outlines and its conventional character serve to suggest Greece. The
drapery which hangs upon Rachel is exquisitely studied from the most
perfect statue. There is not a fold which is not Greek and graceful,
and which does not seem obedient to the same law which touches her
face with tragedy. As she slowly opens her thin lips, your own blanch;
and from her melancholy eyes all smiles and possibility of joy have
utterly passed away. Rachel stands alone, a solitary statue of fate
and woe.

When she speaks, the low, thrilling, distinct voice seems to proceed
rather from her eyes than her mouth. It has a wan sound, if we may say
so. It is the very tone you would have predicted as coming from that
form, like the unearthly music which accompanies the speech of the
Commendatore's statue in "Don Giovanni". That appearance and that
voice are the key of the whole performance. Before she has spoken, you
are filled with the spirit of an age infinitely remote, and only
related to human sympathy now by the grandeur of suffering. The rest
merely confirms that impression. The whole is simple and intense. It
is conceived and fulfilled in the purest sense of Greek art.

Of the early career and later life of Rachel such romantic stories are
told and believed that only to see the heroine of her own life would
be attraction enough to draw the world to Paris. Dr. Vernon, in his
_Memoires d'un Bourgeois_, has described her earliest appearance upon
the Boulevards--her studies, her trials, and her triumph. That triumph
has been unequalled in stage annals for enthusiasm and permanence.
Other actors have achieved single successes as brilliant; but no other
has held for so long the most fickle and fastidious nation thrall to
her powers; owning no rival near the throne, and ruling with a sway
whose splendor was only surpassed by its sternness.