Life on the stage ; my personal experiences and recollections

Chapter First

CHAPTER SECOND atly, IT Learn Love, Fear, ant ae ose One of my Two Illusions < : | : pe - CHAPTER THIRD I Enter a New World—I Know a New Hunger and we Return to Cleveland. : A rebar

CHAPTER TENTH With Mr. Dan. Setchell I Win Applause — A

Strange Experience comes to Me—I Know Both Fear and Ambition— The Actress is Born at Last . : : : : ; :

Page is Reading A Sate > takes ese ay Education and Leads me oe

* CHAPTER TWELFTH

The Peter Richings’ Engagement brings me my _ First Taste of Slander— Anent the Splendor of my Sede also soa First eee No- _ tice 3 : z = . 80 fs 2 _ CHAPTER THIRTEENTH

4 Mr. Roberts Refers to Me as “That Young ~ Woman,” to My Great Joy —I Issue the “ Clara Code” —I Receive my First Offer of Marriage . 86

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

Mr. Wilkes Booth comes to us, the whole Sex Loves him— Mr. Ellsler Compares him to his Great Father — Our Grief and Horror over the Awful Tragedy at Washington ; : - 97

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH

Mr. R. E. J. Miles ——His two Horses and our Woful Experience with the Substitute ‘ Wild Horse of Tartary” . p ; : ; . 109 x CONTENTS

CHAPTER SIXTEENTH

I perform a Remarkable Feat, I Study King Charles in One Afternoon and Play Without a_ Rehearsal — Mrs. D. P. Bowers makes Odd Revelation :

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH

Through Devotion to my Friend, I Jeopardize my Reputation —I Own a Baby on Shares — Miss Western’s Pathetic Speech

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH

Mr. Charles W. Couldock — His peer Eliza and his Many Peculiarities

CHAPTER NINETEENTH

I Come to a Turning-Point in my Dramatic Life — I play my First Crying Part with Miss Sallie St. Clair. :

CHAPTER TWENTIETH

I have to pass through Bitter Humiliation to win High Encomiums from Herr Bandmann; while Edwin Booth’s Kindness Fills the Thats with Pink Clouds, and I Float Thereon

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. 124

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« 139 hear Mrs. Ree Ss. scr 3E pe s Roel etek at an ae Kind Prophecy « e171

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD Ir. E. Ac Davenport, his Interference, his Lecture on Stage Business, his Error of Memory or too Powerful Imagination —— Why I remain a Dra- - matic Old Slipper — Contemptuous Words arouse in me a Dogged Determination to become a Leading Woman before leaving Cleveland e180

Chapter Twenty-ninth

My first Humiliating Experience in Cincinnati is Followed by a Successful Appearance —I Make the Acquaintance of the Enthusiastic Navoni . °

CHAPTER THIRTIETH

New York City is Suggested to Me by Mr. Worthington and Mr. Johnson — Mr. Ellsler’s Mild Assistance — I Journey to New York, and Return to Cincinnati with Signed Contract from Mr. Daly .

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CONTENTS —

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST

John Cockerill and our Eccentric’ Engagement —I Play a Summer Season at. Halifax — Then to New York, and to House-Keeping at Last .

CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND

I Recall Mr. John E. Sa and How He “Settled my Hash”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THIRD

From the “* Wild West”? I Enter the Eastern “ Parlor of Home Comedy ’?—I Make ae First Ppbeat ance in *“* Man and Wife ”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH

I Rehearse Endlessly — I Grow Sick with Dread —I Meet with Success in Anne Sylvester .

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIFTH

I Am Accepted by the Company —I am Warned against Mr. Fisk—I Have an Odd Encounter with Mr. Gould ‘ :

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXTH

A Search for Tears —I Am Punished in “Saratoga ” for the Success of “ Man and Wife’? —_I Win Mr. Daly’s Confidence — We Become Friends xiii

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5 sole)

. 287

» 300 eh So av - CONTENTS

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENTH

Page A Study of ee Am Tricked into Signing a New Contract . : =2320 CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH I Go to the Sea-shore — The Search for a ‘¢ Scar” I Make a Study of aes and Meet with Gice cess in “ L’ Article 47’ : Re CHAPTER THIRTY-NINTH I Am too Dull to Understand a Premonition — By Mr. Daly’s Side I See the Destruction of the Fifth Avenue Theatre by Fire . - 345 CHAPTER FORTIETH We Become “ Barn-stormers,” and Return to Open the New Theatre— Our Astonishing Misunderstanding of ‘ Alixe,’ which Proves a Great Triumph Sei

CHAPTER FORT Y-FIRST

Trouble about Obnoxious Lines in “ Madeline Morel ” —Mr. Daly’s Manipulation of Father X: In Spite of our Anxiety the Audience accepts the Situation and the Play — Mr. Daly aS me the smallest Dog in New York e Contract and ee at the Union Ree | Mbvret Wicked W orld pees ac sc> Bray erage tint y Secs

CHAPTER F ORTY-THIRD |

We Give a Charity | Performance of « Camille,” Le ro AYE: Struck ith Amazement at our Success — Mr. es the Cue and Produces “Camille” we ee Me at the Union Square ean nit hn akan ty Be ae oe FORTY-FOURTH

“Miss Multon” Put in Rehearsal — Our Squabble over the Manner of her Death — Great Success

- sof the Play— Mr. Palmer’s Pride in it — My

CHAPTER FIRST Tam Born. i

; Jy rr this simple tale is to be told at all, it may as well be- . eS gin at the beginning and in the good old-fashioned and best of all ways — thus: Once upona time in the Cana- Sis city of Toronto, on the 17th of March, the sun rose i bright and clear — which was a most surprising thing for _ the sun to do on St. Patrick’s Day, but while the people were yet wondering over it the sunlight disappeared, clouds of dull gray spread themselves evenly over the sky, and then the snow fell—fell fast and furious, _ quickly whitening the streets and house-tops, softly lining every hollow, and was piling little cushions on top of all the hitching-posts, when the flakes grew larger, wetter, farther apart, and after a little hesitation turned to rain —a sort of walk-trot-gallop rain, which wound up with one vivid flash of lightning and a clap of thunder that fairly shook the city.

Now the Irish, being a brave people and semi-amphibious, pay no heed to wet weather. Usually all the Hibernians residing in a city divide themselves into two bodies on St. Patrick’s Day, the ones who parade and the ones who follow the parade; but on this occasion they divided themselves into three bodies — the men who paraded, the men and women who followed the parade, and the Orangemen who made things pleasant for both parties.

_ As the out-of-time, out-of-tune band turned into a quiet cross-street to lead its following green-bannered host to I inde “ a broader one, t the firs a woman, as it hit no one, the chip off of the shoulder of every fell the banners, up went the fists! were at each other tooth and nail! toric ages side by side with modern beavers ey fifty — years old received the hurled brick-bat and went down together!

The band reached the broad avenue alone, and looked back to see the short street a-sway with struggling men, % while women holding their bedraggled petticoats up, their 3 bonnets hanging down their backs by green ribbon ties, hovered about the edges of the crowd, making predatory dashes now and then to scratch a face or rescue some —— precious hat from the mélée, meanwhile inciting the men a to madness by their fierce cries — and in a quiet house, es in the very midst of this riot — just before the constabulary charged the crowd —I was born. I don’t know, of course, whether I was really intended from the first for that house, or whether the stork became so frightened at the row in the street that he just dropped me from sheer inability to carry me any farther — anyway, I came to a house where trouble and poverty had preceded me, and, worse than both these put together — treachery.

Still, I accepted the situation with indifference. That the cupboard barely escaped absolute emptiness gave me no anxiety, as I had no teeth anyway. As a gentleman with a medicine-case in his hand was leaving the house he paused a moment for the slavey to finish washing away a pool of blood from the bottom step — and then there came that startling clap of thunder. Brand new as I was to this world and its ways, I entered my protest at once with such force and evident wrath that the doctor downstairs exclaimed: “Our young lady has temper as well as a good pair of lungs!” and went on his way laughing.

And so on that St. Patrick’s Day of sunshine, snow, and rain, of riot and bloodshed, in trouble and poverty — TI was born.

CHAPTER SECOND Beginning Early, I Learn Love, Fear, and Hunger —I

Become Acquainted with Letters, and Alas! I Lose-

One of my Two Illusions.

found me in the city of my birth — indeed, six months completed my period of existence in the Dominion, and I have known it no more.

Some may think it strange that I mention these early years at all, but the reason for such mention will appear later on. Looking back at them, they seem to divide themselves into groups of four years each. During the first four, my time was principally spent in growing and learning to keep out of people’s way. I acquired some other knowledge, too, and little child as I was, I knew fear long before I knew the thing that frightened me. I knew that love for my mother which was to become the passion of my life, and I also knew hunger. But the fear was harder to endure than the hunger — it was so vague, yet so allencompassing.

We had to flit so often — suddenly, noiselessly. Often I was gently roused from my sleep at night and hastily dressed — sometimes simply wrapped up without being dressed, and carried through the dark to some other place of refuge, from— what? When I went out into the main business streets I had a tormenting barége veil over my face that would not let me see half the pretty things in the shop windows, and I was quick to notice that no other little girl had a veil on. Next I remarked that if a strange lady spoke to me my mother seemed pleased — but if a man noticed me she was not pleased, and once when a big man took me by the hand and led

O F the Days of St. Patrick that followed, not one

Pa Ir Seer h SReSP Te SBR = A 3S NA Fe AP eS i, Aes * — me to a candy store for some candy she was as white __ as could be and so angry she frightened me, and she promised me a severe punishment if lever, ever went one step with a strange man again. And so my fear began to take the form of a man, of a big, smiling man — for my mother always asked, when I reported that a stranger had spoken to me, if he was big and smiling. I had known the sensation of hunger long before I knew the word that expressed it, and I often pressed my hands over my small empty stomach, and cried and pulled at my mother’s dress skirt. If there was anything at all to give I received it, but sometimes there was absolutely nothing but a drink of water to offer, which checked the gnawing for a moment or two, and at those times there was a tightening of my mother’s trembling lips, and a straight up and down wrinkle between her brows, that I grew to know, and when I saw that look on her face I could not ask for anything more than “a dwink, please.”

As an illustration of her almost savage pride and honesty: I one day saw a woman in front of the house buying some potatoes. I knew that potatoes cooked were very comforting to empty stomachs. One or two of them fell to the street during the measuring and I picked one up, and, fairly wild with delight, I scrambled up the stairs with it. But my mother was angry through and through.

“Who gave it to you?” she demanded.

I explained with a trembling voice: “TI des’ founded it on the very ground — and [’se so hungry!”

But hungry or not hungry, I had to take the potato back: “ Nothing in the world could be taken without asking — that was stealing — and she was the only person in the world I had a right to ask anything of!”

It was a bitter lesson, and was rendered more so by the fact that when I carried the tear-bathed potato back to the street and laid it down, neither the woman who bought nor the man who sold was in sight — and, dear Heaven! I could almost have eaten it raw.

But I was learning obedience and self-respect; more pM |

_ FLEEING FROM MY enough to be admitted into a public school I never knew another child —I never played with any living creature save a remarkable cat, that seemed to have claws all over her, and in my fixed determination to trace her purr and find out where it came from, she buried those claws to the very last one in my fat, investigating little hands.

Meantime my “ fear” had assumed the shape and substance of a man, a man who bore a name that should have been loved and honored above all others, for this “ bogey ” of my baby days —this nightmare and dread — was my own father. When my mother had discovered his treachery — which had not hesitated to boldly face the very altar — she took her child and fled from him, assuming her mother’s maiden name as a disguise. But go where she would, he followed and made scenes. Finally, understanding that she was not to be won back by sophistries, he offered to leave her in peace if she would give the child to him. And when that offer was indignantly rejected, he pleasantly informed her that he would make life a curse to her until she gave me up, and that by fair means or by foul he would surely obtain possession of me. Once he did kidnap me, but my mother had found friends by that time, and their pursuit was so swift and unexpected that he had to abandon me.

So, he who should have been the defender and support of my mother — whose arms should have been our shel-

— *

Ly by ;

Se ter from the Borla - the big, smiling French-Canadian — father — became instead our terror and our dread. Therefore when my mother served in varying capacities in other people’s homes, and I had to efface myself as nearly as possible, I dared not even go out to walk a little, so great was my mother’s fear.

It seems odd, but in spite of my far-reaching memory,

I cannot remember when I learned to read. I can recall but one tiny incident relating to the subject of learning. I stood upon a chair and while my hair was brushed and braided I spelled my words, and I had my ears boxed — a custom considered criminal in these better days — because, having successfully spelled “ elephant,” I came to grief over “ mouse,” as, according to my judgment, m-o-w-s filled all the requirements of the case. I remem-.— ber, too, that the punishment made me afraid to ask what |

“elephant ” meant; but I received the impression that it was some sort of a public building.

However, when I was six years old I joyfully betook myself to a primary school, from which I was sent home with a note, saying that “in that department they did not go beyond the ‘ primer,’ and as this little girl reads quite well from a ‘reader,’ she must have been taught well at home.” We were a proud yet disappointed pair, my mother and I, that day.

An odd little incident occurred about that time. One of our hurried flights had ended at a boarding house, and my extreme quietude— unnatural in a child of health and intelligence — attracted the attention of a certain boarder, who was an actress. She was very popular with the public, and both she and her husband were well liked by the people about them. She took a fancy to me, and informing herself that my mother was poor and alone, she offered to adopt me. She stated her position, her income, and her intention of educating me thoroughly. She thought a convent school would be desirable — from ten, say to seventeen.

Perhaps my mother was tempted — she was a fanatic

“MY PROCESSION ” 7 _ on the question of learning — but, oh! what a big but came in just then: “but when I should have, by God’s will, reached the age of seventeen, she (the actress) would place me upon the stage.” | °

“Gracious Heaven! her child on the stage!” my mother was stricken with horror! She scarcely had strength to make her shocked refusal plain enough; and when her employer ventured to remonstrate with her, pointing out the great advantage to me, she made answer: “Tt would be better for her to starve trying to lead a clean and honorable life, than to be exposed to such publicity and such awful temptations! ”

Poor mother! the theatre was to her imagination but a beautiful vestibule leading to a place of wickedness and general wrong-doing!

During those endless months, when I had each day to sit for hours and hours in one particular chair in a corner, well out of the way — sit so long that often when I was lifted down I could not stand at all, my limbs being numbed to absolute helplessness, I had two great days to dream of, to look forward to— Christmas and that wonderful 17th of March, when because it was my birthday all those nice gentlemen, with the funny hats and green collars, walked out behind the band. And I felt particularly well disposed toward those most amusing gentlemen who wore, according to my theory at least, their little girls’ aprons tied about their big waists.

I did not like so well the attendant crowd, but then I could not be selfish enough to keep people from looking at “my procession” and enjoying the music that made the blood dance in my own veins, even as my feet danced on the chill pavement.

I always received an orange on that day from my mother, and almost always a book, so it was a great event in my life, and I used to get down my little hat-box and fix the laces in my best shoes days ahead of time that I might be ready to stand on some steps where I could bow and smile to the nice gentlemen who walked pate

. when in an outburst of innoc

to a grown-up: “ Ain’t they goo men — to come and march and play day?” Iwas answered with the assura ce foo! — that no one knew or cared a copper abou that it was a Saint, a dead and gone man, they t mat for!”

All the qance went out of my feet, heavy ete cee fast and stood round and clear on the woolly surface of my cloak, and bending my head low to hide my disappointment, I went slowly home, where the chair seemed harder, the hours longer, and life more bare because I had lost the illusion that had brightened and glorified it.

At the present time, here in my home, there is seated in an arm-chair, a venerable doll. She is a hideous specimen of the beautiful doll of the early “ fifties.” She sits with her soles well turned up, facing you, her arms hanging from her shoulders in that idiotically helpless “ I- * give-it-up”’ fashion. peculiar to dolls. With bulging scarlet cheeks, button-hole mouth and flat, blue staring eyes she faces Time and unwinkingly looks him down. To anyone else she is stupidity personified, but, to me she speaks, for she came to me on my fourth Christmas, and she is as gifted as she is ugly. Only last birthday — as I straightened out her old, old dress skirt — she asked me if I remembered how I cried, with my face in her lap, over that first loss of an illusion —and I told her. quite truly that I remembered well!

nt

Chapter Third

I Enter a New World —I Know a New Hunger and we Return to Cleveland.

of years have influenced my entire life. Still flying

from my seemingly ubiquitous father, my mother after a desperate struggle gained enough money to pay for our journey to what was then called the “ far West ” — namely, the southwestern part of Illinois. Child-fashion, I was delighted at the prospect of a change, and happy over the belief that I was going to some place where I could be free to go and come like other children, without dreading the appearance of a big, smiling man from any deep doorway or from around the next corner. To tell the truth, that persistent, indestructible smile always seemed an insult added to the injury of his malicious and revengeful conduct.

Then, too, I experienced my first delicious thrill of imaginary terror. In a torn and abandoned old geography I had seen a picture labelled “ Prairie.” The grass was as high as a man’s shoulders, and stealthily emerging from it was a sort of compound animal, neither tiger nor leopard, but with points of resemblance to both. And here every day I was listening to the grown-ups talking of “ prairie lands,” and how far we might have to drive across the prairie after leaving the train; and I made up my mind that I would hold our umbrella all the time, and when the uncertain beast came out I’d try to stick his eyes with it, and under cover of the confusion we would undoubtedly escape. : That being settled, I could turn all my attention to

Ps experiences of the first two of my third group

10 LIFE ON THE STAGE preparations for, the long journey. Dear me, I remember just where each big red rose came on the carpet-bag, and how sorry I was that the tiny brass lock came right in the side of one. It was a large bag and held a great deal, but was so arranged that whatever you wanted was always found at the bottom — whether it was the tooth- - brush or a night-gown or a pair of rubbers. It had a sort of dividing wall of linen in its middle, and while one side held clothing, the other side was the commissary department. No buffet-cars then, travellers ran their own buffets, and though the things did not come into actual contact, there was not an article, big or little, in that bag that did not smell of pickles. And once when my mother had hastily attended to my needs in the miserable toiletroom of the car (no sleeper — just a sit-up-all-night af- - fair), my clean stockings, white apron and little handkerchief all exhaled vinegar so strongly that I wrinkled up my nose, exclaiming: “I smell jes’ like a pickled little girl— don’t I, ma’ma?” And then, when weary and worn and dusty, we left the cars and had to drive some thirty miles, in a carriage of uncertain class, over the open prairie — then smooth and bright and green — I wearily remarked, after a time, that it was a “ pretty big lawn, but where was the prairie?’ for true to my plan I had secured the umbrella, and being told that I was crossing the prairie then, I was a bitterly disappointed young person. Oh, how I longed to give way to one of those passionate outbursts we so often see children indulge in! Oh, how I wanted to hurl aside the umbrella I had begged for, to fling my weary self down on the floor and cry, and cry! But I dared not — never in my whole life had I ventured on such an exhibition of temper or feeling — so I winked fast and held very still and swallowed hard at the disappointment, which was but the first of such a number of very bitter pills that I was yet to swallow.

But, thank God! if I was easily cast down, I was as easily cheered; and the prairie left behind, the sight of

Sages —

COUNTRY LIFE 11 the first orchard we passed, with the soft perfumed snow of the blossoms floating through the rosy sunset light, raised my spirits to an ecstasy of joy; and when our journey ended, at the rough farm-house, with my arm around the surly looking watch-dog, I stood and heard for the first time the mournful cry of the whippoorwill out in the star-pierced dark of the early May night, I thrilled with the unspoken consciousness that this was a new world that I was entering —a lovely, lovely world, that the grown-ups called the “ country”!

For the two years I knew it the charm of that backwood life never palled. I had never seen the country before, and I found it a place of beauty and many marvels. I did not miss the fine city shops, for I never had had money to spend in them. I did not miss the people, for they had been nothing to me. And here no day © that dawned failed to bring me some new experience. With what awed wonderment I faced the mystery of the springing grain. I saw the seed, hard and dry, fall into the furrowed earth and, a few days later, with gentle strength, tiny pale green spears come pricking through the brown. I learned not to look under the hickory-trees for the oak acorns that I adored. I was soon able to tell the rapidly forming furry green peaches from the smooth young apples, and I literally fell down upon my knees and worshipped before lambs, calves, and colts.

In this new, strange life everyone worked, but they worked for themselves — to use a country expression, no one “hired out.” I was a very little girl. I could not spin as could my mother, who had passed her childhood in backwood life. Of course I could not weave, but I was taught to knit my own stockings— such humpy, lumpy knitting! But I was very proud of the accomplishment, even though my mother did have to “turn the heel.” Then, too, I with other children at planting-time dropped corn in the sun-warmed furrows, while a man followed behind with a hoe covering it up; and when it had sprouted and was a tempting morsel for certain aoee anything a out of the Bible, a as Fick “the they had never heard tell of it; 1 : to them an enlarged toe-joint — not. a 2 The lack of reading matter was the country life. The library, composed of the Bible anc almanac, was not satisfying to my inquiring mind. paper was taken in by the head of the family —; weekly, in every possible sense — but I came to_ wate eagerly for it, and it filled the family with amazement to’ * see me sit down on the step and gravely wade through ~ its dreary columns — happy if I could catch hold of some idea — some bit of news — some scrap of story; and my farmer host one day at his noon smoke removed his corn-cob pipe from his lips long enough to remark of me: “Dogorne my skin! if that young ’un ain’t awake and enj ien hersel’. Now I allers go ter sleep over that ee 3 mysel’!”’ So should [— now —I presume. ‘ These children being for-true, real children had no idea of showing courtesy or politeness to a stranger, but they had a very natural yearning to get fun out of that stranger if they could, and so they blithely led me forth to a pasture shortly after our arrival at the farm, and catching a horse they hoisted me up on to its bare, slippery back. I have learned a good bit about horses since then — have hired, borrowed, and bought them — have been to circuses and horse shows, but never since have I seen a horse of such appalling aspect. His eyes were the size of soup-plates, large clouds of smoke came from his nostrils. He had a glass-enamelled surface, and if he was one half as tall as he felt, some museum manager missed a fortune. Then the young fiends, leaving me on my slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off

CHILDHOOD AMUSEMENTS 13 and stood over against the fence and gave me plenty of

_ room —to fall off. But when I suddenly felt-the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild shriek — clenched my hands in the animal’s back hair, and, madly flinging propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be behind me, I cast one pantalet over the enamelled back, and thus astride, safely crossed the pasture — and lo! it was not I who fell, but their faces instead. When they came to take me down, somehow the animal seemed shrunken and I hesitated about leaving it, whereupon the biggest boy said I had “ pluck” (I had been frightened nearly to death, but I always could be silent at the proper moment; I was silent then), and he would teach me to ride sideways, for my mother would surely punish me if I sat astride like that; and in a few weeks, thanks to him, I was the one who was oftenest trusted to take the