CHAELOTTE CUSHMAN. 315 ignorantly, but throughout the entire universe there will be a jar of discord." ' " To try to be better is to be better." " God knows how hard I have striven in my time to be good, and true, and worthy. God knows the struggles I have had." " Art is an absolute mistress ; she will not be coquetted with, or slighted ; she requires entire self-devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs." But the best thing she ever wrote or said in her life was written to a young mother rejoicing in the glorious gift of a child. " No artist work," said Miss Cushman, " is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time as the making of character in a child. No statue, no paint- ing, no acting, can reach it, and it embodies each and all the arts." That is truly excellent, and is a truth which probably all genuine artists have felt ; for art has no right to be, except so far as it assists the best of all arts — the art of living. I remember this fine actress when I was a school-boy, at home from school, and she was a member of the com- pany of the old Park theatre in New York, acting for twenty dollars a week. I remember her playing Goneril, in King Lear, with so much power that I hated her, mak- ing no distinction between her and the part she played. New York was a very provincial place then, and could not give prestige to any artist, and therefore it was not until she went to England, and electrified the Londoners with her powerful acting, that she made any great head- way in the world ; although for years she had maintained her mother, and been the mainstay of the family. In England she made a considerable fortune, which, towards the close of her life, was much increased in her native
