THE COURIER.
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The scene with "Nerlssa" In which
she describes the suitors is simply
Inimitable and indiscribable. In the
casket scene the.great Jady was care
lcsiand seemed in a bad humor with
"Bassauio." Indeed I quite forgot
her in the magnificent acting of the
Prince of Morocco. He was an im
pressive figure as lie swept in with his
twelve dusky slaves, big and black
and a blaze with jewels, and lie de
llvered those long, flowery speeches
set down for him with a fire tfhd
fervor that made his suit a noble one.
i shall never forget the great dignity
with which he drew his raant'e about
him and bowed himself from her
presence with his "thus losers part."
The trial scene of course is one of
the most perfect expressions of Miss
Terry's more serious art. But it was
inthe last act that I liked her best,
that "wonderful last act where the
play becomes a comedy again, where
picturcsqueness and happiness is al
lotted to every one and every llower
in the moonlit garden exhales poetry.
The laugh that is halt a sigh, coquet
ryithat is half pure enchantment,
comedy in the summer moonlight,
that' is Miss Terry's own art.
ADD .OBSERVATIONS.
To dub Women.
.Mrs. F. M. Hall, chairman of the
art department of the X. F. W..C,
again reminds the presidents of Ne
braska clubs that she wishes an early
reply to her request made in last
week's Courier. She has had no ans
wer as yet. Lincoln clubs aw urged
to respond.at once. This request is
addressed to.the president of every
artcluborart department of every
woman's club. Presidents will help
to Improve the reputation of women
for promptness and business-like con
duct if they will reply at once to
these few, direct questions of Mrs
Hall. She has in mind plans which
will stimulate and improve every club
in the state. But in order to formu
late and operate them she must have
specific, information from a majority
of the clubs in the state. Presidents
and secretaries of clubs have many
and diverse duties, but this one of
replying to inquiries addressed to
them by state officers and others who
have in charge some movement for
the general welfare, has been neg
lected in the past so that club sta
tistics and general club information
have been very hard to gather. Ihe
difficulty of doing business with wo
men has been ascribed to their lack
of responsibility in the performance
'or neglect of duties they have assum
ed. It is a reproach which, I think,
the association of women in clubs will
serve to lessen. Meanwhile it is time
for presidents and secretaries, who are
leaders in their respective clubs
should set a good example and begin
to show the effects of occupying a
representative position.
In the club columns of The Courier
Mrs. Hall's comprehensive questions
to every president of an art depart
ment may be found. For the sake of
the subject whose selection testifies
the interest shown in it, I hope the
art club presidents will not longer
delay answering the questions re
printed in the club department f
this week.
The Plattsmouth Journal.
Mr. William Heed Dunroy, known
and loved by everyone who loves the
poetry of Nebraska has purchased the
Plattsmouth Journa' the only demo
cratic newspaper in that county. Mr.
Dunroy's first issue contained a let
ter from Mr. W. J. Bryan, who from
the first has been a friend, patron of
and believer in Mr. Dunroy. Tbe
paper will be well edited and every,
body who has ideas about what, a
newspaper ought to be and ought not
to be, should consistently take the
Plattsmouth Journal for it is sure to
contain the things it ought and to
ignore the tilings a family should not
read.
Otis Skinner.
Every advertising heretic should
have seen the .audience, and pondered
the reason for it, that Otis Skinner
played to last Friday. Mr. Skinner
hasplaed to two empty houses in
Lincoln. He made up his mind that
he would not play to another empty
house in Lincoln acd so he advertised
until people began inquiring who he
was and getting ready to go. Else
where, of course, people know some
thing of him. but Lincoln people arc
faithful to a few, and it is the ex
perience of many trials that only the
old classics can play to a crowd in
Lincoln. Actors whose reputations
reach twice around the world can
play to good business in Lincoln, but
we do.not know anybody more mod
ern. than.Joe. Jefferson or Modjeska or
Irving, although it is considered
couime il faut to patronize Richard
Mansfield and some of Hoyt's hot time
plays. Mr. Skinner accepted the
situation and advertised himself in
three weeks elaborately and insis
tently enough to become a classic in
Lincoln. He is a finished, eleven
modern actor, playing in one of Ar
thur Jones' satires. He has a com
petent company who support him and
play up to him satisfactorily. Miss
Nannette Comstock, tbe leading lady,
has finesse, grace and that incompara
ble and essential possession, a sweet,
womanly voice with a range of ten
notes which she uses-with discrimina
tion. Her voice, after years of the
hoarse croaking of stagy soubrettes
whose intonations, inflections, pro
nunciations, and gauche phrasing,
isa criticism upon the bad judgment
of everybody who listens to them.is as
grateful as a drink of cold water to a
parched throat. Miss Comstock is
lissome as Vivian, her gowns are -worn
with distinction and she reads Mr.
Jones' clever lines as though they
were her own. ''.The Liars" is a well
balanced, interesting play. The
jeune femme is not shocked though
the play was not written for her. It
is no more improper than respectable
people and society are, occasionally
themselves, and to make it better
than life is ancient Junday-school-bookism
aod interests no one.
A Successful Man.
Judge Pound, Mr. Ames, Mr. Sawyer,
Judge Webster and others at thesession
of ihe district court held on Monday
presented memorials of the Ji'e and
character of Mr. Harwood. Mr. Ames
conclusions as to a man's final success
or failure were based upon the influence
that man exerted on his generation and
not upon tbe fame he acquired or the
wealth he stored.
Why do we pronounce eulogies upon
the dead? There are, I think, Beveral
principles of our nature which have con
tributed to the establishment of the
custom. First, probably, is the senti
ment of regret and personal loss on ac
count of the ieath of the individual
whose life and character are, in any case,
the subject ot celebration ; second, an
appreciation of the brevity of human
life and tbe transitory nature ot earthly
affa'rs, a o ice disturbing our own sense
of security, arousing the instinct of self
preservation and stimulating, if not
originating, our desire for immortality.
Added to this is a vague and diffused
sensa of melancholy which continually
envelopes the race like a gloomy atmos
phere and which finds its expression in
such literary productions as Goldsmith s
"Deserted Village' and Gray's "Elegy in
a Country Churchyard." No one, or at
any rate, hut comparatively few, in this
country or in countries speaking our
own and .allied language?, believes that
ceremonies consequent upon death can
have any effect upon the condition or
well being ot the departed, and tbe ob
servance of this custom merely for the
gratification ot these sentiments can
confer but little benefit or .advantage
upon the living. Universal sentiment
enforces tbe propriety of a. Latin pre
cept forbidding the utterance ot any
thing but good concerning the dead and
the mere recital nf a catalogue of color
less, personal virtues unrelieved by the
lights and shadows, the moods and im
pulses, of a real and unmutilated indi
vidual personality can serve neither to
edify nor to amuse.
A funeral eulogy to be of substantial
value must extract from the character'
and career of the deceased some lesson
which may serve to enlighten the under
standing or to inspire the conduct ot his
survivors. It seldom or never happens
that any man is so many-sided or so
equally balanced in his moral and intel
lectual constitution as that there is not
some one trait which is more prominent
than any other, and which lends tone
and color to his whole character. With
Mr. Harwood it Eeems clearly enough to
me that this trait was unbwerving and
unyielding loyalty to his convictions of
right and duty, bis uncompromising and
undissemb'iog adhesion to, and fearless
avowal of, hi9 deliberately formed opin
ions. Not ostentatious in his beliefs,
nor insistent for the intrusion of them
upon others, he nevertheless refused to
permit party or public sentiment or the
rensure or applause of his fellows to
effect cither his convictions as to what
ip true ano right or the course of con
duct which, in obedience to them, he
believed himself bound to pursue. That
this trait, strengthened by habit, de
prived him ot some of the prizes and
circumscribed some ot the pleasures of
life there is no doubt, but that it
strengthened and sustained him, as
scarcely anything else could have done,
in the main crisis ot his history and in
the final struggle which cost him his
life is equally beyond question. This
reflection suggests the question, was his
life a success or a failure ? His whole
career waa one of toil and ot struggle
with financial perplexities. He neyer
accumulated great wealth, ho held no
exulted public station, he never attained
wide celebrity. He died destitute of
this world's gooda and he was scourged
into his grave by the eager and relent
less prosecution ot a wicked and unjust
claim. Was his life a failure ? Is it
essential to success that one shall be
come ricb, or that he shall be elevated
to high office, or that he shall startle
the world by brilliant deeds or charm it
ffith the felicity ot his diction ? In our
cooler momerts I think that all of us
will answer every one of these questions
in the negative. Social and political
prominence, wealth and talents are the
means but not the ends of high aud
useful endeavor. The h story of civil
ization is strewn with no more pitiable
wrecks than of those who have pos
sessed or enjoyed some or all ot these
things. A mansucceeds when he makes
full and efficient use of such capability a
and of such means and opportunities as
nature and the course of affairs supply
to bis mind and hands. He fails when
such capabilities and means and oppor
tunities are left unemployed or are mis
applied. The greater the number of
them that are placed within his reach
or entrusted to his care, the greater the
tax upon his energies and his vigilance ;
but, to ba'-e rounded out one's life, and
to have finished one's course, without be
ing justly chargeable with having been
guilty of. serious neglect in Unemploy
ment of those of them with which one
has been supplied, is to have accom
plished all that in the nature of things
one could have accomplished and so to
have fully succeeded, 'although ono'a
personal acquisitions may bavo hern
but small, and the figure one may have
cut upon the world's theater may bavo
been inconspicuous. TestoJ by this
rule, which is evidently correct, no
proof will be required at this bar or iu
this community that Mr. IlBrwood at
tained to a great and unusual measure
of success. His life work bus been done
in the open face of day. Tbe means at
his command acd tbe uses that he hhB
made ot them are known to jou all.
That the end came to him in disap
pointment and distress we all Know, hut
that that result was duo to any lack of
vigilance or exertion on bis part no one
will assert, nor will it be denied that ho
laid down his task, unblemished fame
and untarnished honor. More cannot
be said of any man.
To "have cultivated and improved in a
large and libera! way. tbe faculties of
oce's own heart and mind ; to have con
tributed appreciably to the growth and
prosperity ot tbe state and cily of bis
adoption ; to have helped mold and
form the seLtiment and opinions of his
contemporaries and co-workors in lay
ing the foundations of a great and grow
ing commonwealth ; to have left in tbe
community in which, for nearly thirty
years, bo was engaged in a strenuous,
though commonplace, struggle for ex
istencethe tradition of an upright,
honorable and manly life ; to have done
these things is to achieve that which
many of the ricb and powerful, the elo
quent and famous of the earth, might
well emulate and envy.
Before this audience or in this com
munity, among those who have for a gen
eration been the friends and associates,
and the competitors and rivals ot tbo de
ceased, it seems to me to be almost a work
of supererogation to attempt a recital of
the principal incidents of his career or
to enlarge upon bis moral and intellect
ual qualities, and for reasons which I
have stated on a former occasion it
would be well nigh impossible- for me to
perform such a service. There are those
to follow me, however, to whom such a
task will be less difficult and who may
take.a melancholy pleasure in the per
formance of what may seem to be a so
cial duty. That it is not a grateful and
beneficent office to recount the virtues
of a well spent life I do not mean to im
ply. Mankind is taught by example,
and civilization is the outgrowth of tbe
social influence of tbe strongest and
best citizens. Neighborhoods and
coteries determine ttie occupations, the
ambitions, tbe tastes, and the amuse
ments of cities, and from the cities, as
p htical, moral and intellectual centers,
radiate the opinions and proceed tbe
movements which decide the policies
and tbe fate ot nations. Cities have a
distinct personality of their own and,
like individuals, their characters are
lugely formed in their infancy. Ihe
men and women who bav laid tbe
foundations of this town, who have
helped to establicb and maintain its pub
lic institutions-, wLo have promoted the
culture ot its inhabitants and directed
the course of their activities have set in
motion influence, of the most far reach
ing nind. What are the nature and ex
tent of the contributions to this move
ment which any individual has made or
shall make, is, or may be, a matter of
tbe most momentous consequences, and
is one which in a case like the present,
may well arrest our attention, and em
ploy our thought?, for tbe brief hour
which w& are permitted to devote to its
consideration. But for the reasons
mentioned I shall not enter upon that
discussion myself, but shall prefer to
leave it to ttiose members of the bar
who, otherwise better equipppd than
myself, are sufficiently acquainted with
the main incidents of Mr. Harwood
career; with his early history and tbe
struggles of his manhood, with hi
broad, generous and catholic sympa
thies. with his achievements, his suc
cesses and hiB disappointments to reli
all that may be properly related acd t
commend all that it may seem rreet
commend on the present occasion.