New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories; Theater -- Fiction
Yet one upon whom those eyes never rested has remembered. And surely the
memory of her is mine to wed, since he, whose right was to cherish it,
has allowed himself to be divorced from it in so brief a time.
The memory of her is with me always, fills my soul, beautifies my life,
makes green and radiant this existence which all who know me think cold,
bleak, empty, repellent.
You will not laugh, then, my friend, when I tell you that love is not to
me a thing unknown.
* * * * *
So runs a part of the last letter to my father that the old bookkeeper
ever wrote.
IV. -- THE TRIUMPH OF MOGLEY
[Footnote: Courtesy of _Lippincott's Magazine_.Copyright, 1892, by J.B.
Lippincott Company.]
Mr. Mogley was an actor of what he termed the “old school.” He railed
against the prevalence of travelling theatrical troupes, and when he
attitudinized in the barroom, his left elbow upon the brass rail, his
right hand encircling a glass of foaming beer, he often clamoured for
a return of the system of permanently located dramatic companies, and
sighed at the departure of the “palmy days.”
A picturesque figure, typical of an almost bygone race of such figures,
was Mogley at these moments, his form being long and attenuated,
his visage smooth and of angular contour, his facial mildness really
enhanced by the severity which he attempted to impart to his countenance
when he conversed with such of his fellow men as were not of “the
profession.”
Like Mogley's style of acting, his coat was old. But, although neither
he nor any of his acquaintances suspected it, his heart was young. He
still waited and hoped.
For Mogley's long professional career had not once been brightened by
a distinct success. He had never made what the men and women of his
occupation designate a hit, or even what the dramatic critics wearily
describe as a “favourable impression.” This he ascribed to lack of
opportunity, as he was merely human. Mr. and Mrs. Mogley eagerly sent
for the newspapers on the morning after each opening night and sought
the notices of the performance. These records never contained a word of
either praise or censure for Mogley.
Mrs. Mogley had first met Mogley when she was a soubrette and he a
“walking gentleman.” It was his Guildenstern (or it may have been his
Rosencrantz) that had won her. Shortly after their marriage there came
to her that life-ailment which made it impossible for her to continue
acting. She had swallowed her aspirations, shedding a few tears. She
lived in the hope of his triumph, and, as she had more time to think
than he had, she suffered more keenly the agony of yearning unsatisfied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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