, " was a less 
 youthful and a more staid, serious, and — using the 
 phrase without suggestion of offence — ' stilted person.' " 
 
 Undisturbed by. the conventionalities of the English 
 stage, desirous of putting as much nature as possible 
 into the play, Fechter suggested several alterations to 
 Bulwer, who, acknowledging their propriety, made them 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EECHTER. 
 
 123 
 
 without demur. The most important of these were the ■*■ 
 suppression of the first scene, by which condensation 
 the play was strengthened ; the substitution of Bcauscant 
 in person for the letter formerly delivered to and read 
 by Mclnotte ; the omission of the extra lines after the 
 words '' Do you?" at the end of the second act; and 
 the conclusion of the play at Mclnotte s exclamation, 
 " Thy husband ! " by which artistic curtailment the 
 curtain fell upon the exciting tableau of Pauline 
 rushing to her husband's arms. After seeing this finale 
 Bulwer himself man-elled that he had never thought 
 of it. Mclnotte' s soliloquy in the fourth act was shorn 
 of the lines : 
 
 " She wakes to scorn, to hate, but not to shudder 
 Beneath the touch of my abhorred love." 
 
 Costume and business undenvent a greater revolu- 
 tion. Instead of the blouse and trousers worn by 
 Macready and his successors, Fechter donned a rich 
 bourgeois dress of the period, such as a " village prince " 
 would be likely to wear at a festival. Instead of a 
 nondescript uniform, Hessians, and cocked hat in the 
 second act, Fechter wore powdered hair, and put on 
 the black court suit, silk stockings, and chapeau bras of 
 an Italian prince, who had nothing whatever to do 
 with the plain hair and plain clothes of the revolution. 
 Instead of concealing himself in the last act behind the 
 feathers of a h\pothetical hat, Fechter was disguised by 
 his ONvn hair and a mustache, and stood with a table 
 between Pauline and himself, she not daring to raise 
 her eyes to the man who is supposed to be Melnotte's 
 intimate friend. 
 
124 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Prior to this inteniew, Fechter overcame the exceed- 
 ingly awkward position in which the dramatist places 
 Mehiotte, — in introducing him to the Deschappelles and 
 then leaving him for five or eight minutes with never 
 a soul to talk to, and without a reason for such un- 
 warrantable incivility, — by indicating that he would in 
 no way disturb the drawing up of the marriage con- 
 tract, and by retiring to a conservatory where he was 
 presented by Damas to various ladies and gentlemen. 
 An unnatural situation was thus rendered perfectly 
 comme il faut, and all by the substitution of an evening 
 assembly of interested friends for an afternoon meeting 
 of the Deschappelles family. 
 
 Claude Mehiotte is a Frenchman, and Fechter treated 
 him as such. The moment he appeared, with prize rifle 
 in hand, the audience felt the passion of the lover and 
 longed to see the object of his homage. Poetic even 
 in details, Fechter straightway laid his gun not on table 
 or chair or in a corner, after the manner of ordinary 
 Melnottes, but on the edge of his easel, beneath the 
 portrait of Pauline, making of it a votive offering to 
 the idol of his heart. How much this trifle meant ! 
 From first to last he treated his mother with downright 
 affection. This in itself was a revelation, — stage moth- 
 ers being regarded by their heroic children as necessary 
 evils, to be tolerated with cold indifference. Hope, 
 indignation, revenge, were vividly portrayed in the first 
 act ; while Fechter's comedy, in the second act, was 
 good acting, for it was acting, — as far removed from 
 Fechter's real comedy as artifice is removed from 
 reality. His Mdnotte was acting a part which he 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 135 
 
 despised, and there was consequently a want of repose 
 about it quite in spnpathy with the sitUcltion ; but he 
 took snuff nonchalantly, and occasionally put his hands 
 in his pockets, as nobility always did during the reign 
 of petits maitres. Left alone with Pauline, constraint 
 disappeared before the magic of love ; and in his mouth 
 the picture of that "'palace lifting to eternal summer" 
 became true art, fully justif}'ing Pauline's tribute to his 
 " eloquent tongue." We Hstened to sound, not sense, 
 and saw the vision of love's young dream ; and for 
 the first time we saw Mdnotte do justice to Bulwer's 
 intention. The passage, 
 
 " If thou wouldst have me paint 
 The home to which, could love fulfil its prayers, 
 This hand would lead thee, — listen," 
 
 received proper treatment. " Could love fulfil its 
 prayers " was spoken sadly, after a pause, and almost 
 as an aside ; nor did Mdnotte fold Pauline in his 
 arms until he was warmed by the recitation of his fancy. 
 Very charming was the business at the end of this 
 act, when Melnotte, seated at the right, overcome with 
 agony at the treacherous part he was playing, and resting 
 his arm upon the table beside him, gazed with fond 
 remorse into Pauline's face as she stole toward him 
 and stroked the extended hand. The tableau on Pau- 
 line's exit was admirable, and, when the curtain fell, Mel- 
 notte stood out as the picture of melancholy abstraction. 
 
 But it was in the third and fourth acts that Fechter 
 showed his power, in the manliness of his passionate 
 atonement. Picturesque and noble in his black velvet 
 suit and gray cloak, he made Beauseant and Glavis 
 
126 CHARLES ALBERT FEC LITER. 
 
 shrink from his dangerous presence as jackals shrink 
 from the Hoil. His exclamation, " O Heaven, forgive 
 me ! " when wrapping Pauline in his cloak he led her to 
 Melnotte's cottage, was the very keynote of despair. 
 He put his neatest art into the scene of Melnotte's 
 self-abasement. There was no raving. The confession 
 
 beginning : 
 
 " Pauline, by pride 
 Angels have fallen ere thy time," 
 
 was rendered with "a magic to exorcise hate," and 
 culminated with a truly beautiful and original point. 
 
 "And when thou art happy, and hast half forgot 
 Him who so loved, so wronged thee, think at least 
 Heaven left some remnant of the angels still 
 In that poor peasant's nature ! 
 Ha ! my mother ! 
 
 [ Widow comes dozvn stairs ;]" 
 says the play-book. 
 
 Now, what did Fechter? Instead of summoning 
 his mother as if she were a lackey, this admirable 
 artist completely transfigured words and situation. At 
 the beginning of the sentence quoted, the JVidow ap- 
 peared at the upper door, quietly descended the stairs, 
 and stood beside her son, when, heart-broken he ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 " Ail ! my mother ! " 
 
 and threw himself into her arms to find relief in tears. 
 This alteration should be adopted by future Claudes. 
 Equally fine was Fechter's expression at the close of 
 the act, as he followed Pauline's exit with his eyes, and 
 sinking to the ground, invoked Heaven's blessing upon 
 her. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 127 
 
 In wonderful contrast with the quiet beauty of the 
 third was Fechter's finale to the fourth act. The worn- 
 out text was clothed anew. It was a real scene, a real 
 parting. The audience was thrilled by Melnotte's noble 
 passion ; the blood tingled through their veins as if they 
 were being charged with electricity. The divine spark, 
 of which we hear so much and see so little, asserted its 
 presence ; and when the curtain fell upon an entirely 
 new tableau, no one could resist the enthusiasm of re- 
 calling again and again him who had made a magnifi- 
 cent hero out of an old stage bore. To the last there 
 was manifest Claude's love for his mother, which so 
 justifies the Widow's adoration of her son. He would 
 not hurt her by even a word. After Mdnotte's exclama- 
 tion, " the husband of a being so beautiful . , . may 
 be low bom," Fechter took his mother's hand, adding, 
 "there is no guilt in the decrees of Providence," with 
 a tenderness that made us ask, " Why can't we have 
 more acting like it?" His last embrace was for this 
 widowed mother, and at sight of so true a son, so great 
 a lover, even the manliest eye sympathized with rough 
 Colonel Dainas as he murmured, " I '11 be hanged if 
 I 'm not going to blubber ! " 
 
 The INIarseillaise is usually played at the close of 
 this act. Fechter introduced it after Damas's declara- 
 tion that Melnotte would make an excellent soldier. 
 Beginning pianissimo, the grand hymn rose to a gradual 
 crescendo until the climax, when it burst forth with all its 
 force. After such a vivid scene, of course the fifth act, 
 in which J/^/zw//^ does httle more than "stand at ease," 
 was comparatively tame ; but the old glow came over 
 
128 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 us in watching Fechter's facial expression during the 
 short inteniew with Pauline, in the final action of the 
 tearing of the contract, and the happy embrace of man 
 and wife with which Fechter righdy terminated the 
 play. 
 
 " AU the world loves a lover," says Emerson, and in 
 this poetic fact lay Fechter's greatest power. Fechter's 
 love-making was so far removed fi-om what is seen on 
 the stage, that the s}'mpathetic spectator forgot its fiction. 
 And it was because of this ideal element in liis lovers 
 that Fechter found his greatest admirers among women. 
 Possessed of more sentiment than men, and hungr}* for 
 s}'mpathy, they recognized " the triumph of woman " in 
 Fechter's Ruy Bias and Claude Melnotte, and were 
 gratefial to the artist. 
 
FECHTER 
 IN FOUR CHARACTERS. 
 
 Frederic de Af arson, 
 
 •'On De.maxde ux Gouverxeur." 
 
 Don CcBsar de Bazan, 
 
 " Don Cesar de Bazan." 
 
 Fabien and Louis dei Franchi, 
 
 •'CoRSiCAN Brothers." 
 
 Monte Crista, 
 
 " Monte Cristo." 
 
"FREDERIC DE MARSAN." 
 
 Versatile, as the highest order of dramatic talent 
 must ever be in order to sound the chord of human 
 feehng, Fechter was equally at home in low com- 
 edy, high comedy, melodrama, and tragedy. What- 
 ever he did last seemed that for which he was best 
 fitted. His Frederic de Marsan in the little French 
 comedy of " On Demande un Gouverneur " was the 
 perfection of neat acting. Never once did he raise 
 his voice above a colloquial tone, not once did he 
 make any greater effort for points than he would 
 have made in his own drawing-room ; yet, by merely 
 holding the mirror up to nature, he riveted attention as 
 closely as in the most effective dramas. No actor can 
 personate comedy unless he be a gentleman. A come- 
 dian cannot strut, cannot "take steps ; " he must bear 
 himself with the ease peculiar to perfect breeding. A 
 dress coat is a terrible ordeal, and he who wears it tri- 
 umphantly is a rara avis. Fechter mastered its black 
 angles. His assumption of feigned intoxication in 
 " On Demande un Gouverneur," was consummate. 
 Rare is the art that can render drunkenness charming. 
 This Fechter possessed, and at the close of the scene 
 the impulse was to demand its repetition. It was 
 
132 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 humor devoid of grossness. Fechter could not touch 
 anything without enveloping it in romance, and actually 
 discovered the poetry of inebriety. He was as grace- 
 ful in the vagaries of his legs as if he had been exe- 
 cuting a pas seul. Fechter drunk was as versatile as 
 Fechter sober, the real intoxication of Don Ccesar de 
 Bazan being totally different in expression from that as- 
 sumed by the French gentleman, Frederic de Marsan. 
 
 "DON CESAR DE BAZAN." 
 
 The text of " Don Caesar " refers to the vagabond 
 nobleman as " this sottish mummer," and Lemaitre, the 
 great personator of chevaliers d'' Industrie, who first 
 produced the drama, was wont to make Don Cczsar 
 very drunk ; while the elder Wallack, the original of the 
 English version, — " the most effective personator of 
 the hero, if not the most agreeable," says the London 
 Athenceiwi, — descended to the vulgarity of hiccough- 
 ing. Assuredly there is no authority for this license. 
 Don CcBsar has lost none of his wits, he is capable of 
 fighting skilfully enough to kill a captain. Wine has 
 made him familiar, affectionately demonstrative, some- 
 what doubtful as to his centre of gravity, and that is 
 all. Fechter went no further, and was so delicately 
 unctuous in this bibulous mood as to cause regret 
 upon his returning to a normal condition. Nothing 
 could be neater in its humor than Fechter's panto- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 133 
 
 mime when, in referring to his creditors and remark- 
 ing, " Most of them have children, creditors ivill have 
 children, heirs to their ledgers," he indicated by the 
 airiest motion stairs of children ascending from earth 
 to heaven. Equally good was the broader humor of 
 his funniest point when wrestling with a word of five 
 syllables. " How human nature has de-gen-er — " 
 
 " Rated," added Don jFose, coming to the rescue. 
 
 " Thank you," replied Don Ccesar, shaking him ten- 
 derly by the hand, with inexpressible drollery, " it 's a 
 long word." Like all his other points, it was orig- 
 inal. 
 
 Throughout the first two acts Fechter was champagne 
 in human form. The grace of his audacity supplied 
 the place of virtue, and the " good fellow " was so good 
 that reformation became a foregone conclusion. A 
 notable feature in Fechter's acting was the artistic em- 
 plo}'ment of the baldest stage accessories. When he 
 sat down the chair became vitalized, and immediately 
 played an effective and thoroughly appropriate part. 
 Thus, upon Dofi pose's intimating that Don Ccesar 
 would die on the gallows, the noble vagabond started 
 up, and, seizing the chair while exclaiming, " But a 
 rope like a thief! " raised it aloft as if to hurl it at the 
 power which could so insult him. Though only a 
 wooden chair, there was dignity and passion in the 
 pose, and the action entirely harmonized with the 
 hidalgo's hot blood. Fechter's Don Cxsar treated 
 wine as if it really had wooed and won him. As he 
 inhaled its aroma the cup seemed to brim with the true 
 descendant of the vine, and when he next spoke his 
 voice was flavored with it ! 
 
134 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 During the drinking chorus, it was Fechter's easy 
 pantomime, not the singing, that interested, and when 
 in the midst of the revelry the clock struck half-past 
 six, Fechter made a neat point by putting his finger in 
 his ear, as if to shut out destiny. Are these things 
 trivial? Not so trivial but they constitute the differ- 
 ence between letter and spirit. In the interviews be- 
 tween the Marchioness of Santa Cruz and Don Ccesar, 
 Fechter's gesticulation and facial expression added rich 
 sauce to the admirable situation, while the scene be- 
 tween Don C(zsar and the King, in the last act, was 
 rendered inimitable by Fechter's manner. " If you 
 are Don Caesar de Bazan, /am the King of Spain ! " 
 Placing his hat on his head at an angle of audacious 
 coolness, Fechter took the stage, and, fanning him- 
 self with his pocket handkerchief, swaggered to the 
 foot-lights with an indescribable mock-heroic air that 
 inspired several rounds of applause. Authority de- 
 clares that both Lemaitre and the elder Wallack made 
 their point here by sitting opposite the King, and 
 touching the spring of a spiral feather in their hats, 
 which gradually rose and nodded familiarly to as- 
 tounded royalty. Such loud burlesque is unwarrant- 
 able, and Fechter showed wisdom in not overstep- 
 ping the hne of comedy. The closing scenes of the 
 acting within the acting were masterly strokes, as 
 indicative of the artist as Giotto's drawing of the 
 circle. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 135 
 
 "THE CORSICAN BROTHERS." 
 
 Far less worthy of Fechter was the drama of " The 
 Corsican Brothers ; " not because it is melodramatic for, 
 saving the apparitions, there is nothing that does not 
 hold the mirror up to Corsican nature (and in these 
 days of Spiritualism who shall say that apparitions are 
 impossible?) but because there is hardly sufficient body 
 to the drama. Fechter's Fabien and Louis dci Franchi 
 were distinct and complete personations ; but, remem- 
 bering Hamlet, they were the condescensions of a king. 
 That the general public preferred Dumas to Shakespeare 
 was pitiable for artist and critic. Despite all cavilling, 
 however, Fechter's face never spoke more telling, sig- 
 nificant language than during tAvo moments of "The 
 Corsican Brothers," — the first when he repelled the au- 
 dacity of Cclcstinc, with such a look of withering con- 
 tempt as would blanch the cheek of the most degraded 
 of women ; the second when, stepping between Ejnilie 
 de Lesparre and Chateati Reuaud, upon being appealed 
 to by the former for protection, he completely cowed 
 the braggart by a language of the eye that defies de- 
 scription and completely does away with the necessity 
 of speech. Nothing could have been more quiet, 
 more gentlemanly, and yet more telling. Applause fol- 
 lowed instantaneously, even from " the gods," proving 
 that in the good time coming the popular taste may 
 relish something better than ranting. Fechter's Corsi- 
 can dress for FabUn was a study, perfect in every ap- 
 
136 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 pointraent — even to the ear-rings and the tobacco- 
 pouch from which he manufactured cigarettes as he sat 
 on the table and related the peculiarities of his family. 
 Those who watched narrowly remarked that as Louis, 
 Fechter wore no cravat, but fastened his collar with a 
 gold stud. Strange, for a Parisian who was so perfectly 
 dressed in other respects. Then it was remembered 
 that in Corsica, and even in Southern France, cravats 
 are ignored 1 
 
 A picture of the times stood on the stage ; and, in 
 the hand-to-hand conflict that closes the drama, the 
 audience beheld a hot-blooded Corsican tiger thirst- 
 ing for revenge, fighting mth all the skill and litheness 
 of a creature brought up among mountains and vcn- 
 dette. For the first time too, in America, '• The Corsi- 
 can Brothers " was played as originally v\"ritten. Prior 
 to Fechter's advent the second act had been made the 
 first, owing to a mistake of the English pubHsher, who 
 accidentally reversed the order of the acts, in which 
 order Charles Kean introduced the drama to the Lon- 
 don public. 
 
 "MONTE CRISTO." 
 
 When Fechter first appeared in his dramatization of 
 Dumas's famous novel, many variations were heard on 
 the weU-worn theme of the sensational drama. Is not 
 a vast deal of nonsense written and talked thereon ? It 
 would be supposed, from the manner in which Shake- 
 

 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 137 
 
 speare is lauded and melodrama derided, that the Swan 
 of Avon swam in the most placid of mill-streams, 
 whereas there never lived a dramatist who showed so 
 great a mastery of effects. There is not a play of 
 his, holding the stage, that is not in the truest sense 
 sensational ; and Shakespeare is acted, not because of 
 his poetr)-, but because of his knowledge of situations 
 and how to command the interest of an audience. 
 " Hamlet " is full of sensation. Murder most foul and 
 unnatural precedes it, a ghost stalks abroad in the first 
 act, there is murder again in the third act, a mad scene 
 and drowning in the fourth, unlimited poisoning and 
 stabbing in the fifth act. What more sensational than 
 Othello's smothering of Dcsdemona ? What more 
 thoroughly melodramatic than the tragedy of "Mac- 
 beth?" What more opposed to nature than "Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream " and the "Tempest?" And 
 are "Richard III." and "King Lear" pastoral po- 
 ems? When Shakespeare forgets his effects he be- 
 comes a poet merely, and his plays, like those of Ben 
 Jonson and others, are read, not acted. The theatre 
 demands situations first, language second. The dif- 
 ference bet^veen Shakespeare and the highest order of 
 sensational dramatist is that one has great genius and 
 the other great cleverness. One is a poet as well as a 
 play\\Tight, and the other is merely a playwright. One 
 ennobles his plot by the beauty of his verse ; the other 
 belittles it by the vulgarity of his dialogue. One en- 
 dows his meanest characters with intellect far beyond 
 what each type possesses in real life ; the other gives 
 even his heroes nothing but " situations." The greater 
 
138 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 includes the less, but the less does not include the 
 greater. If, then, Shakespeare be good authority, 
 melodrama is thoroughly legitimate. The sensational 
 actor is he who produces a sensation. An audience 
 cannot be excited without being tlirilled. It cannot 
 be thrilled without being made to feel. An actor can- 
 not make others feel without feehng himself. He 
 cannot feel without possessing what is called genius. 
 It is quite possible to be a good melodramatic actor 
 and not be able to properly interpret Shakespeare ; but 
 the actor who takes a modern melodrama and, lifting 
 it out of its absurdity, raises it to an ideal height, stands 
 as an actor very near where Shakespeare stands as a 
 dramatist. If an actor makes the impossible appear 
 real, he has the imagination of a poet and gives evi- 
 dence of greater abiUty than if he were personating an 
 ever}'-day hero. 
 
 For this reason he is mistaken who fancies that any- 
 thing less than greatness produced Fechter's effect in 
 " Monte Cristo." It would be as absurd to deny Ris- 
 tori's genius in Sister Ta-esa, in Elizabeth, and Marie 
 Antoinette. " Mrs. Siddons was quite as great in Mrs. 
 Beverley and Isabella as in Lady Macbeth and Queen 
 Katharine ; yet no one, we apprehend, will say that the 
 poetry is equal," says captious Hazlitt, — whose criticism 
 applies to Fechter in the melodramas of '*' The Duke's 
 Motto," '' Corsican Brothers," and his own version of 
 '•' Monte Cristo." It requires most natural acting to 
 create reahty under the ribs of improbability. A\'hen 
 brought out in London, Fechter's "Monte Cristo " ran 
 for one hundred nights. It was deser\-edly successful. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 139 
 
 as it is the work of a cle\er play\\Tight. Ignoring the 
 popular taste for pageantry, Fechter put aside the won- 
 drous cave of Monte Crista which plays so prominent 
 a part in the pubUshed drama, gave but passing men- 
 tion to the gorgeous Princess Haidee, introduced com- 
 paratively few characters, told but one of the many 
 stories that make up the romance, told this story deci- 
 sively, and did not hesitate to take liberties with the 
 original plot for the sake of dramatic effect. Thus, 
 for example, instead of being Villeforfs father, Noirtier 
 became his half-brother ; by which change the dram- 
 atist could, without visitings of conscience, render Vil- 
 lefort doubly treacherous toward Xoirtier. Mercedes did 
 not many Fernand until eighteen years after the disap- 
 pearance of Edmond Dantes. Albert de Morccrf en- 
 counteied Dantes disguised as an abbe, at a roadside 
 inn, instead of meeting him in Rome as the Count of 
 Monte Crista. The youth's life was saved by Dantes 
 in Africa, not in Rome, and all of Dantes' s enemies 
 came to most dramatic grief before the final moment 
 that witnessed the triumph of long-suffering virtue in the 
 union of Mercedes, Dantes, and their son. These were 
 a few of the many transformations in an old friend's 
 features. The entire first act was a condensation of 
 Dumas's first t\vo chapters. The drama was no worse 
 in dialogue than the " Corsican Brothers." Occasional 
 slips of phraseclog)' attested its French origin, — slips 
 so palpable as to render their retention more than 
 strange. The plot was good, but, oddly enough, 
 Fechter actually failed to make his own hero as all- 
 pervading as his audiences desired. 
 
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RECOLLECTIONS OF CHARLES 
 FECHTER. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND YATES, 
 
 HERMAN VEZIN, 
 
 AND 
 
 WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
EXPLANATORY NOTE. 
 
 Ever since I have had ears to hear I have been told 
 that, wonderful as women may be in instinct, they are 
 totally without reason. Being creatures of emotion, 
 loving or hating from impulse, they lack the judicial 
 element, and consequently are incapable of genuine 
 criticism. I am a woman, and what I have ^mtten of 
 Fechter the Artist is doomed to be attributed, by some 
 at least, to the fenid fancy of a female partisan ; though 
 I am no partisan, though Fechter and I were strangers 
 in his closing years. It is a coincidence that the 
 words, " Remember me," written for me by Fechter, 
 on a beautiful crayon head of himself as Hamlet, should 
 have faded out of sight about the time that the giver 
 proved unkind. 
 
 He is base indeed who allows his estimate of an 
 artist to be warped by personal feelings. Fechter was 
 no less great in his art when he turned his back on 
 his friends ; and my enthusiasm is as warm to-day as 
 when he first revealed himself. No one has taken his 
 place. In vain have I sought to find his peer at the 
 Com^die Fran^aise and elsewhere in Paris. No Fech- 
 ter has arisen, and the Romantic Drama languishes. 
 " I 'd almost be willing to be twenty years older for 
 the sake of having seen him in his prime, when he 
 
146 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 played Armand Duval with Madame Doche," ex- 
 claims a woman and a critic. What greater sacrifice 
 than this could a woman make to art ? To add twenty 
 years to her age ! " The last time I saw Fechter," 
 continues this critic, "was in Philadelphia, one year 
 before he died. I was standing in front of the Conti- 
 nental Hotel as he went down Ninth Street, wearing 
 a long frock coat buttoned to the chin, and a low- 
 cro^^'ned broad-brimmed beaver hat. I don't know 
 which he the more resembled, priest or planter, but 
 there was a distinction about him that was impressive, 
 and it did not seem right to let him pass by without 
 some sort of demonstration." 
 
 Because I am a woman, — because I know how many 
 enemies Fechter the Man made in this country, and 
 how i^^ff are mlling in consequence to do him justice, 
 — I have appealed to critics in England to place them- 
 selves on record for art's sake. No better judges of 
 acting live than the three men who generously respond. 
 As good wine needs no bush, the names of Wilkie Col- 
 lins and Edmund Yates need no introduction. It is 
 our misfortune though not our fault that, American 
 though he be, Herman Vezin should have won his 
 laurels upon the English stage, and only be knowTi to 
 his travelled countr}'men. Standing in the front rank 
 of his profession, Herman Vezin is a rare example of 
 culture and probity. Of such stuff should all actors 
 be made. 
 
 KATE FIELD. 
 
EDMUND VATES ON CHARLES FECHTER. 
 
 The first time I e\er saw Fechter on the stage was 
 in the spring of 1852, when I was a young man of 
 twenty, highly impressionable, and devoted to the 
 drama. He played Armand in the " Dame aux Cami- 
 llas," with Madame Doche as heroine. I thought it 
 then a most striking performance, and it still remains 
 so in my memory. Annand is what actors call merely 
 a " feeder " to Marguerite, — save in one act, when he 
 turns upon her ; and there Fechter, in his alternating 
 rage, love, and despair, was almost sublime. I made 
 his personal acquaintance when he first came to Eng- 
 land, about the year 1859 or i860, and as I was then 
 living in his immediate neighborhood, in St. John's 
 Wood, we were thrown much together, and became 
 ver)' intimate. 
 
 Another neighbor and prominent member of our 
 circle was the Rev. J. N. Bellew, at that time incum- 
 bent of St. Mark's, Hamilton Terrace, an enthusiastic 
 Shakespearian, to whom unquestionably Fechter was 
 greatly indebted for much of the best of his conception 
 of Hiunkt. At the time I speak of, and for several 
 years afterwards, Fechter was the most abstemious of 
 
148 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 men ; he ate sparingly, and never drank anything but a 
 little claret and water. He was most domestic in his 
 habits, and devoted to his two children, — especially to 
 his son, little Paul. His health was not good ; he had 
 some extraordinary complaint which no one could ever 
 get at, but which had the effect of causing a sudden 
 swelling — as he described it, " a gonflement " — of the 
 stomach, which caused him much pain and frequently 
 incapacitated him from acting. 
 
 At such times he would go to bed and lie there 
 moaning dismally, with his head tied up in a handker- 
 chief, with a cataplasm on his stomach, tisane to drink, 
 and all those weak and washy solaces and medicaments 
 with which a sick Frenchman loves to surround himself 
 
 He was the best love-maker I ever saw on the stage ; 
 he threw his whole heart and soul into it, and made 
 love not merely in words but with the inflections of 
 his voice, with his attitudes, with his eyes. Ruy Bias 
 was unquestionably his best part. It had no blot. 
 His love for the Queen was most charmingly expressed ; 
 and in the last act of rage and vengeance on the trai- 
 tor he was positively sublime. Mounet-Sully, who is 
 the present Rjiy Bias of the Comedie Fran9aise, and 
 who appeared in England with Sara Bernhardt, is not 
 to be compared to Fechter. I am afraid Lewes is right 
 about his Othello. It was a desperately poor perform- 
 ance, full of French tricks and nonsense ; but, on the 
 other hand, his lago was admirable. " Hamlet " was 
 the play with which he made most money. He had 
 extraordinary dramatic power off the stage. Many 
 and many a time he has kept me up till two or three in 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 149 
 
 the morning, telling the plot of some piece which he 
 intended to produce, and walking about the room, act- 
 ing each scene and each character. He had a most 
 unhappy knack of quarrelling with people, — often 
 those with whom he had been most intimate. 
 
 I recollect Dickens saying to me of him once that 
 he had never met anybody with greater appreciative 
 power of reading character. " He seemed," Dickens 
 said, '■' to combine a man's insight with a woman's 
 instinct." 
 
 EDMUND YATES. 
 
HERMAN VEZIN ON CHARLES FECHTER. 
 
 Fechter made an immediate and decided hit. 
 There was a vivacity, a charm, a grace and fervor in his 
 acting which — impregnated as it was with his French 
 manner — struck us all as so fresh and original that he 
 became the talk of London. Harris, the manager, had 
 taken care to have him surrounded with the best pro- 
 curable talent, and the new scenery and dresses for 
 " Ruy Bias " — Falconer's translation — were most 
 complete in design and rich in material. Nothing 
 was left undone that could aid his success. Fechter 
 himself had passed some time in London prior to his 
 appearance, making many friends and exciting curios- 
 ity amongst those whose opinion would be of value to 
 him. 
 
 I was introduced to Fechter soon after his appear- 
 ance. His manner of clinging to one's hand and look- 
 ing with his beautiful eyes into one's own, as if this 
 moment was the one he had lived for, was very fetch- 
 ing ; and charming he undoubtedly was until you quar- 
 relled with him, and then — 
 
 " Ruy Bias " was succeeded by " Don Csesar de 
 Bazan," " The Golden Dagger," etc., none of which 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 lU 
 
 plays did more than confimi Fechter's fame. At last 
 he played Hamlet, and took the town by storm. His 
 appearance, his easy grace, his freedom from the vice 
 of mouthing, his unstilted style, delighted all but the 
 most bigoted adherents of the stagey school of acting. 
 I sat in the stalls at one of the rehearsals, and was 
 much struck by liis manner of always thinking the 
 thought of Hamkt before he spoke the words. I said 
 to him, " Vou are going to make a great hit in this 
 part." Years afterwards he recalled my words, and 
 added, *• Vou were the only one who encouraged 
 me." It was amusing to obser\-e the absurd forms the 
 enthusiasm he excited sometimes took. I watched 
 two women one night, panting and gasping with ec- 
 stasy; and, as Fechter left the stage, one of them 
 exclaimed, " Why, he even speaks English better than 
 an English actor ! " A critic of some prominence 
 remarked very sagely, " ^\^ly should Mr. Fechter be 
 reproached for acting Hamlet with a foreign accent ? 
 for, after all, Hamlet was not an Englishman." 
 " Hamlet " had a run, unprecedented at that time, of 
 seventy-five nights. Soon after this, Fechter took the 
 Lyceum Theatre. 
 
 Whether he was backed by a wealthy admirer or 
 not, I don't know ; but he went to work as if he had 
 been possessed of a Fortunatus purse. He engaged 
 Phelps, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews, and Walter 
 Montgomer}-, — none of whom ever appeared at his 
 theatre. His first production, " The Duke's Motto," 
 which he had expected to nm a few weeks only, ran a 
 whole season, to immense business. He then recon- 
 
1-2 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 structed his stage and machinery, importing a posse of 
 French carpenters to show the Englishmen how to 
 work the machinery. One of them, after putting a 
 piece of scenery into its proper place, turned to his 
 English brother and said, " Comme ga ! " The next 
 night the English carpenter did the work, the French- 
 man looking on to supen-ise. The English brother 
 above alluded to, on repeating the work of the French- 
 man, looked up at the piece of scenery he had just 
 handled, and muttered : " Comme 5a ! You can't get 
 
 on with this scenery unless you speak French 
 
 to it ! " 
 
 Nothing could exceed the exquisite beauty and skill 
 of Fechter's stage management. I played with him in 
 "The Master of Ravenswood," " Hamlet," and "The 
 Corsican Brothers," and I found him perfectly unself- 
 ish and an artist " aux bouts des ongles." He never 
 thought of depending entirely upon himself. He en- 
 gaged the best actors he could get, and spared no 
 expense in scenery and appointments. He never sac- 
 rificed another actor to himself on tlie stage. Every 
 one had his chance, and he must have been a dullard 
 who did not profit by his invaluable hints. 
 
 Fechter was essentially a great expert. His art pre- 
 sented no difficulties he could not surmount. It must 
 be confessed, however, that when an author's creation 
 was beyond his grasp, he dragged the author down to 
 his own level, as was the case in Othello, the greatest 
 of parts ; but even in this failure he did things which 
 were exquisite in their grace and finish. 
 
 As Dickens said, Fechter had a genius for quarrel- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FBCHTER. 153 
 
 ling, and no doubt his ungovernable temper was the 
 primary cause of his downfall. Any opposition seemed 
 to make him mad, and in these fits he would ruthlessly 
 insult his best friends so grossly as to make all reconcil- 
 iation impossible, even if he had sought it j but this he 
 never did. It was a wonder that he never quarrelled 
 with Dickens. 
 
 His character was not without reproach ; but he has 
 left his mark on the stage, and all actors who had the 
 intelligence to appreciate him, owe him an artistic debt. 
 His lago was much liked and was highly artistic, but 
 none of his Shakespearian attempts equalled his Ham- 
 let. Hermann Hendrich was, in my opinion, the very 
 finest Hamlet I have ever seen. Still, Fechter will 
 rank high in the roll of great actors who have excelled 
 in that character. 
 
 HERMAN VEZIN. 
 
WILKIE COLLINS'S RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 CHARLES FECHTER. 
 
 I FIRST saw Fechter in Paris nearly thirty years since, 
 on tlie stage of the old Vaudeville Theatre. He had 
 then lately achieved one of the great triumphs of his 
 art, by playing the part of Annand Duval in the first, 
 and (speaking in a dramatic sense) the best of the 
 plays of Alexander Dumas the younger, — " La Dame 
 aux Camelias." 
 
 When he came to London, in i860, to act, for the 
 first time in the English language, in a translation of 
 " Ruy Bias," we were made personally known to one 
 another. 
 
 By common impulse we dispensed with the tentative 
 formalities of acquaintance, and became friends from 
 that day to the day of Fechter's death. 
 
 I have been asked to write my recollections of this 
 admirable actor and delightful companion. It is use- 
 less to conceal that this is a melancholy task. I must 
 look back at some of those happiest days of my life, 
 which are days that I can never see again ; and I must 
 write composedly and impartially — if I can — of a 
 friend who held a place in my regard which has never 
 since been filled. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 155 
 
 Such remembrances as I can offer to readers with 
 propriety divide themselves, to my mind, into two parts. 
 Permit me to call them Fechter in Pubuc and 
 Fechter in Private. 
 
 FECHTER IN PUBLIC. 
 
 It has been said, most truly, that the art of the actor 
 dies with him. 
 
 No description of acting, by a person who has seen 
 the player, can convey any distinct idea to the mind of 
 a person who has not seen the player. For example, it 
 has not been our good fortune to go to the theatre in 
 the time of the great Garrick. What do we know of 
 his acting, from the many careful and conscientious de- 
 scriptions of it which have appeared in print? We 
 know absolutely nothing but the result. In tragedy and 
 comedy alike, Garrick delighted everybody who was 
 fortunate enough to see him. 
 
 To take another example, — Macready, in his youth, 
 had the honor of acting with Mrs. Siddons. He played 
 Nonal to her Lady Randolph in the tragedy of 
 " Douglas." 
 
 I once asked him if he could tell me anything which 
 would give me some idea of her acting. He answered : 
 " I can only tell you this ; in the scene in which she 
 recognizes Non-al as her lost son she ga\e me a hug 
 that hurt me, and I felt her tears dropping on my face." 
 Let it not be forgotten that she must, at this late date 
 in her career, have played Lady Randolph during the 
 theatrical engagements of many years, — and we derive 
 
10 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 from such testimony as this the vague idea of a grand 
 passionate actress, so absolutely identified with her part 
 that no frequency of repetition could weaken or degrade 
 her performance. But do we advance a step farther? 
 Do we hear the tones which gave a charm, not its own, 
 to the prosy poetry of the play ? 
 
 Do we see the beautiful face expressing the pathetic 
 exultation of maternal love ? Can we, in the remotest 
 degree, feel what the audience must have felt when her 
 tears dropped on Macready's face ? We know no more 
 about it than that much injured man, the ex-king of 
 the Zulus. 
 
 For these good reasons I shall not waste words in 
 any attempt to revive the dead and buried influences 
 of Fechter's acting by describing it in detail. Those 
 unfortunate people who have not seen him must remain 
 in their darkness. Nothing can now enlighten them. 
 
 Speaking of his acting in general terms only, I may 
 say that it was noble and romantic, — with this inestima- 
 ble merit added, that it was always firmly founded on 
 truth to nature. His style was, to use the painter's 
 phrase, broad. 
 
 In his least successful efforts he always avoided that 
 excessive accumulation of detail which still deteriorates 
 so much good acting in these later days. In the all- 
 important accomphshment of " making love " on the 
 stage he was rivalled by but one man, in my dramatic 
 experience, — and that man was always helped by 
 music, — the irresistible Mario. 
 
 Fechter's knowledge of his art, and his eye for dra- 
 matic effect, made him invaluable at rehearsal. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 157 
 
 He was an excellent adviser when a new play was in 
 course of production, — to the writer as well as to the 
 performers. There are living actors and actresses who 
 can still bear witness, on the stage, to an advance in 
 their art due to his teaching and example, which has 
 worthily raised them in the estimation of the public. 
 The Miss Kate Terry (of those days), Miss Carlotta 
 Leclercq (still on the stage), were, as actresses, almost 
 created anew by their dramatic association with Fechter. 
 No foreigner ever grappled more resolutely and suc- 
 cessfully than he did with the ditticulties of the English 
 language. He told me that to speak with ease and pro- 
 priety the one line in Hamlefs soliloquy, "What's 
 Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?" was a labor of 
 weeks. Allowing all due force to the influence of such 
 determined application as this, the secret of his instan- 
 taneous success, when he first stepped on our stage in 
 the character of an English actor, lay really and truly 
 in his consummate knowledge of his art. 
 
 Long before we, in front of the curtain, had discov- 
 ered what he could do in Ruy Bias as an actor, we 
 had only to observe his movements, his manner, his 
 by-play, to be free from the slightest apprehension of 
 his breaking down under the hard stress of speaking to 
 us in our language. 
 
 As to the relative value of Fechter's perfonnances in 
 England, I believe I only express the general opinion 
 when I place Ruy Bias and Hamlet in the front rank. 
 
 With regard to Victor Hugo's powerful play, I do not 
 hesitate to say (speaking from an experience which, be 
 it remembered, does not include Edmund Kean) that 
 
138 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 Fechter's Ruy Bias was the nearest approach to per- 
 fection, as a performance in romantic drama, that we 
 have seen in England in later years, — reserving the 
 one exception of the one supremely great actor, Fre- 
 deric Lemaitre. Speaking next of Hamlet, I Avill only 
 venture to give my evidence as a witness. From 
 Macready downward I have, I think, seen every Ham- 
 let of any note and mark during the last five and thirty 
 years. The true Hamlet I first saw when Fechter 
 stepped on the stage. These words, if they merely 
 expressed my own opinion, it is needless to say would 
 never have been written. But they express the opinion 
 of every unprejudiced person, under fifty years of age, 
 with whom I have met. For that reason, let the words 
 stand. 
 
 In the long list of his performances of the second 
 order — or, to speak more exactly, in characters of 
 secondary importance from the theatrical point of view 
 — I may specify Monte Crista, Edgar in an adaptation 
 of the immortal " Bride of Lammermoor," Claude 
 Melnotte in the " Lady of Lyons," the double char- 
 acters in "The Duke's Motto" (names forgotten), 
 Obenreizer in " No Thoroughfare," and Maurice de 
 Layrac in " Black and White." 
 
 Approaching once more the throne of Shakespeare, 
 I should add that I have heard almost universal praise 
 of Fechter's lago, — which I did not see, — and that I 
 have nothing to say of his Othello except to express 
 my regret that I did see it. The sooner that unfor- 
 tunate performance is buried in oblivion, the better. 
 
 All that I can usefully write of my friend in his pub- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER 
 
 159 
 
 lie capacity has now come to an end. Having already 
 described him as a master of his art, I have implied 
 that he set the mark of invention and fancy of a high 
 order on his management of the stage. Costume and 
 scenery, color and grouping, theatrical effect as assisted 
 by paints, powders, and wigs, — all felt his influence 
 for good. These attendant merits deserve to be spe- 
 cially mentioned. They rank among the minor means 
 which helped him to his brilliant success in England. 
 The drawbacks to that success behind the scenes — the 
 mortification that he suffered from the jealousy and in- 
 gratitude of some of his professional brethren — I pur- 
 posely pass over. No foul tongues can reach him now. 
 The consecration of Death holds him sacred from 
 insult. 
 
 FECHTER IN PRIVATE. 
 
 One of the worst vices of the age we live in is the 
 shameless disregard of truth prevalent among friends, 
 writing or speaking in public, of celebrated persons 
 whom they have survived. Unblushing exaggeration 
 of the merits, position, and influence of the dead man 
 seems to be considered as sufficient warrant for a de- 
 liberate concealment of his failings and faults, — which 
 is nothing less than lying of the passive sort, artfully 
 adapted to its purpose as a pedestal on which the 
 writer or speaker can present himself to the public in a 
 favorable light. Persons in general wishing, in the case 
 of a famous man deceased, to find out what sort of 
 man he really was, are in these days invited to look at a 
 fancy portrait (greasy with the varnish of fulsome praise) 
 
l6o CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 in place of a true likeness ; and, worse still, are pestered 
 by the appearance of the begging-box, sent round by 
 public advertisement, in the interests of a posthumous 
 glory shining with a false light. 
 
 Trifling as they may be, these recollections of Fechter 
 shall deceive no one. They shall present the side of 
 his character which desen-es blame as faithfully as tliey 
 present the side of his character which deserves praise. 
 
 TelUng the truth for truth's sake, I may sen^e one 
 useful purpose at least. I may perhaps relieve inno- 
 cent people from reports which have cruelly and ig- 
 norantly associated them with the disasters of the 
 closing years of my friend's life. 
 
 The serious defects of Fechter's character were two 
 in number. The first of these his friends viewed with 
 regret. From the second, they could only turn away in 
 despair. 
 
 I have met with many children who had a clearer 
 idea then he possessed of pecuniary responsibilities. 
 When he wanted money he borrowed it of the first 
 friend whom he met, with the firmest imaginary belief 
 in his capacity to make repayment at the shortest pos- 
 sible date. Under the same delusion he allowed greedy 
 adventurers, in want of supplies, to involve him in debt 
 with tradespeople by making their purchases in his 
 name. His sympathy with worthier friends in a state 
 of pecuniary embarrassment was boundless. When he 
 had no money to spare, and he was asked for a loan of 
 " a few hundred pounds," he had no hesitation in bor- 
 rowing the money from the fi^iend who had it, and 
 handing the sum over to the friend who had it not. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. i^i 
 
 When I remonstrated with him, he was always ready 
 with his answer. " My dear Wilkie, you know I love you. 
 Do you think I should love you if I didn't firmly 
 believe that you would do just the same thing in my 
 place ? " He might have ended, poor fellow, by putting 
 me in the wTong in a better way than this ; he might 
 have paid all his debts, and died with a mind at ease, 
 but for that second defect in his character, to which it is 
 now my hard duty to allude. 
 
 The curse of an ungovernable temper was the curse 
 of Fecliter's life. 
 
 I am not speaking of mere outbreaks of furious an- 
 ger. He was too sensitive and too generous a man not 
 to be able to atone for forgetting himself in this way, as 
 soon as his composure was restored. But, when he 
 once took offence, a lurking devil saturated his whole 
 being w-ith the poison of unjust suspicion ar^d inveter- 
 ate hatred ; and that devil, the better influences about 
 him, distrusted rather than encouraged by himself, were 
 powerless to cast out. 
 
 I have no heart to dwell on the number of friends 
 (honestly admiring him, eager to serve him, guiltless of 
 consciously offending him) whom he estranged for- 
 ever, — self-deceived by his own impulsive misinterpre- 
 tation of motives, or misled by false reports which he 
 had no patience to examine before he accepted them as 
 truths. When he first fascinated American audiences 
 (there is no exaggeration of his influence in using that 
 word) he was offered, by formal agreement, pecuniary 
 prospects which would have assured to him, as the re- 
 ward for a few years' exercise of his art, a more than 
 
1 62 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 sufficient income for life. He quarrelled with the man, 
 the thoroughly honest and responsible man, who made 
 him that offer. At a Httle social gathering, in the 
 United States, the friend thus estranged said to me, 
 " To this day, I don't know what I did to give 
 offence." 
 
 Other persons present were surprised to see that he 
 spoke with tears in his eyes. I, who knew the irresist- 
 ible attraction of Fechter, when he was in possession 
 of himself, understood and respected that honest dis- 
 tress. It is useless to pursue this subject by citing 
 other examples. When Fechter died in poverty, far 
 away from relatives and friends in the Old World, it is 
 not true — I assert it from what I myself had opportu- 
 nities of knowing — it is not true to say that the mis- 
 erable end was due to connections wliich he formed in 
 the United States. The one enemy to his prosperity 
 was the enemy in himself. He paid the penalty of his 
 ungovernable temper, — and no man can own it mth 
 truer sorrow than the man who has reluctantl}- \\Titten 
 these Unes. 
 
 Let us pass into a brighter atmosphere. Before we 
 leave him, let us see him at his best. 
 
 The sensitive natiu-e of the man — undoubtedly the 
 motive -power of the all- attractive social influence by 
 which his friends delight to remember him — showed 
 itself noticeable in what I may call the private practice 
 of his art. He will be, perhaps, most intelligibly re- 
 vealed in this aspect, if I consult my own experience 
 of him at a time when we were engaged together in 
 preparing a play for the stage. 
 
Cl/ARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 163 
 
 I had the honor of wTiting the Christmas story called 
 " No Thoroughfare " in literary association with Charles 
 Dickens. We in\ented the story at Gadshill, in the 
 Swiss chalet which had been Fechter^s gift to Dickens. 
 \Mien our last page of manuscript had been set up in 
 type, I returned to other literary labors which had been 
 suspended in favor of " No Thoroughfare," and which 
 kept me so closely employed that I saw nothing of ray 
 brethren in art for some litde time. During this inter\al 
 Fechter had read the proof-sheets, had (to use his o\\-n 
 phrase) " fallen madly in love with the subject," and 
 had prepared a scenario or outline of a dramatic adap- 
 tation of the stor}', under Dickens's superintendence 
 and approval. This done, Dickens took his departure 
 for the United States, leaving the destinies of the un- 
 written play safe, as he kindly said, in my hands. 
 Fechter next presented himself with the scenario, laid 
 the manuscript on my desk, offered me a pen with 
 a low bow, and said : " Dickens has gone away for six 
 months ; he will find ' No Thoroughfare ' running 
 when he comes back." For once, in this case, a mod- 
 em prophecy was actually fulfilled. 
 
 The play \vritten, — a far harder task than I had an- 
 ticipated, requiring such new presentation of some of the 
 persons of the story as almost involved the re-creating 
 of them, — Fechter at once assumed the character of 
 Obcnreizer in private life. When he entered his study 
 or mine, it was an entrance on the stage. He ate and 
 drank " in character " when he dined with me or I 
 dined with him. The play was in his hands all day 
 and at his bedside all night. At rehearsal he was quite 
 
1 64 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 ready to perform ever)' other character in the drama, 
 by way of an example which might brighten and im- 
 prove the business on the stage. Once or twice 
 the ovem'helming nen-ous excitement that possessed 
 him showed itself in a curiously suggestive way ; his 
 English speech betrayed, for the first time in my expe- 
 rience, that he was thinking in French. 
 
 When the memorable day arrived, and a few hours 
 only interposed between us and the ordeal of the first 
 night, that terrible form of nen-ous prostration called 
 stage fidght — from which all good actors suffer, more 
 or less, at their first appearance in a new part — began 
 its attack on Fechter at breakfast time. 
 
 He could eat nothing, not even the French garlic 
 sausage which offered the one attainable refuge to his 
 stomach on other occasions. Pale, silent, subdued, he 
 sat in a comer of the room, and looked like a man 
 waiting the appearance of the sheriff to conduct him to 
 the scaffold. I handed him his pipe ; he was not 
 even able to smoke. " Are you going in front to see 
 your play?" he asked, with a look of blank despair. 
 I could honestly answer that my ner\-es were never 
 strong enough to endure that trial on the first night. 
 "You will be behind the scenes, then?" "Yes." 
 " For God's sake, come to my room ! " 
 
 Before the performance began, I went accordingly to 
 Fechter's room. 
 
 Dressed, as to the lower part of him only, for the 
 character of Obenreizer, he sat helplessly staring into a 
 white basin, held before him by his attendant in the 
 attitude of a sailor on a channel steamer comforting a 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 165 
 
 suffering lady. " Here 's Mr. Fechter sick, sir," said 
 the man, " and nothing in him to bring up." (The 
 reader will, I hope, pardon this literal report in con- 
 sideration of its absolute fidelity to the truth.) I said 
 a comforting word, and proposed a few drops of lau- 
 danum. Unable to speak, Fechter answered by put- 
 ting out his tongue. The color of it had turned, under 
 the ner\-ous terror that possessed him, to the metallic 
 blackness of the tongue of 'a parrot. When the over- 
 ture began, — easily audible in the dressing-room, — 
 another attack made the basin necessary. 
 
 In the inten-al that followed, Obctireizcr' s upper gar- 
 ments were put on, and the last touches were added to 
 his head and face. The next sound that reached us 
 was the well deserved applause which greeted the ap- 
 pearance of that admirable actor and worthy kind- 
 hearted man, Benjamin Webster, in the character of 
 yocy Ladle. Fechter gave me one expressive look, 
 and turned to the basin again. His colleague's en- 
 trance on the stage preceded his own entrance by no 
 very long space of time. Soon the knock was heard at 
 the door, and the dreadful voice of the call-boy sum- 
 moned Mr. Fechter to be ready. He took my arm 
 to descend the stairs which led from his room to the 
 stage. Our procession of two was completed by the 
 attendant with his basin ready, — and, what is more, 
 wanted, at the critical moment when we stood behind 
 the door through which Obcnrcizcr was to make his 
 appearance. Some one near me whispered, " Good 
 heavens, he will be taken ill before the audience ! " I 
 whispered back, " Wait and see." In another minute 
 the words were spoken which gave him the cue. 
 
l66 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 " Ask Mr. Obenreizer to step this way." The door 
 was briskly opened ; the glare of the footlights shone 
 on the favorite of the public ; the round of applause 
 at the sight of him rang out all over the crowded the- 
 atre. In an instant the moral courage, which had de- 
 serted him behind the scenes, rallied its forces in the 
 presence of the audience. Fechter's first words proved 
 him to be in full possession of all his resources. The 
 stranger who had predicted such terrible results lifted 
 his eyebrows in mute amazement. The attendant and 
 the basin vanished together. 
 
 " No Thoroughfare " had a run of two hundred 
 nights. We were not so fortunate in making our next 
 joint appeal to the public, in the drama called " Black 
 and White." 
 
 Fechter's lively mind was, to use his own expression, 
 "full of plots." He undertook to tell me stories 
 enough for all the future novels and plays that I could 
 possibly live to write. His power of invention was 
 unquestionably remarkable ; but his method of narra- 
 tion was so confused that it was not easy to follow him, 
 and his respect for those terrible obstacles in the way 
 of free imagination known as probabilities was, to say 
 the least of it, in some need of improvement. 
 
 One of his plots, however, he presented intelligibly 
 in the form of a scenario. The story, as I thought 
 and still think, was full of dramatic interest. Follow- 
 ing Fechter's outline in the first two acts, and suggest- 
 ing a new method of concluding the story, to which he 
 agreed, I wrote the drama called " Black and White," 
 being solely responsible for the conception and devel- 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EECIITER. 
 
 167 
 
 opment of the characters, and for the dialogue attribu- 
 ted to them. 
 
 This work, presented for the first time to the public 
 at the Adelphi Theatre, London, on the 29th of March, 
 I S69, was received by the audience of the first night 
 with tumultuous applause, Fechter's performance of 
 the principal part being even finer than his perform- 
 ance of Obcnrcizer. 
 
 As a play, " Black and White " was considered by 
 my literary brethren (and justly considered) to be 
 better work than " No Thoroughfare." We left the 
 theatre with the fairest prospect of another run of 
 six months. But, after some few weeks the regular 
 Adelphi audience reminded us gently, by means of 
 vacant places in the theatre, of an objection to the 
 play which had never once occurred to either of us. 
 We had completely forgotten the popular mania of sev- 
 enteen years before, satirized by the French as Oncle 
 Tommerie. Almost every theatre in Great Britain had, 
 in those days, provided an adaptation of " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin." It mattered nothing that the scene of " Black 
 and White" was laid far away from the United States, 
 in the Island of Trinidad, and that not one of the persons 
 of the drama recalled the characters in Mrs. Stowe's 
 novel in the slightest degree. Mrs. Stowe's subject was 
 slavery, and our subject was slavery ; and even the long- 
 suffering English public had had enough of it. 
 
 We had had enough of it, in our different way, after 
 the piece had been performed about sixty nights. 
 What would the scene-painters", carpenters, property- 
 men, and supernumeraries, who now make dramas for 
 
1 68 CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 the theatre, assisted, it is right to add, by a handy oc- 
 casional person called an author, — what would these 
 collaborators say to a run of sixty nights? They 
 would say : " You made a great mistake ; address the 
 eyes, ears, and noses of the audience, and (consciously 
 or unconsciously) you may reproduce anything that 
 has been done before ; but if you ivill meddle with the 
 minds of the audience, then they begin to think, and 
 no theatrical human being can answer for the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 Enough, by this time, of the stage, — even in recol- 
 lections of an actor. 
 
 There is a little villa in the northwestern suburb of 
 London, close to the eastward extremity of St. John's 
 Wood Road, which I can never pass now without a 
 feeling of sadness. It is the last house, inhabited by 
 Fechter during his sojourn in England. Here we 
 feasted and laughed and revelled in somfe of the bright- 
 est social enjoyments that life can afford. What a 
 dreadful barrenness stares at me from those doors and 
 windows now ! 
 
 The conventional restraints of society have a use and 
 a value which are not to be denied. But it is equally 
 indisputable that they exact burdensome observances 
 from men in want of recreation after that hardest of all 
 work, which is the work of the brain done in the ser- 
 vice of the arts. The formal assumption of evening 
 dress, the introductions to strangers, the effort of con- 
 versation, the necessity of listening with the same 
 polite attention to tiresome people and agreeable people 
 alike, — these and other social sacrifices, so easy to 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. igg 
 
 the idle or the lightly employed guest, exact a merci- 
 less strain on the nenes of a man whose fancy and 
 imagination, whose utmost creative powers, have been 
 heavily taxed for hours together. He has made him- 
 self agreeable, he has enlarged his circle of acquaint- 
 ances, he has perhaps strengthened his influence among 
 certain classes ; but he has not rested after his work, 
 and he knows it when he rises the next morning. 
 
 After his arrival in England, Fechter's success won him 
 his entrance into society. He was welcome everj'where, 
 and he made himself worthy of his reception in the best 
 sense of the word. But the time came when he felt 
 the strain on his resources. He applied the remedy ; 
 he folded up his dress coat ; he tlirew away his white 
 cravat. Thenceforth, when he had his free evenings, 
 he offered up polite apologies on the altar of society, 
 and enjoyed himself, as the wise populace expresses it, 
 in his own way. 
 
 Sometimes he dined with his friends, and oftener 
 his friends dined with him. In either case we were as 
 independent of formalities as the monks of Theleme 
 themselves. But one rule existed ; punctuality to the 
 dinner-hour was insisted on. I record it with pride ; 
 the one act of folly never committed by any one of us 
 was the folly of waiting for a late guest. 
 
 The evenings at Fechter's house present the best 
 picture of Fechter. 
 
 In the summer time his guests generally found him 
 waiting for them in the front garden, in his dressing- 
 gown and slippers. The Frenchwoman who cooked 
 for him — one of the finest artists that ever handled a 
 
I70 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FE CUTER. 
 
 saucepan — came out to tell us when dinner was 
 ready. Nobody (the master of the house included) 
 had any special place at the table, but everybody sat 
 where he might, had his own httle cruet-stand, and 
 never troubled his neighbors for the necessary condi- 
 ments. No servants waited on us. The cellar was on 
 the sideboard. Each guest picked out the wines that 
 he liked best, and put the bottle by him when he took 
 his chair. The dogs dined with us, and friends' dogs 
 were welcome. People who could not speak English 
 spoke French ; and Englishmen in the same predica- 
 ment stuck to their own language, — expressive panto- 
 mime being used on either side in illustration of the 
 meaning. Anybody who felt the heat was requested to 
 take off his coat and dine in his shirt-sleeves. Any 
 guest, particularly skilled in the preparation of a special 
 dish, went into the kitchen and helped the cook. 
 Sometimes Gassier stuffed the tomatoes and Fechter 
 brought up the dish. We had every variety of French 
 cookery, — and twice we put the inexhaustible re- 
 sources of gastronomic France to the test by diniiig 
 on one article of food only, presented under many dif- 
 ferent forms. We had a potato dinner in six courses, 
 and an egg dinner in eight courses. Never did the 
 perfect freedom and gayety of the talk suffer shipwreck 
 on the perilous rocks of religion and politics. A dis- 
 putatious man would not have had a chance of using 
 his tongue at that table. 
 
 The gushes of merriment were as inexhaustible as 
 the gushes of garlic. The smoking began, as the 
 smoking alwa)'s should begin, the moment dinner was 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EECHTER. j-j 
 
 over. With tlie appearance of the coffee, the amuse- 
 ments of the evening took a new turn. Guests pos- 
 sessed of special accomplishments now assumed a 
 prominent place. Friendly singers and musicians, well 
 known to the pubUc, showed us what their art cou^d 
 do. Fechter's never flagging gayety exhibited him in 
 a new character, — as a low comedian and a mimic. 
 He played, for instance, a little French scene — in which 
 the persons were a thief under examination, and a juge 
 cT instruction completely baffled by the dense stupidity 
 of the prisoner — with a perfection of quaint humor not 
 to be forgotten and not to be described. Equally irre- 
 sistible were his imitations of the elder Dumas ^\Titing 
 one of his magnificent novels in a race against time, 
 and of another far less illustrious Uterary man tr}-ing to 
 shave himself in a state of intoxication. Equal to 
 Fechter in fertility of resource, the kind-hearted, genial 
 Gassier was ready to sing any operatic music within the 
 reach of his fine baritone voice, and was so skilled a 
 musician that he invented his own accompaniment on 
 the piano when memory and music-books happened to 
 fail him. 
 
 In the inter\-als of these special entertainments, 
 actors deservedly eminent on the French stage inter- 
 ested us by talk of their art, and by remembrances of 
 their famous colleagues. That accomplished and ele- 
 gant comedian, Berton the elder, told us how they 
 worked at the rehearsals of " The Demi-mjDnde." Mau- 
 rice Desrieux — the most lovable and most affection- 
 ate of men, the wise, patient, and devoted friend of 
 Fechter — described the strain laid on his dramatic 
 
1/2 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 resources by the dangerous situations in the fourth 
 act of Sardou's " Maison Neuve," in which the main 
 responsibility rested on the character which he played 
 in the piece. Of these three variously gifted men, — 
 Gassier, Berton, Desrieux, — not one sur\'ives. Shall 
 I \vx\X& of other guests, and perhaps recall more pleas- ■ 
 ant voices that are now silent forever ? Once more the 
 shadow of Death darkens my view of the past. It is 
 time to have done. 
 
 When I visited the United States in the years 1873- 
 4, Fechter's was the first face I saw on disembark- 
 ing at the wharf. We went together to my hotel in 
 New York, and he gave me the benefit of his experi- 
 ence in ordering my first American dinner. He left 
 me at night with a parting flash of the old gayety. 
 " You will find friends here, wherever you go," he said; 
 " Don't forget that I was the friend who introduced you 
 to Soft Shell Crab." 
 
 But there was a change — a melancholy change — 
 in him, which I soon discovered. Although he shrank 
 from confessing it, signs not to be mistaken told me 
 that he was brooding over his wasted opportunities and 
 his doubtful future. The happiest days of his life were 
 now passed at his httle farm in Pennsylvania. There I 
 visited him, sincerely regretting that public engage- 
 ments limited me to a sojourn of a few days only. In 
 my travels afterwards, whene\er we could meet we did 
 meet. When I left New York for the last time, he 
 dined with me. The two or three other friends who 
 were of the party remarked the depression of his spir- 
 its. We parted, — not to meet again. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 1-3 
 
 I wish I could add to tTiese last words some of the 
 letters addressed to me by Fechter, which I have 
 thought it right to preser\-e. Even these are not only 
 too personal to be presented to the public, but they 
 are, in many places, so expressed (unconsciously on 
 his part, it is needless to say) as to be in danger of 
 leading to erroneous impressions of him in the minds 
 of strangers. 
 
 This memorial portrait of Fechter would not be im- 
 proved as a likeness by borrowing his own words. 
 
 ^Vriting to me on the death of a friend whom we 
 both dearly loved, Charles Dickens says, " We must 
 close the ranks and march on." On a dreary English 
 winter day I close these pages, and escape from my 
 recollections by turning to my work. 
 
 WILKIE COLLINS. 
 
 London, iSth Januarj-, 1SS2. 
 
PRESS NOTICES 
 
 FECHTER'S ACTING. 
 
 vi 
 
PRESS NOTICES ON FECHTER'S ACTING. 
 
 The distinguished artist, whose name is prefixed 
 to these remarks, purposes to leave England for a 
 professional tour in the United States. A few words 
 from me, in reference to his merits as an actor, I hope 
 may not be uninteresting to some readers, in advance of 
 his publicly proving them before an American audi- 
 ence, and I know will not be unacceptable to my inti- 
 mate friend. I state at once that Mr. Fechter holds 
 that relation towards me ; not only because it is the 
 fact, but also because our friendship originated in my 
 public appreciation of him. I had studied his acting 
 closely, and had admired it highly, both in Paris and in 
 London, years before we exchanged a word. Con- 
 sequently, my appreciation is not the result of per- 
 sonal regard, but personal regard has sprung out of my 
 appreciation. 
 
 The first quality observable in j\Ir. Fechter's acting 
 is, that it is in the highest degree romantic. However 
 elaborated in minute details, there is always a peculiar 
 dash and vigor in it, like the fresh atmosphere of the 
 story whereof it is a part. When he is on the stage, 
 it seems to me as though the story were transpiring 
 before me for the first and last time. Thus there is a 
 
178 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 fei-vor in his love-making — a suffusion of his whole 
 being with the rapture of his passion — that sheds a 
 glory on its object, and raises her, before the eyes of 
 the audience, into the light in which he sees her. 
 
 It was this remarkable power that took Paris by 
 storm, when he became famous in the lover's part in 
 the " Dame aux Camelias." It is a short part, really 
 comprised in two scenes ; but, as he acted it (he was 
 its original representative), he left its poetic and exalt- 
 ing influence on the heroine throughout the play. A 
 woman who could be so beloved, who could be so 
 devotedly and romantically adored, had a hold upon 
 the general sympathy with which nothing less absorbing 
 and complete could have invested her. 
 
 When I first saw this play and this actor, I could not, 
 in forming my lenient judgment of the heroine, forget 
 that she had been the inspiration of a passion of which 
 I had beheld such profound and affecting marks. I 
 said to myself, as a child might have said : " A bad 
 woman could not have been the object of that wonder- 
 ful tenderness, could not have subdued that worship- 
 ping heart, could not have drawn such tears from such 
 a lover." I am persuaded that the same effect was 
 wrought upon the Parisian audiences, both consciously 
 and unconsciously, to a very great extent, and that what 
 was morally disagi-eeable in the " Dame aux Came'lias " 
 first got lost in this brilliant halo of romance. I have 
 seen the same play with the same part otherwise acted;, 
 and in exact degree as the love became dull and earthy, 
 the heroine descended from her pedestal. 
 
 In "RuyBlas," in "The Master of Ravenswood," 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECILTER. 
 
 1/9 
 
 and in "The Lady of Lyons," — three dramas in which 
 Mr. Fechter especially shines as a lover, — but notably 
 in the first, this remarkable power of surrounding the 
 beloved creature, in the eyes of the audience, with the 
 fascination that she has for him, is strikingly displayed. 
 That observer must be cool indeed who does not feel, 
 when Riiy Bias stands in the presence of the young 
 unwedded Queen of Spain, that the air is enchanted ; 
 or when she bends over him, leaving her tender touch 
 upon his bloody breast, that it is better so to die than 
 to li\e apart from her, and that she is worthy to be so 
 died for. When the Master of Ravenswood declares 
 his love for Lucy Ashton, and she hers for him, and 
 when, in a burst of rapture, he kisses the skirt of her 
 dress, we feel as though we touched it ^vith our lips 
 to stay our goddess from soaring away into the very 
 heavens. And when they plight their troth and break 
 the piece of gold, it is we — not Edgar — who quickly 
 exchange our half for the half she was about to hang 
 around her neck, solely because the latter has for an in- 
 stant touched the bosom we so dearly love. Again, in 
 " The Lady of Lyons," the picture on the easel in the 
 poor cottage studio is not the unfinished portrait of a 
 vain and arrogant girl, but becomes the sketch of a 
 soul's high ambition and aspiration here and hereafter. 
 
 Picturesqueness is a quality above all others per- 
 vading Mr. Fechter's assumptions. Himself a skilled 
 painter and sculptor, learned in the history of costume, 
 and informing those accomplishments and that knowl- 
 edge with a similar infusion of romance (for romance 
 is inseparable from the man), he is always a picture, — 
 
l8o CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 always a picture in its right place in the group, always 
 in true composition with the background of the scene. 
 For picturesqueness of manner, note so trivial a thing 
 as the turn of his hand in beckoning from a window, in 
 "Ruy Bias," to a personage down in an outer court- 
 yard to come up ; or his assumption of the Duke's 
 livery in the same scene ; or his writing a letter from 
 dictation. In the last scene of Victor Hugo's noble 
 drama, his bearing becomes positively inspired ; and 
 his sudden assumption of the attitude of the heads- 
 man, in his denunciation of the Duke and threat to be 
 his executioner, is, so far as I know, one of the most 
 ferociously picturesque things conceivable on the stage. 
 The foregoing use of the word ferociously reminds 
 me to remark that this artist is a master of pas- 
 sionate vehemence ; in which aspect he appears to me 
 to represent, perhaps more than any other, an interest- 
 ing union of characteristics of two great nations, the 
 French and the Anglo-Saxon.^ Born in London of a 
 French mother, by a German father, but reared entirely 
 in England and in France, there is, in his fuiy, a com- 
 bination of French suddenness and impressibiUt}' with 
 our more slowiy demonstrative Anglo-Saxon way when 
 we get, as we say, " our blood up," that produces an 
 intensely fiery result. The fusion of two races is in 
 it, and one cannot decidedly say that it belongs to 
 either ; but one can most decidedly say that it belongs 
 to a pow-erful concentration of human passion and 
 emotion, and to human nature. 
 
 ^ This is a mistake ; Fechter's mother was Piemontese. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EEC LITER. igi 
 
 Mr. Fechter has been in the main more accustomed 
 to speak French than to speak English, and therefore 
 he speaks our language with a French accent. But 
 whosoever would suppose that he does not speak 
 English fluently, plainly, distinctly, and with a perfect 
 understanding of the meaning, weight, and value of 
 every word, would be greatly mistaken. Not only is 
 his knowledge of English — extending to the most sub- 
 tle idiom or the most recondite cant phrase — more 
 extensive than that of many of us who have Enghsh for 
 our mother tongue, but his delivery of Shakespeare's 
 blank verse is remarkable, facile, musical, and intelligent. 
 To be in a sort of pain for him, as one sometimes is for a 
 foreigner speaking English, or to be in any doubt of his 
 having twenty synonymes at his tongue's end if he 
 should want one, is out of the question after haWng 
 been of his audience. 
 
 A few words of two of his Shakespearian imperson- 
 ations, and I shall have indicated enough in advance 
 of Mr. Fechter's presentation of himself. That quality 
 of picturesqueness, on which I have akeady laid stress, 
 is strikingly developed in his lago ; and yet it is so ju- 
 diciously governed that his lago is not in the least 
 picturesque according to the conventional ways of 
 frowning, sneering, diabolically grinning, and elabo- 
 rately doing everything else that would induce Othello 
 to run him through the body very early in the play. 
 Mr. Fechter is the lago who could and did make^ 
 friends ; who could dissect his master's soul without 
 flourishing his scalpel as if it were a walking-stick ; who 
 could overpower Emilia by other arts than a sign of 
 
1 82 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 the Saracen's Head grimness ; who could be a boon 
 companion without ipso facto warning all beholders off 
 by the portentous phenomenon ; who could sing a 
 song and cHnk a can naturally enough, and stab men 
 really in the dark, — not in a transparent notification 
 of himself as going about seeking whom to stab. ^Mr. 
 Fechter's lago is no more in the conventional psycho- 
 logical mode than in the conventional hussar panta- 
 loons and boots ; and you shall see the picturesqueness 
 of his wearing borne out in his bearing all tlirough the 
 tragedy, down to the moment when he becomes invin- 
 cibly and consistently dumb. 
 
 y- Perhaps no innovation in art was ever accepted mth 
 so much favor by so many intellectual persons, pre- 
 committed to and preoccupied by another system, as 
 Mr. Fechter's Hamlet. I take this to have been the 
 case (as it unquestionably was in London), not because 
 of its pictm'esqueness, not because of its novelt}% not 
 because of its many scattered beauties, but because of its 
 perfect consistency with itself. As the animal painter 
 said of his favorite picture of rabbits, that '■' there was 
 more nature about those rabbits than you usually found 
 in rabbits," so it may be said of ls\x. Fechter's Hamlet, 
 that there was more consistency about that Hamld 
 than ^-ou usually found in Hamlets. 
 
 Its great and satisfying originality was in its possess- 
 ing the merit of a distinctly conceived and executed 
 idea. From the first appearance of the broken glass 
 of fashion and mould of form, pale and worn with weep- 
 ing for his father's death, and remotely suspicious of its 
 cause, to his final struggle with Horatio for the fatal 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FEC LITER. 
 
 183 
 
 cup, there were cohesion and coherence in Mr. Fech- 
 ter's view of tlie character. 
 
 De\Tient, the German actor, had, some years before 
 in Lx)ndon, fluttered the theatrical doves considerably 
 by such changes as being seated when instructing the 
 jilayers, and like mild departures from established 
 usage ; but he had worn, in the main, the old nonde- 
 script dress, and had held forth, in the main, in the old 
 way, hovering between sanity and madness. I do not 
 remember whether he wore his hair crisply curled short, 
 as if he were going to an everlasting dancing-master's 
 party at the Danish Court, but I do remember that 
 most other Handds since the great Kemble have been 
 bound to do so. Mr. Fechter's Havilct, a pale woe- 
 begone Norseman with long flaxen hair, wearing a 
 strange garb never associated with the part upon the 
 English stage (if ever seen there at all), and making a 
 piratical swoop upon the whole fleet of little theatrical 
 prescriptions without meaning, — or, like Dr. Johnson's 
 celebrated friend, with only one idea in them and that a 
 wTong one, — never could have achieved its extraordi- 
 nary success but for its animation by one per\'ading 
 purpose to which all changes were made intelhgibly 
 subser\'ient. Tlie bearing of this purpose on the treat- 
 ment of Ophelia, on the death of Pohmius, and on the 
 old student fellowship between Hamlet and Horatio, 
 was exceedingly strikisg ; and the difference between 
 picturesqueness of stage arrangement for mere stage 
 effect, and for the elucidation of a meaning, was well 
 displayed in there having been a gallery of musicians at 
 the play, and in one of tljem passing, on his way out. 
 
1 84 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 with his instrument in his hand, when Hmiilet, seeing 
 it, took it from him to point his talk with Rosencrantz 
 and Guildcnstern. 
 
 This leads me to the observation with which I have 
 all along desired to conclude : that Mr. Fechter's ro- 
 mance and picturesqueness are always united to a true 
 artist's intelligence and a true artist's training in a true 
 -artist's spirit. He became one of the company at the 
 Theatre Frangais when he was a very young man, and 
 he has cultivated his natural gifts in the best schools. 
 I cannot wish my friend a better audience than he will 
 have in the American people, and I cannot wish them 
 a better actor than they will have in my friend. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 [Atlantic Monthly, August, 1869.] * 
 
 There was something so decidedly novel in Mr. 
 Fechter's performance of Hamlet, and it so long re- 
 mained a subject of interest, not only with his admirers 
 but with those who questioned the correctness of his 
 theory, that the announcement of his intended appear- 
 ance as Othello, made several months since, has proved 
 a source of general curiosity among the large body of 
 literary playgoers who properly regard the representa- 
 tions of Shakespeare's characters as the highest test of 
 histrionic excellence. Whether the more impassioned 
 Othello, prompt in physical action, would appear to 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. ig- 
 
 greater or less advantage under his treatment than the 
 more reflective Hamlet, infirm of purpose, all might be 
 certain that nothing commonplace or conventional 
 would be witnessed, but that an intellectual and con- 
 scientious artist would present them with an interpre- 
 tation not founded on stage tradition, but derived 
 solely from a study of Shakespeare's text. Nor was 
 curiosity disappointed by the fact that a private per- 
 formance of " Othello," too complete to be termed a 
 rehearsal, took place on Thursday night, in the pres- 
 ence of a numerous though select audience. Indeed, 
 those who did not belong to the exclusive party on 
 Tuesday were eager yesterday morning to question 
 their more privileged friends ; and the anxiety to know 
 the result of the first public performance, which took 
 place last night, was rather heightened than quenched 
 by the partial revelations of the previous evening. 
 
 An edition of " Othello," by Mr. Fechter, circulated 
 on Tuesday and now regularly published, sufficed to 
 show that in the entire conduct of the play a com- 
 pletely new ground would be taken. There is not in 
 this edition a single explanatory note, but the minute 
 stage directions, which even describe the emotions to 
 be portrayed, amount to a psychological comment on 
 the tragedy. German dramatists, of the Kotzebue 
 school, wTOte and printed their own stage directions 
 on a similar principle, and have sometimes been ridi- 
 culed on that account, as fliey were charged with en- 
 deavoring to conceal the poverty of their dialogue by 
 the wealth of their rubric. No such ridicule can attach 
 to Mr. Fechter, who interprets an author already estab- 
 
135 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 lished as classical, and who wishes to show by precept, 
 as well as by example, his notions how '' Othello " 
 ought to be represented. 
 
 The theory of Mr. Fechter, practically manifested 
 last night, is not to be sought merely in his own per- 
 formance of the principal character. The lago of Mr. 
 Ryder and the Desde?nona of Miss Leclercq must be 
 regarded as embodying to a certain extent the con- 
 ceptions of the ingenious innovator ; for they must have 
 been forced to unlearn all they retained of stage tradi- 
 tions before they could move easily in the path pre- 
 scribed for them in the rehearsals. All these details 
 of action which are technically expressed by the word 
 business have been changed, and the work is pre- 
 sented under an aspect entirely new. People sit where 
 they were v/ont to stand, are scattered about where they 
 used to be huddled together, and reformed into pictur- 
 esque groups where they once were marshalled into 
 unvarying straight lines. When Othello hears the first 
 insinuations of lago he is quietly writing his despatches 
 at a table ; when lago utters his satire against woman, 
 he is leaning on a pillar with his merry listeners gath- 
 ered around him ; when the death of Roderigo takes 
 place, it is witli all the preparation and circumstances 
 of a grand melodramatic murder ; and so on through 
 the entire piece, — having in his preface declared war 
 against " tradition " as the worm-eaten and unwhole- 
 some prison where dramatic art languishes in fetters. 
 
 \Londoii Times, Oct. 24, 1S61.] 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 187 
 
 ..-' Mr. Fechter skilfully simulates the tenderness and 
 devotion of a new-made husband. The rapid tran- 
 sition of feeling, as he suddenly passes from the 
 happy dalliance of love to the stern business of the 
 camp, is also well marked ; and his severe reproof to 
 his officers for managing their private and domestic 
 quarrels in a town of war, where the people's hearts are 
 brimful of fear, is deli\-ered with impressive dignity of 
 tone, manner, and aspect. The third act is, as every 
 one knows, the grandest and most sublime in the 
 tragedy. The beauties of Mr. Fechter's acting in this 
 all-important portion of the play are neither few nor 
 trivial. His blank look of horror when his torturer 
 first infuses the poison of suspicion by means of the 
 perfidious suggestion, " She did deceive her father, 
 marrying you ; " his attempt to shake off his misgiv- 
 ings as a fearful dream ; his struggle to speak calmly 
 while his agony is revealed by the little movements 
 of his hands, the twitching of the muscles of his face, 
 and the slight but fearful trembling of his veins ; the 
 brief return of love to his bursting heart when Desde- 
 vi07ia approaches him ; and the bitter anguish with 
 which he refers to the afflictions he could have borne 
 had his wife but remained tnie to him, — are all thrill- 
 ingly visible to those whose proximity to the stage ena- 
 bles them to observe closely the play of the actor's 
 features, and the significance of his minutest gesture. 
 The profound dejection of his voice and manner when, 
 in reply to lago's proffers of sympathy, he exclaims 
 with a sigh like a spasm, " Not a jot, not a jot," is per- 
 fectly heart-breaking \ and the proud disdain which 
 
I 88 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 swells in his bosom when he utters the humiliating 
 words, " Set on thy wife to observe " is finely con- 
 ceived and forcibly expressed. But his mode of ex- 
 claiming " O fool ! fool ! fool ! " when he discovers 
 how he has been abused, like one awakening from a 
 trance of horrors of which he is scarcely conscious, 
 and his last sad retrospect of the sorrows of his life 
 and of the angelic qualities of his lost love, are most 
 impressive ; as also is the wild despair with which he 
 hangs over the body of Desdemona and vainly calls 
 upon her by name. 
 
 \London Morning Post, Oct. 21, 1861.] 
 
 The success which attended Mr. Fechter's assump- 
 tion of the character of Hainlei Xd&i season completely 
 accounts for the curiosity of the public, demonstrated 
 in an unusually crowded house which was exhibited 
 last night when he attempted Othello. The fact that 
 Mr. Fechter played Hamlet seventy-five times proves 
 the effect of his performance upon the general public. 
 That he made a deep impression uj^on the most intel- 
 lectual of playgoers, — and moreover upon a class of 
 persons who of late have been accustomed to look 
 upon theatrical exhibitions with a feeling nearly akin 
 to contempt, — is also well known to most of those 
 who have the opportunity of forming correct opinions 
 on such matters. 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. 
 
 189 
 
 In the first two acts Othello has httle to do ; but in 
 these, in the dignity with which he receives the re- 
 proaches of Brabantio, and in tlie frank, easy, yet per- 
 suasive deUvery of the apology, the true dramatic artist 
 could be seen. In the scene in which Othello interrupts 
 and reproves the drunkenness of Cassia, the assump- 
 tion of dignity to which we have been accustomed, 
 and which was wanting in Mr^ Fechter, was undoubt- 
 edly more effective, but less true to a natural view of 
 the character. It is by the third act that every Othello 
 must be tested. Here a striking change has been in- 
 troduced ; it is not till late in the scene that Othello 
 is made to yield to a suspicion of his wife's falsehood. 
 He appears first to disregard or to utterly misunder- 
 stand the innuendoes of lago, then to accept them as 
 general reflections not applicable to himself any more 
 than to any one else. Next, as they are reiterated, he 
 becomes, in the simple honesty of his nature, completely 
 puzzled ; but not till lago alludes to Brabantio''s early 
 warning, in the lines " She did deceive her father, mar- 
 r)^ing you," does the actual suspicion strike him, as with 
 a thunderstruck expression he exclaims, " And so she 
 did." Mr. Fechter's utterance of " Not a jot, not a 
 jot," was remarkably expressive, and drew forth one of 
 the loudest bursts of applause of the evening. It is 
 just after this that he catches a sight of his black face in) 
 the glass ; and, as lago proceeds, he continually glances 
 in the direction of the mirror, till he is worked up to 
 request lago to set on Emilia " to obser\e," — immedi- 
 ately after suggesting which, an expression of the deepest 
 shame breaks over his countenance. This new treat- 
 
190 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 ment of the scene affords room not for so much energy 
 as we have witnessed, but for numerous delicate and 
 subtle touches. Again, in the subsequent scene, the 
 Farewell is accompanied with action most varied and 
 expressive. The eager look with which Othello drinks 
 in lago's story of Cassia's dream was a remarkable in- 
 stance of facial expression, and the agitation and ex- 
 citement that goes on increasing throughout this scene 
 was finely marked. Another fine passage was the 
 Handkerchief scene with Desdevioiia. The intense 
 expectation with which he watched the result of his 
 first enquiry, the doubts, the delight with which for a 
 moment he drew her to his bosom, where she says " it 
 is not lost," with his subsequent repulse of her, and the 
 towering passion of his demand for its production, were 
 most effective ; and the picture formed by the sudden 
 appearance of Emilia, just as his arm is raised to strike 
 Desdemona, made a most fitting close to this part of the 
 scene. The fourth act, — where he receives the letter 
 from the Senate, and behaves with such violence to his 
 wife, — whilst equally effective, was rendered less than 
 ordinarily painful by the evident strong feeling by which 
 every tone and movement appears to be dictated. 
 
 [Lofiilon Morjung Herald, Oct. 24, 1861.] 
 
 It is not until the third act that Mr. Fechter puts 
 forth any of his powers, and up to that period many 
 celebrated speeches, hitherto known as points, fall 
 
CHARLES ALBERT EEC LITER. 
 
 191 
 
 flatly enough upon the ear. The Address to the Senate 
 for instance, which has for so long held an Enfield's 
 Speakerish celebrity on oration days at minor schools, 
 is divested of all that rotundity of eloquence and pom- 
 pous manner hitherto allotted to it. In Mr. Fechter's 
 mouth it is simply an honest apology for a natural action 
 colloquially delivered. In the second act, too, there 
 is nothing specially noticeable saving the ovenveening 
 tenderness invariably displayed to Desdemona, and the 
 purely natural savage tone in which the " noisy bell " 
 is ordered to be silenced, during the drunken quarrel be- 
 tsveen Cassio and Montatw. But the whole of the third 
 act, as far as Othello is concerned, sparkles into original 
 genius when lago first asks about Cassia's acquaint- 
 ance with Desdemona. Otiiello answers him lightly. 
 He is looking over some papers, and speaks at first al- 
 most at random. Then, finding his interlocutor repeating 
 his phrases and harping with full power on certain words, 
 he rallies him lightly and playfully. Not even when the 
 suggestion of his wife's infidelity is made, does he wince, 
 until lago reminds him of the manner in which she 
 deceives her father. Then his face falls, and the avowal 
 " .\nd so she did," comes in drear)- heart-broken accents 
 fi-om between his parted lips. The entire scene is re- 
 plete with beauties. Nothing can be finer than the 
 touch of nature conveyed in the tone in which he re- 
 plies "■ Not a jot, not a jot," when lago hints that he 
 has dashed his spirits ; nothing more suggestive than the 
 abrupt stop which the noble-hearted J/^^t^r comes to when 
 the hint, so loathsome to his real nature, — that Emilia 
 should be set on to watch Desdemona, — first rises to his 
 
192 
 
 CHARLES ALBERT FECHTER. 
 
 lips ; nothing grander than the gradual rousing of liis 
 rage during lago's recital of Cassia's dream, and the 
 vehement burst with which he declares that he will be 
 satisfied of his wife's fidelity. 
 
 It is in touches of this kind — and there are dozens 
 of them tliroughout the play — that Mr. Fechter's ge- 
 nius is shown. 
 
 \London Daily N'rws, Oct. 24, 1861.] 
 
 In the third act, and especially in the scene where 
 his jealousy is first aroused by lago, the powers of the 
 actor began to be displayed. Nothing could be finer 
 than the constrained calmness with which he attempts 
 to defend himself from the accusation of being de- 
 pressed by the suspicions the tempter has aroused in 
 his mind. The apparently commonplace words " Not 
 a jot, not a jot " were never uttered in a tone of truer 
 pathos. Then again when, more and more persuaded 
 of his wife's infidelity, he begs lago to place Emilia as 
 a spy upon Desdcinona, the expression of shame and 
 anguish that immediately followed was most finely ren- 
 dered. Both these points were at once obser\'ed by the 
 audience, and the applause ehcited w^as of the most 
 enthusiastic character. 
 
 In the second scene of the fourth act, too, Othello's 
 burst of tender pathos, after denouncing Desdernona as 
 false, had all the effect of a sudden inspiration, and 
 touched the sympathies of the entire house. In the 
 
CHARLES ALBERT FECIITER. jq^ 
 
 last act Mr. Fechter gave singular significance to the 
 opening lines of the scene, " It is the cause, it is the 
 cause, my soul," by glancing at himself in the mirror 
 as he spoke, as though exposing Desdcmona's frailty by 
 the color of his face, — thus recurring to an idea ex- 
 pressed in a previous part of the play. 
 
 Throughout the representation it was easy to see that 
 an original mind had been at work, and this not only 
 in one character but in all ; and we believe we are justi- 
 fied in stating that to Mr. Fechter are due the many 
 novelties introduced into the stage arrangements of the 
 piece. Nearly all, in fact, of what is called by actors 
 the business of the tragedy, is entirely new. 
 
 {London Daily Telegraph, Oct. 24, 1S61.] 
 
INDEX. 
 
 " A HI ME, L' " (" No Thorough- 
 fare "), 59, 70. 
 
 Academic des Beaux Arts, 15, 
 18, 19, 21. 
 
 Adelphi Theatre, London, 59, 
 70. 79, 167. 
 
 Albert Edward, Priitce of 
 IVah's, 57, 61. 
 
 Albert, Prince Consort, t^-x,. 
 
 Ambigu, L', Paris, 32, y^,, 34, 
 
 36.41- 
 " Andre Gerard," 47. 
 '* Angcle," 36. 
 " Antigone," 32. 
 Arcachon, France, 4. 
 Athenccum (London) on Fcch- 
 
 ter's acting, 51. 
 Aiiqier, Emilc, 4S. 
 
 Baptiste, Mlle., 32. 
 Baptiste, Xicolas-Anselm, 32. 
 Barriire, Theodore, 39, 44. 
 Barry, Spranger, (yj. 
 Bayard, Jean- Francois- Alfred, 
 
 31. 39- 
 
 Beaiimarehais, Pierre-Augiiste, 
 
 47- 
 Beauvallet, Pierre-Fran(ois, 17, 
 18, 27. 
 
 "Bel Demonio," 54, 55. 
 "Belle Gabrielle, La," 46. 
 Belle-w, Pe?: J. N., 147. 
 " Belphegor," 56. 
 Beraiid, Anthony, 32. 
 Berlin, Prussia, 29, 30. 
 Bernhardt, Sara, 148. 
 Berton, CharUs-Francesqiie, 171, 
 
 172. 
 Bettertotij Thomas, 114, 115. 
 Birmingham, England, 59. 
 '• Black and ^Yhite " 59, 60, 
 
 61, 78, 158, 166-16S. 
 Bocage, Pierre-M. T, 32, yj, 
 
 38. 
 
 Bois de Boulogne, 8, 9. 
 
 Booth, Barton, 1 1 5. 
 
 Boston, Mass., 68, 69, 70, 71, 
 7Z, 74. 75. 78. 80, 140. 
 
 Boston Theatre, 68, 69. 
 
 Boulognc-sur-Seine, 7. 
 
 Bourgeois, Aiigitste-Anicet, 36. 
 
 " Bride of Lammermoor " 
 (" ^L^stcr of Ravens- 
 wood"), 58, 152, 15S, 17S- 
 
 179- 
 " Britannicus," 48. 
 Brut IIS, Ala reus, 107. 
 Buloz, Francois, 28. 
 
196 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Bulwer, Lytto7i, 37, 68, 122, 
 
 123, 125. 
 Biirbage, Richard, 114. 
 
 C^SAR, Julius, 107. 
 Cafe Militaire, Paris, 7. 
 Cartigny, Claude-Charles, 32. 
 Cary, Alary, 74. 
 " Catilina," 36. 
 Cellini, Benvettuto, 4. 
 Cetywayo (King of the Zulus), 
 
 156. 
 "Chalet, Le," 30. 
 Chanfrati, Mrs. I/etirietta, 74. 
 Charles II. of England, 27. 
 "Charles VII.", 36. 
 Cheney, Arthur, 73, 75, 76, 77, 
 
 78. 
 " Chevalier de St. George, Le," 
 
 31- 
 
 Charley, Henry F., 50. 
 Chw-chill, Charles, ij6. 
 Cibber, Colley, 1 14, 115. 
 " Claudie," 37-39, 41- 
 Cocomero, Florence, 12. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,^"], 92. 
 Collins, IVilkie, mention, 59, 
 
 69-71, 78, 143-146- 
 his sketch of Charles Fech- 
 
 ter, 1 54 et seq. 
 Cologne, 4. 
 Comedie Fran9aise, 56 note, 
 
 145, 148. 
 Conservatoire, Paris, 10, 15, 
 
 16, 18, 19, 43. 
 " Contes de Boccace, Les," 39, 
 
 43- 
 
 Continental Hotel, Philadel- 
 phia, 140. 
 
 Cooke, George Frederick, 115. 
 
 Cornel lie, 20, 25,47. 
 
 " Corsair, Le", 30. 
 
 " Corsican Brothers, The," 37, 
 
 41, 50. 59. 73. 79. 135 
 et seq., 138, 152. 
 
 " Coucher d'une Etoile, Le," 
 
 39- 
 
 " Courier of Lyons, The, "36. 
 
 Covent Garden Theatre, Lon- 
 don, 122. 
 
 Dacier, M. (baritone), 29. 
 
 Daly, H. F., 74. 
 
 " Dame aux Camelias, La," 
 
 26, 34, 39-43. 45. 147, 154, 
 
 178. 
 Davenport, Lizzie Weston (Mrs. 
 
 Charles Mathews), 151. 
 Decourcelles, Adrien, 34-36. 
 " Demi-monde, The," 171. 
 De Montepin, Xavier-Aymon, 
 
 " Depit, Le," 28. 
 Desnoyer, Charles, 36. 
 Desrieux, Maurice, 171, 172. 
 " Dettes de Coeur, Les," 40. 
 Dearie fit. Emit, 183. 
 " Diable, Le," 37, 39. 
 Dic/cens, Charles, dedication, 
 
 SO, 56, 59, 65, 67, 69-70, 
 
 Si. 83, 163, 173. 
 on Fechter's acting, 50, 149, 
 
 '5-- 1 53- 177 <-'( ^^^■ 
 Didier, Prof, 18. 
 Doche, Mme. (Marie-Charlotte- 
 Eugenie de Plunkett), 40, 
 
 42, 146, 147. 
 
 " Don Caesar de Bazan," 50, 
 
 73, 78, 132 et seq., 150. 
 Dore, Gustave, 1 41. 
 D' Or say. Count, 33. 
 " Douglas," 155. 
 
INQEX. 
 
 197 
 
 Drurv Lane Theatre, London, 
 
 6. 
 Dublin, Ireland, 114. 
 Dudci'ant, Mme. (" George 
 
 Sand "), 37-39- 
 " Duke's Motto, The," 54, 67, 
 
 69, 13S, 15F, 15S. 
 Dumas, Alexandre (elder), 9, 
 
 12, 2S, 36, 37. 135, 136, 
 
 139. 17'- 
 Dumas, Alexandre (younger), 
 
 39,40, 154. 
 on Fechter's acting, 41-42. 
 Dttpin, yean-Hcnri, 31. 
 Duvernoir, Prof, (manager), 
 
 10, 12, 13. 
 Dut'eyrier, Aniu-Honare-yoseph 
 
 ("Melesville"), 31. 
 
 Elizabeth (Queen of Frede- 
 rick William IV. of Prus- 
 sia), 30, 31. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 128. 
 
 " Enfants d'Edouard, Les," 30. 
 
 Enfield, William, 191. 
 
 Essler, feanne, 40. 
 
 Falconer, EoMrND, 150. 
 " Famille Thurcau, La," 34. 
 Fechtcr, Charles : 
 
 his mixed nationality, 4, 5, 
 180. 
 
 birth, 5. 
 
 early passion for the Drama, 
 
 5- 
 early experiences as a player, 
 
 6,7. 
 education, 6, 7. 
 assists his father in the 
 
 studio, 7, 10. 
 fights a duel, 7-9. 
 
 Fechtcr, Charles: 
 
 first appearance as a player, 
 9-10. 
 
 engagement in Florence, 
 10-13. 
 
 adventure with a highway- 
 man, 12-13. 
 
 studies sculpture, 15, 18. 
 
 studies acting, 15-18, 20. 
 
 gains grand medal at Beaux 
 Arts, and admission to 
 the Theatre Fran9ais, 21. 
 
 decides upon following the 
 stage, 21-22. 
 
 debut at Theatre Fran9ais, 
 22. 
 
 quarrels with Jules Janin, 
 26. 
 
 returns to sculpture, 29. 
 
 dramatic career in Berlin, 
 
 30- 
 engages at Vaudeville in 
 
 Paris, 31, 39. 
 engages at Varietes in Paris, 
 
 35- 
 
 engages at Theatre Histo- 
 rique in Paris, 36, 37. 
 
 engages at L' Ambigu in 
 Paris, 36. 
 
 engages at Porte-Saint-Mar- 
 tin in Paris, 37, 46. 
 
 engages at Odeon in Paris, 
 
 47- 
 first appearance in London, 
 
 32-34- 
 quarrels with " George 
 
 Sand," 37-39- 
 provincial tours in France, 
 
 45-. 
 provincial tours in Great 
 Britain, 59. 
 
198 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fechtcr, Charles : 
 
 second engagement in Lon- 
 don, 49 ct scq. 
 
 opens Lyceum Theatre, Lon- 
 don, 54 ct scq. 
 
 marriage, 56. 
 
 visit to America (1S70), 61, 
 64 et seq. 
 
 first appearance in New 
 York, 65. 
 
 first appearance in Boston, 
 68. 
 
 association with Arthur 
 Cheney, 73 et scq. 
 
 opens Globe Theatre, Boston, 
 74 et scq. 
 
 quarrels with J. W. Wal- 
 lack, Jr., 75-77. 
 
 beginning of his decline in 
 powers and attractions, 
 79, 80, 81, 82, 172. 
 
 opens Lyceum Theatre, New 
 York, 79. 
 
 returns to London (1872), 
 
 79- 
 opens Park Theatre, New 
 
 York, 80. 
 seeks seclusion on his farm, 
 
 81. 
 ill health, 81, 82. 
 death, 82. 
 burial, 83. 
 grave, 83. 
 generosity, 39, 55. 
 personal courage, 7-9, 34, 
 
 44-45- 
 personal attractions and 
 
 magnetism, 83, 150, 162, 
 
 169. 
 personal appearance, 1 1 5- 
 
 116. 
 
 Fechter, Charles: 
 character, 84, 153. 
 accomplishments, 34, 41,116, 
 
 117, 179. 
 hot temper, 29, 39, 44, 45, 
 
 75, 77, 149, 150, 152-153, 
 
 161-162. 
 loose ideas of pecuniary 
 
 responsibility, 160-161. 
 disregard for conventionali- 
 ties of society, 168 ^/ scq. 
 stage fright, 164-166. 
 invention, 6, 166. 
 humor, 171. 
 list of parts, 28, 30, 36, 37, 
 
 39-40, 43, 46, 48, 73, 78. 
 his Annand in " Dame aux 
 
 Came lias, "40-43, 147, 178. 
 his Claude jMeltiottc'm " Lady 
 
 of Lyons," 59, 121 ct seq. 
 his Don Ccrsarde Bazan, 132. 
 his Edgar in " Master of 
 
 Ravenswood " {" Bride of 
 
 Lammermoor "), 58, 179. 
 his Fahicn and Louis dei 
 
 Franchi in "The Corsican 
 
 Brothers," 135 et seq. 
 his Frederic de Mar sail in 
 
 " On Demande un Gouver- 
 
 neur," 131 ^Z seq. 
 his Hatnlet, 50, 52, 68, 87 
 
 ct scq., 148, 150, 153, 158, 
 
 1S2-1S5, 1S8. 
 his lago in " Othello," 53, 
 
 148, 153, 1 58, 181-182. 
 his Karl in " Love's Pen- 
 ance," 80. 
 his Motitc Crista, 136 et scq. 
 his Oheiircizcr in " No 
 
 Thoroughfare," 59, 71-72, 
 
 163, 166. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 199 
 
 Fechter, Charles: 
 
 his Othello, 52, 14S, 152, 158, 
 
 iSi, 1S4-1S6, 1S7-193. 
 his Ploughboy in " Claudie," 
 
 38. 
 
 his Ruy Bias, 65-66, 79, 148, 
 158, 179-180. 
 
 his Seide in " Mahomet," 22- 
 24. 
 
 his Tarliiffe, 47-48. 
 
 his ralere in " Tartuffe," 
 24, 25. 
 
 Wilkie Collins on his acting, 
 \S4efse<j. 
 
 Charles Dickens on his act- 
 ing, 50, 149, 152-153, 177 
 el seq. 
 
 Alexandre Dumas (younger) 
 on his acting, 41-42. 
 
 Frederic Lemaitre on his 
 acting, 42. 
 
 Geo. H. Lewes on his act- 
 ing. 51-52, mS. 
 
 London Athenaium on his 
 
 acting, 51. 
 London Daily News on his 
 
 acting, 190 if/ seq. 
 London Daily Telegraph on 
 
 his acting, 192 et seq. 
 London Morning Herald on 
 
 his acting, iSS et seq. 
 London Morning Post on his 
 
 acting, 187 et seq. 
 London Times on his acting, 
 
 65, 79, 1S4 et seq. 
 Regnier on his acting, 28. 
 Saturday Review on his act- 
 ing, 51. 
 Herman Vezin on his acting, 
 
 1 50 et seq. 
 John Weiss on his acting, 68. 
 
 Feehter, Charles : 
 
 William Winter on his act- 
 ing, 80. 
 Edmund Vates on his acting, 
 147 et seq. 
 
 Fechter, Mine. Charles (Mile. 
 Roebert), 56 note. 
 
 Fechter, yeati-Maria-Guillantue 
 (father of Charles Fech- 
 ter), 4, 5, 7, ID, 15, 21, 22, 
 180. 
 
 Fechter, Maria (daughter of 
 Charles Fechter), 56 note, 
 14S. 
 
 Fechter, Marie- A ngilique-Regis 
 (mother of Charles Fech- 
 ter), 3, 4, 15, 180. 
 
 Fechter, Paul (son of Charles 
 Fechter), 56-57, 148. 
 
 Felix, Rachel (Mile. Rachel), 9, 
 19, 24, 25, 27, 28. 
 
 Felix, Rebecca, 19, 22. 
 
 " Femmes Savantes, Les," 28. 
 
 Fh'al, Paul, 36, 53. 
 
 Field, Nat., 74. 
 
 Fields, James T., 71. 
 
 " Fille de Trente Ans, La," 39, 
 
 43- 
 
 " Fille du Regent, La," 28. 
 
 " Filles de Marbre, Les," 39. 
 
 " Fils Aymon, Les," 36. 
 
 " Fils de la Nuit," 46. 
 
 Florence, Italy, lo, 11, 12. 
 
 Fontainblcau, ■^^. 
 
 Fould, Achille, 48. 
 
 "Fourberies de Scapin, Les," 
 28. 
 
 Foiirnier, Marc-yeati-Lotiis, 36. 
 
 Fourteenth Street Theatre, 
 New York (French Theatre, 
 Lyceum Theatre), 73, 79. 
 
200 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Frederick William IV. (of Prus- 
 sia), 31. 
 
 French Theatre, New York, 
 (Fourteenth Street Theatre, 
 Lyceum Theatre), 73, 79. 
 
 Gadshill (Swiss chalet), 163. 
 
 Gaiete Theatre, Paris, 36. 
 
 Garrick, David, 58, 67, 1 14, 1 1 5, 
 116, 155. 
 
 Gassier, J/, (singer), 170, 171, 
 172. 
 
 Gastati, M. (actor), 10. 
 
 Geoffroy,Jea)i- Maria-Michel, Z2. 
 
 " George Saiid " (Mme. Dude- 
 vant), 37-39. 
 
 Gearges, Mile., 7. 
 
 Giotto de B or done, 134. 
 
 Glasgow, Scotland, 59. 
 
 Globe Theatre, Boston, 74-78, 
 79. 140. 
 
 Globe Theatre,London (Shake- 
 speare's), 74. 
 
 Goethe, 31, 87, 89, 112, 113. 
 
 " Golden Dagger.The," 53, 150. 
 
 Gozlan, Leon, 36, 39. 
 
 Grand Opera House, Xew 
 York, 79. 
 
 Griffith, G. H., 74. 
 
 G}Tnnase (Theatre), Paris, 29, 
 30. 43- 
 
 " Hamlet," 5, 50-51, 52, 53, 54, 
 
 55-56,58,61,68,73.78,87 
 
 • et seq., 137, 147, 148, 150- 
 
 152, 153, 157, 158, 1S2-184, 
 
 185, 1S8. 
 
 Harris, Augustus (elder), 48, 
 
 52, 53. 54- 
 Harris, Augustus (younger). 
 
 Harrison, William, 53, 54. 
 Haver ley, J. H., 73. 
 Hazlitt, William, 106 note, 13S. 
 Hendrich, Hermann, 153. 
 Herald (London) on Fechter's 
 
 acting, 188 et seq. 
 Herder, John Gottfried, 31. 
 Hersant, M. (drawing-master), 
 
 7- 
 " Honneur et I'Argent, L' ," 47. 
 " Horaces, Les," 25, 27. 
 " Hortense de Ceruy," 39, 40, 
 
 41. 
 Hugo, Victor, 57, 157,180. 
 Hunt, Leigh, 117. 
 
 Janin, Jules, 25-26. 
 " Jeunesse Doree," 36. 
 " Jeunesse, La," 48. 
 yohnsoti, Samuel, 1S3. 
 yo7ies, Meli/ida, 74. 
 yonson, Ben, 137. 
 yosset, M. (actor), 32. 
 
 KE-A.X, Charles, 54, 136. 
 Kean, Edmund, 63, 106 note, 
 
 112, 115, 117, 157. 
 Kemble, Charles, 6, 92. 
 Kemble, yohn Philip, III, 114, 
 
 115, 116, 183. 
 " King Lear," 137. 
 " King's Butterfly, The," 56. 
 Kotzebue, Augustus F. F. von., 
 
 1S5. 
 
 Labrousse, Fabric - Jean- 
 
 Baptiste, 36. 
 "Lady of Lyons, The," 59, 61, 
 
 6S, 73, 78, 79, 121 et seq., 
 
 158, 179. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 20 1 
 
 Laitdor, Walter Scn^age, 83. 
 Lane, Richard, 51. 
 La Rue, M. (actor), 27. 
 Leclcrcq, Arthur, 74. 
 LecUrcq, Carlotta, 6S, 74, 78, 
 
 157. 1S6. 
 Leclcrcq, Charles, 74. 
 LemAitre, Frederic, 31, 42, 47, 
 
 132, 134. 158. 
 Lemoyne, IF. J., 74. 
 Le-iVes, George Henry, on Fech- 
 
 ter's acting, 51, 52, 148. 
 "Lion et le Moucheron, Le," 
 
 Lisle, France, 4. 
 
 Liverpool, England, 59, 60. 
 
 London, England, 5, 32, t^t,, 49, 
 60, 61, 79, 136, 138, 150, 
 154, 167, 16S, 177, 180, 182, 
 183. 
 
 London Athenaeum on Fech- 
 ter's acting, 51. 
 
 London Daily News on Fech- 
 ter's acting, 190 et seq. 
 
 London Daily Telegraph on 
 Fechter's acting, 192 et seq. 
 
 London Morning Herald on 
 Fechter's acting, iS8 et seq. 
 
 London Morning Post on Fech- 
 ter's acting, 187 et seq. 
 
 London Times on Fechter's 
 acting, 65, 79, 184 et seq. 
 
 Lougfelhrdi, Henry IV., 71. 
 
 Lorentz (painter), 34. 
 
 Louis XIV. of France, 24. 
 
 "Louis XIV." (play), 36. 
 
 " Louis de Xanteuil," 39. 
 
 " Love's Penance," 80. 
 
 Loivell, James Russell, 87, 92. 
 
 Lyceum Theatre, London, 54, 
 58. 59. 79. 151- 
 
 Lyceum Theatre, New York, 
 (French Theatre, Fourteenth 
 Street Theatre), 73, 79. 
 
 Lyons, France, 45, 46. 
 
 Lytton, Lord (Bulwer-Lytton), 
 37, 68, 122, 123, 125. 
 
 " Macbeth," 5, 48, 137, 
 Macready, Wni. C, 6, III, 122, 
 
 123, 155, 156, 158. 
 Maddox, Mr. (manager), 33, 34, 
 
 48. 
 " Mahomet," 16, 20, 22, 24. 
 Mail lard, M. (actor), 27. 
 " Maison Neuve," 172. 
 Malibran, Mme., 6. 
 Manchester, England, 60, 61. 
 Ma quel, August e, 36, 40, 46. 
 " Marguerite," 31. 
 " Mari de la Veuve, Le," 9. 
 Mario, 156. 
 
 Marseilles, France, 13, 14. 
 Masson, Auguste-Michel, 36. 
 " Master of Ravenswood.The," 
 ("The Bride of Lammer- 
 moor "),58, 152, 158, 178-179. 
 Mathews, Charles (younger), 
 
 151. 
 Mathews, Mrs. Charles ( Lizzie 
 
 Weston Davenport), 151. 
 " Mauprat," 39. 
 " Mauvais Cceur," 36, 41. 
 Mecca, 22. 
 " Medecin des Enfants, Lc," 
 
 80. 
 Meissounier, Jean-Louis-Ernest, 
 
 47- 
 " Meles7'ille " (Anne-Honore- 
 
 Joseph-Duveyrier), 31. 
 " Menage Parisien, Lc," 28. 
 Mcnier, Pauline, 37. 
 
)02 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 "Menteur, Le," 25, 27. 
 
 Maurice, Paul, 56. 
 
 Michdot, Pierre-Maria-Nicho- 
 las, 16-17, iS. 
 
 " Midsummer Night's Dream, 
 The," 137. 
 
 " Misanthrope, Le," 28. 
 
 Moliere, 9, 12, 20, 25, 47. 
 
 " Money," 37. 
 
 Montalent, M. (actor), 32. 
 
 " Monte Cristo," 59, 74, 79, 136 
 et seq., 1 58. 
 
 Montgomery, Walter, 151. 
 
 Moran, M. (manager), 35. 
 
 Morny, Count, 43. 
 
 Mounet-Sully, Jean, 148. 
 
 " ^lountebank. The," 56. 
 
 Mount Vernon Cemetery, Phil- 
 adelphia, 83. 
 
 " Mysteres de Londres," 36. 
 
 Xapoleox, Louis, t,;^, 48-49. 
 
 News (London), on Fechter's 
 acting, 190 et seq. 
 
 New York, 65-6S, y^' 79> So, 
 82, 172. 
 
 Niblo's Garden Theatre, New- 
 York, 65. 
 
 Nohant, chateau de, 37. 
 
 " No Thoroughfare," 59, 69-73, 
 158, 163 et seq., 167. 
 
 " Notre Dame de Paris," 36. 
 
 Od^ox (Theatre), Paris, 46, 47. 
 " On Demand un Gouvemeur," 
 
 39, 44, 131 ''' -f^?- 
 " One Hundred Years Old," 30. 
 " Oscar XXVIII.," 34, 36. 
 "Othello," 5, 51-52, 53, 148, 
 
 152, 153,158, 181-182, 184 
 
 -186, 187-193. 
 
 " Pardon de Bretagne," 36. 
 Paris, France, 5, 7, 24, 26, 31, 
 
 34, 46, 49, 59, 80, 81, 145, 
 
 154, 177- 178. 
 Park Theatre, New York 
 ( Broadway, near Twenty- 
 Second Street), 80. 
 " Pattes de Mouche," 43. 
 " Pauline," 37. 
 Phelps, Samuel, 151. 
 Philadelphia, Pa.", 69, Si, 83, 
 
 146. 
 "Polka en Provence, La," 31. 
 Ponsard, Fraiifois. 47. 
 Porte Saint-Martin Theatre, 
 
 Paris, 37, 41, 46. 
 Post (London), on Fechter's 
 
 acting, 187 et seq. 
 Potsdam, Prussia, 31. 
 " Precieuses Ridicules, Les," 
 
 28. 
 Prifue Albert (Prince-Consort), 
 
 33 
 Priiice of Wales, ^j, 61. 
 Princess's Theatre, London, 
 
 33, 48, 49, 53, 54, 61. 
 Provost, Jean-Baptiste-Fratifois, 
 
 r6, 18. 
 
 QuiN. James, 114. 
 
 R.\CHEL, Mlle., 9, 19, 24, 25, 
 27, 28. 
 
 Racitie, 2C, 47, 49. 
 
 Regis, Alaria-Angelique (moth- 
 er of Charles Fechter), 3, 4, 
 15. I So. 
 
 Regnier, Francois-yoseph, 28. 
 
 " Richard III.," 30, 137. 
 
 Ristori, Afme., 67, 116, 138. 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 203 
 
 " Roadside Inn, The," 57. 
 
 " Kolxirt Macaire," 57. 
 
 Kochtfort, Henri, 34. 
 
 " Rocher de S\-siphe, Le," 4S. 
 
 Rockland Centre, Pa., 81. 
 
 Roibert, MIU. (Mme. Charles 
 Fechter), 56 note. 
 
 Rome, Italy, iS, 21, 47, 139. 
 
 " Romeo and Juliet," 117. 
 
 ■• Rouge et Noir," 59. 
 
 " Ruy Bias," 49, 57, 60, 61, 
 65-66, 67, 68, 11, 75-76, 
 78, 79. 1-8- 14S, 150. 154, 
 '57) 15S, 178, 179, iSo. 
 
 Ryder, John, 1S6. 
 
 Salle Moliere, Paris, 9, 10. 
 
 Sah'ini, 67. 
 
 Slim ton, Joseph- Isidore^ 17, 18. 
 
 " Siuid, George''^ (Mme. Dude- 
 vant), 37-39. 
 
 Sardoti, Victorien, 43, 75, 172. 
 
 Saturday Review on Fechter's 
 acting, 51. 
 
 Schiller, 31. 
 
 Scribe, Engine, 10, 12, 39, 43. 
 
 Se^cur, Victor, \6. 
 
 Shaiespeare, 5, 30, 49, 50, 51, 52, 
 55, 58,68,74,87,88,91,92. 
 96, 107, 109, 113, 114, 115, 
 116,135,136, 137,138,147, 
 153, 158, 181, 184, 1S5. 
 
 " Sheep in Wolfs Clothing," 
 78. 
 
 Sheffield, England, 55. 
 
 Sidd.ms, Mrs., 13S, 155-156. 
 
 Sophocles, 32. 
 
 Soinestre, £.mile, 37. 
 
 St. Aubin (actor and manager), 
 29. 
 
 St. Aulaire (teacher of acting), 
 
 9, 10. 
 St. James's Theatre, London, 
 
 32- 
 .St. Mark's Church, Hamilton 
 
 Terrace, London, 147. 
 Storr and Mortimer ( j e wele rs ) 
 
 London, 5. 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 167. 
 Stuart, William, So. 
 Sue, Eugene, 33. 
 Sw"iss chalet at Gadshill, 163. 
 
 Taglioni, P.\ul, 30. 
 Talma, 20, 1 1 5. 
 Ta mister, M. (sculptor), 5. 
 "Tartuife,"' 12, 20, 24, 28, 47, 
 
 48. 
 Taylor, John (" The Water 
 
 Poet "), 74. 
 Telegraph (London) on Fech- 
 ter's acting, 192 et seq. 
 Templeton's College, 6. 
 Terry, Kate, 157. 
 Theatres : 
 Adelphi, London, 59, 70, 79, 
 
 167. 
 Boston Theatre, 68, 69. 
 Cocomero, Florence, 12. 
 Comedie Fran9aise, 56 note, 
 
 145, 148. 
 Conservatoire, Paris, 10, 15, 
 
 16, 18, 19, 43. 
 Covent Garden, London, 
 
 122. 
 Drur)- Lane, London, 6. 
 Fourteenth Street Theatre, 
 New York (French Thea- 
 tre, Lyceum), 73, 79. 
 
204 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Theatres : 
 
 French Theatre, New York 
 (Fourteenth Street Thea- 
 tre, Lyceum), 73, 79. 
 
 Gaiete, Paris, 36. 
 
 Globe, Boston, 74-78, 79, 140. 
 
 Globe, London (Shake- 
 speare's), 74. 
 
 Grand Opera House, New 
 York, 79. 
 
 Gymnase, Paris, 29, 30, 43. 
 
 L' Ambigu, Paris, 32, 33, 34, 
 
 36, 41- 
 Lyceum, London", 54, 58, 59, 
 
 79. 151- 
 
 Lyceum, New York (Four- 
 teenth Street Theatre, 
 French Theatre), i-}^, 79. 
 
 Niblo's Garden, New York, 
 65. 
 
 Odeon, Paris, 46, 47. 
 
 Park, New York (Broadway, 
 near Twenty-Second St.), 
 80. 
 
 Porte-Saint-Martin, Paris, ^yl, 
 41, 46. 
 
 Princess's, London, 33, 48, 
 
 49. 53. 54, 61. 
 Salle Moliere, Paris, 9, 10. 
 St. James's, London, 32. 
 Theatre Franfais, 15, 18, 19, 
 
 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 47, 
 
 48, 67, 184. 
 Theatre Histqrique, Paris, 
 
 36, Zl^ 41- 
 Theatre Royal, Berlin, 29. 
 Theatre Royal, Manchester, 
 
 60. 
 Varietes, Paris, 35. 
 Vaudeville, Paris, 31, 39-40, 
 
 41,45. 154- 
 
 Theatre Francais, 15, 18, 19, 
 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 47, 
 48, 67, 184. 
 
 Theatre Historique, Paris, 36, 
 
 37, 41- 
 Theatre Royal, Berlin, 29. 
 Theatre Royal, Manchester, 
 
 60. 
 Tliiboust, Lambert, 37. 
 Times (London) on Fechter's 
 
 acting, 65, 79, 184 etseq. 
 " Trois Etages, Les," 36. 
 Tuileries Palace, 33, 48. 
 
 Ullmann, Mr. (manager), 53. 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 167. 
 
 " Valerie," 28. 
 Vandenhoff, C.H,li,. 
 Vandcnhoff, yokn,-6. 
 Varietes Theatre, Paris, 35. 
 Vaudeville Theatre, Paris, 31, 
 
 39-40,41,45,154. 
 '' Vestale, La," 28. 
 Vczin, Herman, 143, 146. 
 
 on Fechter's acting, 1 50 et seq. 
 Victoria, Queen, t,-}^. 
 " Vie en Rose, La," 39, 43, 44. 
 " Vol a la Duchesse, Le," 37. 
 Voltaire, 16, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25, 
 
 47. 87. 
 
 Wales, Prtnce of, 57, 61. 
 Wallack, J. W. (elder), 6, 132, 
 
 134- 
 Wallack, J. W. (younger), 74, 
 
 75-77- 
 " Watch Cry, The," 58. 
 Webster, PcHJamin, 165. 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 205 
 
 Weiss, Jo/in, on Fechter's act- ; Wittenberg, 89 note. 
 
 ing, 68. 
 Weston, Lizzie (Mrs. Charles 1 Yates, Edmund, 143, 146. 
 
 Mathews), 151. 
 IV/tite, Richard Grant, 88 note. 
 Winter, William, on Fechter's 
 acting, So. 
 
 on Fechter's acting, 147 et 
 e.j. 
 
 \ " Zaire," 28. 
 
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