Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1884 — Fannie Kemble in Boston. [ARTICLE]

Fannie Kemble in Boston.

“We saved all our money to buy tickets. I was in the law school, and some of my friends sold everything they could lay hands on—books, clothing or whatever came first—to raise funds. Then we walked in from Cambridge; we could not afford to ride when tickets to see Fannie Kemble were to be bought. I went nineteen nights running to see her—Sundays, of course, excepted. After the play we used to assemble at the rear entrance to the Tremont theater to see her come out. She would be so muffled up that we could not even see her figure, but we used to find great satisfaction in seeing her walk by on the arm of her escort up tc the Tremont house. Then we would give three student cheers for her and walk out to Cambridge to bed. Such audiences as she had, too! If you’d put a cap sheaf down over a a theater you would have covered about all Boston had to boast of in the way of culture and learning—Webster and Everett and Story. Judge Story used to be bo enthusiastic that he’d talk about her all the time of the lecture. Next morning he’d say: k Phillips ’ —or somebodv else, as the case might be—‘were you at the theater last night? Well, what do you think of the performance?’ I said to him once: ‘Judge Story, you come of Puritan ancestors. How do you reconcile all this theatergoing with their teachings?’ ‘I don’t try to reconcile it,’ he answered, striking his hands together; ‘I only thank God I’m alive in the same era with such a woman! ’ ” —Wendell Phillips.