ACTOR AND ARTIST.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 September 1918, Page 4

ACTOR AND ARTIST.

(From Harry Lauder’s- New Book.) Harry Lauder has just published a delightful book, “A Minstrel in France.” Here is an extract: “ Not every actor and artist who has tried to help in the hospitals has fu’ly understood the men he or she wanted to please. They meant well, every one, -but some were a wee bit unfortunate in the way they went to work. There is a story that is told ot one of our really great serious actors. He is serious minded always, on the stage and off, and very, very dignified. But some folk went to him and asked him would he not do his bit to cheer up the puir laddies in a hospital ? I “He never thought of refusing—and I would not have you think I am sneering at the man ! His intentions were of the best. “‘Of course I do not sing or I dance,’ he said, drawing down his j lip. And the look in his eyes showed j what he thought ot such of us as j had descended to such low ways ot pleasing the public that paid to see us and to hear us, ‘But I shall very gladly do something to bring a little diversion into the sad lives of the poor boys in the hospital.’ “ It was a stretcher audience that he had. That means a lot of boys who had to lie in bed to hear him. They needed cheering. And that great actor with all his good intentions could think ot nothing more fitting than to stand up before them and begin to recite, in a-sad, elocutionary, tone, Longfellow’s “The Wreck of the Hesperus! ’ “He went on and his voice gained power. He had come to the third stanza, or the fourth maybe, when a command rang through the ward. It was one that had been heard many and many a time in France along the trenches. It came from one of the beds. “‘ To cover men ! ’ came the order. “ It rang out through the ward in a hoarse voice. And on the word every man’s head popped under the bed-clothes! And the great actor, astonished beyond measure, was left there reciting away to shaking mounds of bed-clothes that entrenched his hearers from the sound of his voice. ! ”