[126] “In _La Gioconda_, the scene in the studio, when the wife, burdened with a sense of intolerable worry, finds herself face to face with the woman who has supplanted her--would to a second rate actress prove an irresistible temptation to frenzied rant; but Duse plays it with a sustained intensity of controlled detestation and scorn which was infinitely more impressive, more artistic and more true. In the horrible climax she leaves details of her destroyed hand to the imagination.” _The Critic._ [127] “Her method does not admit even the possibility of pose. In the quietest and most delicate of her scenes Bernhardt always bears traces of her school and its traditions of _autorité_. Duse on the other hand, goes to the most daring lengths in self-effacement. Her stillness is absolute. “Even what is exaggerated in Italian gesture has in her a sort of anomalous grace, and preserves the richness and geniality of nature.” _The Athenæum_, 1885. [128] William Archer. [129] The name was really Crehan. Why was it changed? Perhaps because in its original form it was too baldly Irish. Yet Ada’s two elder sisters had taken to the stage and both appeared with the name O’Neill. Her mother was Harriet O’Neill, her father William Crehan. There were six children, three boys and three girls. The story used to be current that “Crehan” became “Rehan” through an error of printing; that when Ada first appeared in Philadelphia, with Mrs. Drew, she was named on a playbill “Ada C. Rehan”; and that, in view of the favorable newspaper notices given the new actress, Mrs. Drew advised her to retain the name inadvertently given her,--all interesting surely, and perhaps true. Playbills of the Arch Street Theatre (Philadelphia) of 1874, however, give “Ada Crehan.” [130] The date of her birth has always been given as April 22, 1860. There are reasons for thinking it must have been earlier. It would not be the only instance in which an actress’ age has been reduced by a retroactive manipulation of dates. Her first appearances on the stage were in 1873 and 1874, and by the time she went to Daly, in 1879, she had had an extended experience that would be simply marvelous for a girl of nineteen. Her hair began to turn gray about 1894. Mr. Winter says the streaks of gray came prematurely. Of course, they did, in any event, but thirty-four is an extraordinarily early age for such a phenomenon in an actress. An anecdote, not worth repeating, in the _Boston Record_ for November 24, 1888, is introduced in this way: “Ada Rehan is forty years old and over. She makes up fairly for girlish rôles ... but at close sight in the cold light of day she shows her age.” If worthy of any consideration, this paragraph would place the birthdate before 1850, obviously going to the other extreme. The correct date is undoubtedly 1855, or thereabout. Thus she was about eighteen when, in 1873, she made her first appearance.