Already published:

GEORGE ELIOT. By Miss Blind.

EMILY BRONTË. By Miss Robinson.
GEORGE SAND. By Miss Thomas.
MARY LAMB. By Mrs. Gilchrist.
MARGARET FULLER. By Julia Ward Howe.
MARIA EDGEWORTH. By Miss Zimmern.
ELIZABETH FRY. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman.
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY. By Vernon Lee.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. By Mrs. E. R. Pennell.
HARRIET MARTINEAU. By Mrs. F. Fenwick Miller.

RACHEL. By Mrs. Nina H. Kennard.

MADAME ROLAND. By Mathilde Blind.

SUSANNA WESLEY. By Eliza Clarke.

MARGARET OF ANGOULÊME. By Miss Robinson. MRS. SIDDONS. By Mrs. Nina H. Kennard. MADAME DE STAËL. By Bella Duffy.

HANNAH MORE.

ADELAIDE RISTORI.

By Charlotte M. Yonge.

An Autobiography.

Copyright, 1888,

BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

PREFACE.

"LIFE is a journey," they say. Certainly this proverb could be applied to me. My existence has been wholly passed in long journeys, and I have carried on my art in all countries.

Under every sky I have personated the immortal heroines of immortal masterpieces, and I have seen the powerful accents of human passion thrill with intense emotion the most different peoples.

I have brought into this task, often very heavy, my whole art conscience; I have sought even to live the actual life of the personages I represented; I have studied the manners of their times; I have gone back to historical sources, which enabled me to reconstitute faithfully their personality, sometimes gentle, sometimes terrible, always grand.

The applause bestowed upon me has rewarded my honest efforts; but I must say again that I have experienced the most lively pleasure when I succeeded in identifying myself sufficiently with the 93559

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characters of the tragedies which I was playing; when I felt myself inspired by the great breath which animated them, and my whole soul vibrated to the passions I was to interpret. I have often left the stage, after extreme tension of nerves, half dead with fatigue and emotion, but always happy.