The Three Greatest Stresses

There are perliaps only three h-ving actresses uow in activo lif e to whora the title "great" would be applied by common consent. These are Sarah Bsruhardt, Helena Modjeska and Eleonora Dnse. Jananschek, alas! although still npon the stage, belonga to the past, while Ellen Terry, with all her dainty skill and rad i ai; tch arm, has not yetreached those heights to which genius alone can aspire. Each of them excels in ways pecniiar to herself. Bernhardt, after carrying off all the laurels offered in the artificial and declaraíítory school of French tragady, has devoted her inatnrest powers to the illustratiou nf the most -violent passions couceivable by morbid iinagination. Her achievements in this direction have been estraordinary, and her dramatic genius cannot be disputod, but soine of her latest trinraphs have. been won in defiance of most of the' laws of nature and many of the mies of true art. Modjeska, if less potent in the interpretation of the fiercest emotions than lier French rival, need fear no comparison with her in poetic tragedy, while in the field of poetio comedy she is tinrivaled. Her performances of Juliet, Rosalind and Ophelia are almost ideally beautiful. Eleonora Duse, whose f ame has blazed np with meteoric suddenness, is pre9minent above all actresses of her time for versatility, that rare gift of impersonation, still rarer among women than arnong men, which can conceal the real beaeath the assumed identity without resorting to the common expedients of theatrical disguise. The phrase that such or such a part was assumed by this or that actor is heard every day. It is a convenient, conventional and meaningless expression. In the case of Duse it is ■used correctly and signifies just what has happened. - "Eleonora Duse," by in Centnry.