Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated — John Shaqi
Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of AmalgamatedLawson, Thomas William
History
Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated
Lawson, Thomas William
Amalgamated Copper Co.; Gas companies -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Insurance -- United States; Speculation; Standard Oil Company
There is such a kindly good-will in these eyes when they are at rest
that the man does not live who would not consider himself favored to be
allowed to turn over to Henry H. Rogers his pocket-book without
receiving a receipt. They are the eyes of the man you would name in your
will to care for your wife's and children's welfare. When their
animation is friendly one would rather watch their merry twinkle as they
keep time to their owner's inimitable stories and non-duplicatable
anecdotes, trying to interpret the rapid and incessant telegraphy of
their glances, than sit in a theatre or read an interesting book; but it
is when they are active in war that the one privileged to observe them
gets his real treat, always provided he can dodge the rain of blazing
sparks and the withering hail of wrath that pours out on the offender.
To watch them then requires real nerve, for it is only a nimble,
stout-hearted, mail-covered individual that can sustain the encounter.
I have seen many forms of human wrath, many men transformed to terrible
things by anger, but I have never seen any that were other than
jumping-jack imitations of a jungle tiger compared with Henry H. Rogers
when he "lets 'er go"--when the instant comes that he realizes some one
is balking the accomplishment of his will.
Above all things Henry H. Rogers is a great actor. Had his lot been
cast upon the stage, he might easily have eclipsed the fame of Booth or
Salvini. He knows the human animal from the soles of his feet to the
part in his hair and from his shoulder-blade to his breastbone, and like
all great actors is not above getting down to every part he plays. He is
likely also so to lose himself in a role that he gives it his own force
and identity, and then things happen quite at variance with the lines.
The original Booth would come upon the stage the cool, calculating,
polished actor, but when well into his part was so lost in it that it
was often with difficulty he could be brought back to himself when the
curtain fell. Once while playing Richard III. at the old Boston Museum,
Richmond, by whom he was to be slain, made, at the ordained moment, the
thrust which should have laid him low, but instead, Booth in high frenzy
parried it, and with the fiendishness of the original Richard, step by
step drove Richmond off the stage and through the wings, and it was not
until the police seized the great tragedian, two blocks away, that the
terrified duke, who had dropped his sword and was running for dear life,
was sure he would ever act again.
When in the midst of his important plays, it is doubtful whether Henry
H. Rogers realizes until the guardians of the peace appear where the
acting begins and the reality should end. His intimate associates can
recall many times when his determination to make a hit in his part has
caused other actors cast with him to throw aside their dummy swords and
run for their lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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