File:Life and art of Richard Mansfield - with selections from his letters (1910) (14781342201).jpg

Identifier: lifeartofrichard01wint (find matches)
Title: Life and art of Richard Mansfield : with selections from his letters
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Winter, William, 1836-1917
Subjects: Mansfield, Richard, 1857-1907
Publisher: New York : Moffat, Yard and company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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e. Edwin Boothsaid to me that Irvings impersonation of Louis theEleventh was decidedly inferior to the performance ofthe same part by Charles Kean,—an actor of remark-able ability, but one who, whether in Louis or in anyother character, and I saw him in that and inmany, neither rose to the intellectual height ofIrving nor rivalled him in the faculty of dramaticexpression; and of Irvings performance of Mathias,in The Bells, which Booth saw before I did, themost he could tell me was that it had a lot of redsilk pocket-handkerchief in it. Irving, much as heesteemed Edwin Booth as a man, considered him tobe more an elocutionist than an actor,—meaning animpersonator: he is a magnificent reader, saidIrving. Jefferson, who seldom allowed himself tobe disturbed by the renown of rival actors, neverthe-less thought and said that he could have excelledIrving in the part of Doctor Primrose^ in Willsslovely play of Olivia, whereas, in fact, he couldnot have approached him, for in that part, as
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Courtesy of Mr. Vivian Burnett RICHARD MANSFIELD IN 1906 ACTORS AS CRITICS 331 in Mathias, Mephistopheles, Lesurqucs, Dubosc,Becket, and Charles the First,, Irving was uniqueand perfect. Rut Jefferson, whose knowledge of theart of acting was comprehensive, minute, andextraordinary, sometimes spoke from impulse ratherthan from judgment. All livings performances,he once said, are exactly alike, and show exactlythe same man; and then, almost immediately, headded, referring to Irvings acting in The LyonsMail, not even a child could possibly mistake theone man, Dubosc, for the other, Lesurques! Stillanother of his pronouncements was that the per-formance of Mephistopheles by Edouard de Reszke,in the opera of Faust, was vastly better thanthat of Irving, in Willss drama. De Reszke,in fact, presented Mephistopheles as a fat, rubi-cund, jovial roisterer, whereas Irving acted him asa Spirit, the incarnation of intellectual pride,scorn, and grimly humorous denial and mockery,sardonic and terribl

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