314 CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. After singing with Mrs. Wood in concerts with encourag- ing success, Miss Cushnian appeared at Boston as the Countess in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. Received by the public in this and other parts with favor, she seemed destined to fulfill Mrs. Wood's prediction. But a few months after, at New Orleans, her voice sud-. denly deteriorated, and she was obliged to attempt the profession of an actress. She made her first appearance, while still little more than a girl, " a tall, thin, lanky girl," as she describes herself, in the difficult part of Lady Mac- beth. She was obliged to borrow a dress in which to per- form it, and she played the part, as she once recorded, " to the satisfaction of the audience, the manager, and the company." At the end of that season she came to New York, and, by dint of hard work and earnest study, she gradually became the great and powerful artist whom we all remember. Her biography, by her friend, Miss Emma Stebbins, reveals to us in the most agreeable man- ner the secret of her power as an actress, as well as the secret of her charm as a woman. Here is the secret, in in her own words : " How many there are who have a horror of my profes- sion ! Yet I dearly love the very hard work, the very drudgery of it, which has made me what I am. Despise labor of any kind ! I honor it, and only despise those who do not." I will copy two or three other sentences of hers, to show what a wise and high-minded lady she was : " The greatest power in the world is shown in conquest over self." " How hard it would be to die if we had all the joys and happiness that we could desire here ! The dews of autumn penetrate into the leaves and prepare them for their fall." " We cannot break a law of eternal justice, however
