The Argosy — page 308: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Adelaide Ristori. 289 If she said she would act in such a town on such a day, she was as sure to be there as that the sun would rise. The remarkable physi- cal health which she enjoyed had, no doubt, much to do with this speciality of hers, so praiseworthy in a great artist, of never dis- appointing the public, but it was also owing to her unconquerable energy as well. Many are the pictures which stand out before us in Madame Ristori’s life, as we flash upon it the electric light of fancy. Let us glance for a moment at a few of them. The theatre at Madrid is one mosaic of eager, expectant faces to- night. The Queen herself is expected to be among the audience, for _ Madame Ristori is to appear in one of her most celebrated characters In her dressing-room sits the great actress herself, surrounded with _ gorgeous costumes, and with her face instinct with power—the power that is soon to thrill the waiting multitude. Suddenly the door opens, and her husband enters with a weeping woman at his side. That sorrow-stricken form is a strange, sad contrast to the crowded _ theatre, with its hum of many voices, with its flash of many colours. What does this mourner do in such a place? This is the female relative of a young soldier who is sentenced to | die to-morrow for a crime in which there were many extenuating cir- | cumstances ; so many that the public voice has been uplifted in his favour; but Justice persists in going sternly on her way. Madame Ristori is now asked to make a personal request to the Queen, with | whom she is known to be a special favourite, for the man’s life. At first she hesitates, for this is a bold proceeding for an actress towards royalty, however great in her own art she may be. But her sympa- thetic nature gets the better of all other considerations ; she will dare | to do it, and if she loses the royal patronage it will at least be in a } good cause. , : Between the acts Madame Ristori is conducted to the Queen’s } box. Her heart is beating, for though she has often been a queen on } the stage, she does not know much of the ways of courts in real life. } Never, however, was anything more gracious done by royalty than } the Spanish Queen’s reception of the great actress to-night. Nothing } Can be more full of womanly grace and tenderness than the picture ) of the two women, one granting a human life to the prayer of the } Other; one full of majestic grace, the other of dignified modesty. | The news that the sentence of death is revoked spreads among the | crowd in the theatre, and when the curtain again rises a volley of cheers greets first the Queen and then the actress, and does homage | to genuine womanhood in both. _ Another picture which meets our gaze is of a very different character. It isa wild, stormy night in the North; a foaming, swollen river is rushing beneath the arch of a dilapidated bridge. It was an old \tickety bridge even last week when the weather was bright and still ; | how the floods, consequent on the heavy rains, have so damaged it CoOnniclooolkks (CO)