--were of Jewish extraction; the third, Eleanor Duse, is
Italian. All of them made their way from pauperism to fame; but perhaps
the rise of Rachel was the most striking.

In the winter of 1821 a wretched peddler named Abraham--or Jacob--Felix
sought shelter at a dilapidated inn at Mumpf, a village in Switzerland,
not far from Basel. It was at the close of a stormy day, and his small
family had been toiling through the snow and sleet. The inn was the
lowest sort of hovel, and yet its proprietor felt that it was too good
for these vagabonds. He consented to receive them only when he learned
that the peddler's wife was to be delivered of a child. That very night
she became the mother of a girl, who was at first called Elise. So
unimportant was the advent of this little waif into the world that the
burgomaster of Mumpf thought it necessary to make an entry only of the
fact that a peddler's wife had given birth to a female child. There was
no mention of family or religion, nor was the record anything more than
a memorandum.

Under such circumstances was born a child who was destined to excite
the wonder of European courts--to startle and thrill and utterly amaze
great audiences by her dramatic genius. But for ten years the
family--which grew until it consisted of one son and five
daughters--kept on its wanderings through Switzerland and Germany.
Finally, they settled down in Lyons, where the mother opened a little
shop for the sale of second-hand clothing. The husband gave lessons in
German whenever he could find a pupil. The eldest daughter went about
the cafes in the evening, singing the songs that were then popular,
while her small sister, Rachel, collected coppers from those who had
coppers to spare.

Although the family was barely able to sustain existence, the father
and mother were by no means as ignorant as their squalor would imply.
The peddler Felix had studied Hebrew theology in the hope of becoming a
rabbi. Failing this, he was always much interested in declamation,
public reading, and the recitation of poetry. He was, in his way, no
mean critic of actors and actresses. Long before she was ten years of
age little Rachel--who had changed her name from Elise--could render
with much feeling and neatness of eloquence bits from the best-known
French plays of the classic stage.

The children's mother, on her side, was sharp and practical to a high
degree. She saved and scrimped all through her period of adversity.