Clara Morris

“ You will do independent work, good work, and will never be quite satisfied with it, but will eagerly try again, for great artists are so constituted; and the hard life of disappointments, self-sacrifices, and many partings, where strong, sweet friendships are formed only to be broken by travelling orders, will all be forgotten when, the glamour of the footlights upon you, saturated with light, thrilling to music, intoxicated with applause, you find the audience is an instrument for you to play upon at will. ”

“ So it seems to me the great advantage of acting over work is one's independence, one's opportunity to improve oneself. Its advantage over the professions is that it is self-sustaining from the start. Its advantage over the arts is its swift reward for earnest endeavour.
It must be very hard to endure the contempt so often bestowed upon the woman who simply serves. I had a little taste of it once myself; and though it was given me by accident, and apologies and laughter followed, I remember quite well that even that tiny taste was distinctly unpleasant—yes, and bitter. ”

“ She will be judged, not by her many correct friends, but by her one incorrect one. Again, feeling fear of his power to work her injury, she ceases really to be a free agent, and Heaven knows what unwise concessions she may be flurried into; and of all the dangers visible or invisible in the path of a good girl, the most terrible is "opportunity." If you wish to avoid danger, if you wish to save yourself some face-reddening memory, give no one the "opportunity" to abuse your confidence, to wound you by word or deed. ”

“ The stealthy, crafty, determined pursuer of the young and honest actress is a product of the imagination. These "Johnnies" who hang about stage doors and send foolish and impertinent notes to the girlhood of the stage are not in love—they are actuated by vanity, pure and simple. These young "taddies," with hair carefully plastered down, are as like one another as are the peas of one pod,—each wishes to be considered a very devil of a fellow; but how can that be unless he is recognized as a fascinator of women, a masher ”

“ For you see I honour the profession in which I have served, girl and woman, so many years, and it hurts me to have one imply that it is filled with strange and terrible pitfalls for women. I have received the confidences of many working-women,—some in professions, some in trades, and some in service,—and on these confidences I have founded my belief that every woman who works for her living must eat with her bread the bitter salt of insult. ”

“ Then the arts, but ah! life is short and art, dear Lord, art is long, almost unto eternity. And she who serves it needs help, much help, and then must wait, long and wearily, for the world's response and recognition, that, even if they come, are apt to be somewhat uncertain, unless they can be cut on a marble tomb; then they are quite positive and hearty. But in the art of acting the response and recognition come swift as lightning, sweet as nectar, while you are young enough to enjoy and to make still greater efforts to improve and advance. ”

“ As for beauty, it must be something very remarkable that will on its strength alone secure a girl an engagement. Mere prettiness will not do. Nearly all American girls are pretty. It must be a radiant and compelling beauty, and every one knows that there are not many such beauties, stage-struck or otherwise.
The next question is most often put by the parents or friends of the would-be actress; and when with clasped hands and in-drawn breath they ask about the temptations peculiar to the profession of acting, all my share of the "old Adam" rises within me. ”

“ At last the ambulance, then the all-concealing curtain, the reviving music, a song, a pretty dance, and presto, all was forgotten!
When Omassa opened her eyes, her brain took up work just where it had left off; therefore she was astonished to find the sun shining, for had she not seen the sun go out quite black in the sky? Yet here it was so bright, and she was—was, where? The room was small and clean, oh, clean! like a Japanese house, and almost as empty. Could it be? But no, this bed was American, and then why was she so heavy? What great weight was upon her? ”

“ But suppose the actress enters in an opera cloak of such gorgeous material that the elaborate embroidery on it seems an impertinence—a creation lined with the frailest, most expensive fur known to commerce, frothing with real lace, dripping with semi-precious jewels—what happens? The cloak pushes forward and takes precedence of the wearer, a buzz arises, heads bob this way and that, opera-glasses are turned upon the wonderful cloak whose magnificence has destroyed the illusion of the play ”

“ The backwoods girl makes her lonely way through the forest by blazed trees, but the way of the lonely girl through the city streets is marked by blazing blushes.
It is an infamy that a girl's honesty should not protect her by night as well as by day. Those hideous hyenas of the midnight streets are never deceived. By one glance they can distinguish between a good woman and those poor wandering ghosts of dead modesty and honour, who flit restlessly back and forth from alleys dark to bright gas glare ”

“ Temptation may approach the somewhat advanced young actress through money and power in the guise of the "patron of Art"—not a common form of temptation by any means. But what has been may be again, and it is none the easier to resist because it is unusual. When a young girl, with hot impatience, feels she is not advancing as rapidly as she should, the wealthy "patron of Art" declares it is folly for her to plod along so slowly, that he will free her from all trammels, he will provide play, wardrobe, company, and show the world that she is already an artist. ”

“ A "one-play" company offers the worst possible chance to the beginner. The more plays there are, the more you learn from observation, as well as from personal effort, to make the parts you play seem as unlike one another as possible. A day like this admits of no drives, no calls, no "teas"; you see, then, a theatrical life is not one long picnic.
If there is one among my readers to whom the dim and dingy half-light of the theatre is dearer than the God-given radiance of the sunlight ”

“ Acting is a matter of pretence, and she who can best pretend a splendid passion, a tender love, or a murderous hate, is admittedly the finest actress. Time was when stage wardrobe was a pretence, too. An actress was expected to please the eye, she was expected to be historically correct as to the shape and style of her costume; but no one expected her queenly robes to be of silk velvet, her imperial ermine to be anything rarer than rabbit-skin. ”

“ No actress can answer all the girls who write to her,—no more can I, and that disturbs me, because I like girls and I hate to disappoint them.
But now for my proposition. Why not become a lovely composite girl, my friend, Miss Hope Legion, and let me try to speak to her my word of warning, of advice, of remonstrance? If she doubts, let me prove my assertions by incident, and if she grows vexed, let me try to win her to laughter with the absurdities,—that are so funny in their telling, though so painful in their happening. ”

“ He understood; but instead of simply resuming where he had left off, from force of habit he first gave the leader's usual three sharp taps upon his music desk, and then—so queer a thing is an audience—those people, brought to their feet in an agony of terror, of fire, panic, and sudden death by a woman's cry, now at that familiar tap, tap, tap, broke here and there into laughter. By sixes and sevens, then by tens and twenties, they sheepishly seated themselves, only turning their heads with pitying looks while the ushers removed the unconscious woman. ”

“ One of the odd things of the professional life is that in the artistic sense you are not considered an "actress" until you have shown some merit, have done some good, honest work; but for the purposes of gossip or scandal, ballet girls, chorus girls, or figurantes become actresses full fledged. Mammas and aunties of would-be young artists seem to have made a veritable bogy-man of this would-be lady-killer. What nonsense! Any well-brought-up young woman, respecting the proprieties, can protect herself from the attentions of this walking impertinence. ”

“ I have often wondered if any audience in the world can be as quick to see a point as is the New York audience. During my first season in this city there was a play on at Mr. Daly's that I was not in, but I was looking on at it.
In one scene there stood a handsome bronze bust on a tall pedestal. From a careless glance I took it to be an Ariadne. At the changing of the scene the pedestal received a blow that toppled it over, and the beautiful "bronze" bust broke into a hundred pieces of white plaster.
The laughter that followed was simply caused by the discovery of a stage trick. ”

“ The theatrical ranks were already growing crowded when the "Schools of Acting" were started, and after that—goodness gracious! actors and actresses started up as suddenly and numerously as mushrooms in an old pasture. And they, even they stand in the way of the beginner.
I know, then, of but three powers that can open the stage door to a girl who comes straight from private life,—a fortune, great influence, or superlative beauty. With a large amount of money a girl can unquestionably tempt a manager whose business is not too good, to give her an engagement. ”

“ And that was the origin of the back-turned, broad-brimmed hat that had such vogue before the arrival of the Gainsborough or picture hat.
If I were a young actress, I would rather be noted for acting than for originating a new style of garment; but it is a free country, thank God, and a big one, with room for all of us, whatever our preferences. ”

“ The young actress trembles at the bare words "newspaper man." She ought to know that a critic on a respectable paper holds a responsible position. When he serves a prominent and a leading journal, he is frequently recognized as an authority, and has a social as well as a professional position to maintain. Further, the professional woman does not strongly attract the critic personally. There is no glamour about stage people to him; but should he desire to make an actress's acquaintance, he would do so in the perfectly correct manner of a gentleman. ”

“ Nor is "poor So-and-So" always sick or sorrowful, stupid or ugly; and yet, low be it whispered, is there not always a trace of contempt in that word "poor" when applied to an acquaintance? A very slight trace, of course,—we lightly rub the dish with garlic, we do not slice it into our salad. So when we call a friend "poor So-and-So," consciously or unconsciously, there is beneath all our affection the slight garlic touch of contemptuous pity; how else could I, right to her merry, laughing face, have called this girl poor Semantha? ”

“ One never-to-be-forgotten night I went to a fashionable theatre in New York City to see a certain English actress make her début before an American audience, which at that time was considered quite an interesting event, since there were but one or two of her countrywomen over here then. The house was very full; the people were of the brightest and the "smartest." I sat in a stage box and noted their eagerness, their smiling interest. ”

“ They were like an angry swarm of bees. Miss Dietz kept her handkerchief openly to her pretty nose; Miss Morant, in stately dudgeon, demanded that Mr. Daly should be sent for, that he might learn the condition of his theatre, and the dangers his people were subjected to in breathing such poisoned air; while right in the very middle of our best scene, Mr. Louis James, the incorrigible, stopped to whisper, "Can't we move further over and get out of this confounded stench?" ”

“ Not long after, perhaps, she does get a chance, and with joyous eyes she watches for the coming of the man who comforted her, that she may tell him of her good luck. And his pleasure is plain, and he assures her that she will succeed. And he, an experienced actor, waits in the entrance to see her play her small part, and shakes her hand and congratulates her when she comes off, and even tells her what to do next time at such a point, and her heart warms within her and is filled with gratitude for this "sympathetic friend," who helps her and has faith in her future. ”

“ The actor had long before become again Shakespeare's Othello. We had seen him tortured, racked, and played upon by the malignant Iago; seen him, while perplexed in the extreme, irascible, choleric, sullen, morose; but now, as with tense nerves we waited for the catastrophe, he was truly formidable. The great tragedy moved on. Desdemona's piteous entreaties had been choked in her slim throat, the smothering pillow held in place with merciless strength. ”

“ If the infatuated one is a gentleman and worthy of her notice, he will surely find a perfectly correct and honourable way of making her acquaintance, otherwise she is well rid of him. No, I see no danger threatening a young actress from the "public."
There is danger in drifting at any time, so it may be well to warn young actresses against drifting into a too strong friendship. No matter how handsome or clever a man may be, if he approaches a modest girl with coarse familiarity, with brutalities on his lips, she is shocked, repelled, certainly not tempted. ”