NATURE VERSUS ART.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1138, 2 January 1874, Page 2

NATURE VERSUS ART.

Once, when one of our famous queens of tragedy was playing the suffering Mrs Haller, exhibiting the depressing sorrows of that erriug but repentant lady to a large audience in the Dublin Theatre Royal, the moment arrived when the ballad, " I have a silent sorrow here" was to be delivered. Singing was out "of the great actress's walk, and the duty was ingeniously delegated to some attendant villager. A poor shred, a timid, half frightened creature, some scene-shifter's daughter on probation, came forward as the orchestra struck up the symphony. An ancient muslin dress from the property room, set off with some tawdry pink bows pinned on no doubt, by trembling fingers, an old flower in her hair these were her meagre, decorations, while her mother, holding a shawl could be seen at the wings. This did not promise well. But when, after commencing in trembling tones, she gathered courage, she sang the whole so simply, and even tenderly, with such a simple purpose of doing the task set down for her, without hope of favour, or at best moro than toleration, that such a burst of honest applause burst forth as had not rung through the old theatre that night. She shrank back iu a sort of delightful alarm, but had to repeat her song to a. tumultuous house. The audience with its never failing instinct, understood the contrast with the artificial agonies it had been listening to Actors aurJl Actresses,