The people who have known happiness without the alloying if or but are few and far between. "Yes, of course we are happy—but," "I should be perfectly and completely happy—if," you hear people saying every day; and so in my case, having been admitted into fellowship with the men and women of the company, who were a gracious and charming crowd, and receiving hearty approval each night from the great Public, by whose favor I and mine existed, I was grateful and would have been quite happy—but for a brand-new difficulty that suddenly loomed up, large, and wide, and solid before me.

Never in my life had I been in a play of a longer run than one week. Imagine, then, my misery when I found this play, that was already old to me at the end of the first week, was likely to go on for a long time to come. It was not mere ennui over the repetition of the same lines, night after night, that troubled me, it was something far more serious. I had made my hit with the public by moving the people's feelings to the point of tears; but to do that I had first to move my own heart, for, try as I would, no amount of careful acting had the desired effect. I had to shed tears or they would not. Now that is not an easy thing to do to order, in cold blood. While the play is new one's nerves are strained almost to the breaking point—one is over-sensitive and the feelings are easily moved; then the pathetic words I am speaking touch my heart, tears rush to my eyes, tears are heard in my voice, and other hearts respond swiftly; but when you have calmed down, when you have repeated the lines so often that they no longer mean anything to you, what are you to do then?

Really and truly there were days when I was nearly out of my mind with terror lest I should not be able to cry that night; for those tears of mine had a commercial value as well as an artistic, and Mr. Daly was swift to reproach me if the handkerchief display in front was not as great as usual. This sounds absurd perhaps to a reader, but heaven knows it was tragic enough to me. I used to agonize all day over the question of tears for the night, and I have seen the time when even my own imaginary tomb failed to move me.

One night, when my eyes were dry as bones, and my voice as hard as stone, and Mr. Daly was glaring whitely at me from the entrance, I had suddenly a sort of vision of that dethroned actress whom, back in Cleveland, I had seen uncrowned. I saw her quivering face, her stricken eyes, and a sudden rush of tears blinded me. Later, Mr. Daly said: "What a tricky little wretch you are. I thought you were going to throw that scene away, without a single tear to-night. I suppose you were doing it to aggravate me, though?"

Goodness knows I was grateful enough myself for the tears when they did come, and I got an idea from that experience that has served me all the years since. Everything else—love, hate, dignity, passion, vulgarity, delicacy, duplicity, all, everything can be assumed to order; but, for myself, tears are not mechanical, they will not come at will. The heart must be moved, and if the part has lost its power then I must turn to some outside incident that has power. It may be from a book, it may be from real life—no matter, if only its recalling starts tears to weary eyes.

Thus in "Alixe" it was not for my lost lover I oftenest wept such racing tears, but for poor old Tennessee's partner as he buried his worthless dead, with his honest old heart breaking before your eyes. While in "Camille" many and many a night her tears fell fast over the memory of a certain mother's face as she told me of the moment when, returning from the burial of her only child, the first snowflakes began to whirl through the still, cold air, and she went mad with the anguish of leaving the little tender body there in the cold and dark, and flung herself from the moving carriage and ran, screaming, back to the small rough pile of earth to shelter it with her own living body.

So there is my receipt for sudden tears. I being—thank heaven—a cheerful body, and given to frequent laughter, may laugh in peace up to the last moment, if I have only stowed away some heart-breaking incident that I can recall at the proper moment. It seems like taking a mean advantage of a tender heart, I know—what Bret Harte would call "playing it low down" on it; but what else could I do? I leave it to you. What could you do to make yourself cry seven times a week, for nine or ten months a year?

Then there was another great change in the new life. I was used to rehearsing every day, and, lo! when once a play was on here, there followed weeks, perhaps months, when there were no rehearsals. Mercy! I could never afford to waste all that time; but what could I do? "One and two and three and," I could not afford; but, oh, if I could take some French lessons, what a help they would be to me in the proper pronunciation of names upon the stage. But I did not want lessons from some ignorant person, or someone who had a strange dialect. I have all my life had such a horror of unlearning things. I knew a real French teacher would charge me a real "for-true" price, and my heart was doubtful—but see how fate was good to me. There was in Tenth Street a little daughter of a well-known French professor—he taught in a certain college. The daughter was eager to teach. The father said: "Who will trust so young a girl to instruct them? If you only had a first and second pupil, you would be self-supporting. French teachers are in great demand, but where shall you find that first pupil—tell me that, ma fille. No matter how small your charge, the question will be, where have you taught? No one will wish to be the first pupil."

But, fine old French gentleman as he was, he was mistaken nevertheless, for I was willing, nay, eager, to be that first pupil, and she found my name of so much value to her in obtaining a full class that she became absolutely savage in her fell determination to make me speak her beloved language correctly. In spite of her eighteen years she looked full fourteen, and her dignity was a fearful thing to contemplate, until she had a chocolate-cream in one cheek and a dimple in the other, then somehow the dignity broke in the middle and the lesson progressed through much laughter.

She was not beautiful, but pretty and charming to such an extent that, within the year, she became Madame, carried her own chocolates, and was absolutely vicious over irregular verbs. Dear little woman—I remember her gratefully, and also remember that, later on, I paid just six times as much per lesson to an elaborate person, well-rouged, who taught me nothing, lest she might offend me in the act. I know this to be true, because one day I deliberately mispronounced and let tenses run wild, to see if she would have the honesty or courage to correct me; but she looked a trifle surprised, rearranged her bangles, and let it all pass. I then resigned my position as pupil, that she might give her very questionable assistance as teacher to some other scholar, shorter of temper, and more sensitive to rebuke or correction than I was.

At the theatre I think everyone liked me well enough, save Mr. Daly. He disliked me because I simply could not learn to treat him with reverence. I had the greatest admiration for him, I showed him respect by obeying him implicitly, but if he was funny I laughed, if he gave me an opportunity to twist his words absurdly I accepted it as gleefully as if he had been the gas-man.

But two things happened, and lo! my manager's attitude toward me changed completely. Mr. Daly was convinced that no man or woman could bear decently a sudden success. He was positive that no head could stand it. When I made no demand for my promised increase of salary, but went pinching along as best I could, he only said to himself: "She will be all the worse when her head does begin to turn."

One day a certain newspaper man looked in at his office, and said: "Oh, I have something here about the play, and I've given a few pretty good lines to your find (Clara Morris): do you want to look at them?"

"I want them cut out!" sharply ordered Mr. Daly.

"Cut out?" repeated the surprised man. "Why, she's the play—or mighty near it. I thought you'd want her spoken of most particularly?"

And then Mr. Daly made his famous speech: "I don't want individual successes, sir, in my theatre! I want my company kept at a level. I put them all in a line, and then I watch, and if one head begins to bob up above the others, I give it a crack and send it down again!"

I had heard that story in several forms, when one day I spoke of it to Mr. Daly, and he calmly acknowledged the speech, as I have given it above, adding the words: "And next week I'm going to give Mr. Crisp's head a crack, he's bobbing up, I see!"

The play of "Saratoga," by Mr. Bronson Howard, had been read to the company, and, after the custom of actors the world over, they began to cast the characters themselves—such a part for Lewis, such a one for Miss Davenport. The splendid Irish part for Amy Ames (of course, with her wonderful brogue), etc.; almost everyone remarking that there was nothing for me. Lewis said: "Well, Clara, you're out of this play, sure. Will you study Greek or the Rogue's Vocabulary? for I'll wager a hat to a hair-pin you'll be turning a good head of hair gray over some nonsense of the kind—good Lord!"

For M. Bènot was holding toward me a thin little part, saying: "For you, Miss Morris."

Mr. Daly stood at the far end of the room; he was watching me. The part was a walking lady of second quality. It was an indignity to give it to me. Like lightning I recalled the terms of my contract—I realized my helplessness.

I rolled up the small part, calmly rose, and smiling a comprehending smile into Mr. Daly's disappointed eyes, for which he could have choked me, I sauntered out of the room. At home I wept bitterly. It was undeserved! I had borne so much from gratitude, and here I was being treated just as a fractious, brain-turned, presuming person might have been treated for a punishment. However, my tears were only seen at home. At the theatre I rehearsed faithfully and good-temperedly, and writhed smilingly at the expressions of surprise over the cast, and for one hundred nights I was thus made to do penance for having made a success in "Man and Wife." Truly I had got a good "crack" for bobbing up; still my patient, uncomplaining acceptance of the part had made an impression on Mr. Daly, and he often expressed his regret, later on, for the error he made as to the possible turning of my head.

Then came the second happening. To Mr. Daly a confidant was an absolute necessity of existence. If they had tastes in common, so much the happier for Mr. Daly, but such tastes were not imperatively demanded, neither was sex of importance—male or female would answer; but the one great, indispensable, and essential quality was the ability to respect a confidence, the power to hold a tongue.

In the early weeks of the season he had been drifting into a friendship with a man in the company, and had told him, in strictest confidence, of a certain plan he was forming, and twenty-four hours later he heard that plan being discussed in one of the dressing-rooms. It had traveled by way of husband to wife, wife to friend, friend to her husband, and husband No. 2 was busy in explaining it to all and sundry.

That ended the career of one gentleman as friend and confidant to Mr. Daly. One day after rehearsal I was detained on the stage to discuss a fashion-plate he was tearing from a magazine. A short poem caught his eye. He glanced at it carelessly, then looked more closely at the lines, and began to mumble the words:

His brows were knit, his eyes looked away, dreamily. Again he repeated the words, adding, impatiently: "I can't place that silver foot—the bow, the lyre, yes; but the foot? Oh, probably it's a mere figure of speech," and he turned to the plate again, when I said: "Perhaps it means Thetis, you know, silver-footed queen—daughter of old sea-god."

His whole face lit up with pleasure. "That's it," he said, "that's whom it means; but are you sure the word 'queen' belongs right there?"

"No," I laughed, "I have grave doubts about my 'queen,' but I'm solid as a rock on the rest of the line."

Then he repeated, with lingering enjoyment: "'Thetis, silver-footed, silver-footed, daughter of old sea-god.' Do you know I often wonder why someone does not make a play of mythological characters—a play after the modern method I mean."

"Oh," I broke in, "then I shall have a rest, for I am not beautiful enough for even a walking-lady divinity."

"Ah," he said, kindly, "you are not going to do any more walking ladies—divine or human. I have already in my possession a play with a great part for you. Boucicault wrote it, and——"

He stopped suddenly, all the brightness went out of his face. He played nervously with his watch-guard. He started out with: "Miss Morris, I wish—" stopped, frowned; then impatiently took up the picture-plate, pointed out which dress he wanted me to wear, and curtly dismissed me.

I understood him perfectly. In a genial moment he had unintentionally given me some information which he now regretted, though he would not stoop to ask my silence; and he felt sure that I would at once boast of the great part that was to be mine; and I went home, one broad smile of malicious satisfaction, for in spite of my seemingly-careless speech, I had, by long and careful training, acquired the fine art of holding my tongue about other people's affairs, even though I ascended to the roof to babble to the city of my own; and Mr. Daly would be again disappointed, as he had been the day I accepted, without protest, the walking-lady part.

That night he barely nodded in silent recognition of my "Good-evening, sir." Next morning he kept his eyes averted from me when he gave me any stage directions; but whenever or wherever we women formed a little group to chat, there Mr. Daly, like a jack-in-the-box, suddenly sprang into evidence. It was very funny—he was simply waiting for me to repeat my interesting information.

Two, three days passed, then a certain kindness began to show in his manner toward me. Quite suddenly, and of course unasked, he gave me a dressing-room to myself. I was delighted! Hesitatingly, I tapped at the door of his office. I had never stood there before, save by order. I said: "I will not come in, Mr. Daly, I only wished to thank you for the room you have given me. It will be a great comfort, for we are terribly crowded in the other one."

But he rose, took my hand, and said: "You deserve anything and everything this theatre can provide for you." Drawing me to a chair, he placed me in it, while still speaking: "And I am proud of you. You are a girl in ten thousand! For you can respect a confidence."

I was very much embarrassed by such unexpected warmth, and laughing nervously I said: "Even when the confidence was unintentional and deeply regretted?"

"Ah!" he answered, "you saw that, did you? Well, I've been listening and waiting to hear about the 'new play' ever since, but not a word have you dropped, and I did not ask for silence either. You are a woman worth talking to, and I shall never be afraid to tell you things I am going to do, and——"

And straightway he told me all about the new play—its good points, its bad ones, and where he feared for it; and to show you how true was his judgment, the play, which later on gave me a great personal success, was itself a failure from the very causes he then indicated.

And so it came about that Mr. Daly, putting aside his dislike for me—coming to enjoy my sense of the ridiculous, instead of resenting it—confided many, many plans and dreams, likes and dislikes, hates and loves to me. We quarreled spitefully over politics, fought furiously over religion, wickedly bowed down and worshipped before odds and ends of lovely carvings or precious cloisonné, to whose beauty I first introduced him, and hung in mutual rapture over rare old engravings.

Thus I came to know him fairly well. A man with unbounded ambition, a man of fine and delicate tastes, with a passionate love of beauty—in form, color, sound. I have known him to turn a sentence, exquisitely, word by word, slowly repeating the line, as though he were tasting its beauty, as well as hearing it. Interested in the occult and the inscrutable—a man of many tastes, but of one single purpose—every power and acquirement were brought to the service of the stage.

In love he was mutability personified. In friendship, always exigent. Now sullenly silent, now rapidly talkative, whimsical, changeable, he was ever lavishly generous and warm-hearted. And it is a comfort to know that in one respect at least I proved satisfactory during the friendship that lasted as long as I remained in the theatre, since I never, even by chance, betrayed his confidence.

When we had finally parted, a man one day mentioned me to Mr. Daly, expecting to bring forth some disparaging remark. There was a pause while my former manager gazed out at the heavily falling rain, then he said, quietly: "When you drop a thing in a well, it can go no further. Clara Morris is a sort of human well, what you confide to her goes no further. Some people call that 'discretion,' I call it loyalty. I—I guess you'll get a wetting on the way home." And acting on that hint the surprised gentleman withdrew. He told me himself of the occurrence, and I confess that Mr. Daly's words gave me a thrill of pleasure.

After those two occurrences I found my theatrical life pleasanter, for I love my kind and wish to live at peace with them—and Mr. Daly's dislike had disturbed and distressed me; therefore, when that had been conquered, great was my contentment. A sympathetic word, a comprehending glance, a friendly smile, proving ample indemnification for former injuries.

Nor could I be made to accept at full value the cruel gibes, the bitter sarcasms reported to me as coming from Miss Agnes Ethel. For some reason there was a distinct effort made to arouse in me an enmity against that lady. Unpleasant stories had been repeated to me during the run of "Man and Wife"; some of them had wounded me, but I had only listened silently. Then one night I met her—a slender, auburn-haired, appealing creature, with clinging fingers, sympathetic voice, and honest eyes—a woman whose charming and cordial manner not only won my admiration, but convinced me she was incapable of the brutalities charged to her.

So when "Jezebel" was announced, and it was known that Mr. Daly desired Miss Ethel and me both to appear in it, great interest was aroused, only to be crushed by Miss Ethel's refusal to play the part allotted to her. I think she was in error, for the two parts were perfectly balanced. Mine was the wicked, even murderous adventuress; hers the gentle, sweet, and triumphant wife. I had the first act; she was not in that, but Mr. Daly's idea was that her victory in the last act—where I was simply pulverized for my sins—evened things up. But Miss Ethel listened to the advice of outside friends. Her relations with Mr. Daly were already strained, and her second refusal of a part was the beginning of the end.

Mr. Daly himself informed me that she said her part was secondary, but that the real difficulty sprang from an earlier wrangle between them, with which I had nothing to do. Yet there were persons who, with great indignation, informed me that Miss Ethel had positively "refused to appear upon the stage in any play with me—a mere vulgar outsider!"

But "vulgar outsider" was just a touch too strong; "malice had o'erleaped self" and fallen on the other side. The silly story even reached some of the papers, but that did not increase my belief in its truth.

Mr. Daly and Miss Ethel parted company before, or at, the end of the season, and while I never worked with her, later on I privately received such gracious courtesies from her kindly hands that the name of Agnes Ethel must ever ring pleasantly in my ears.

Before I came under the management of Mr. Daly, I may say I never really knew what stage-management meant. He was a young man then; he had had, I believe, his own theatre but one season before I joined his forces, yet his judgment was as ripe, his decisions were as swift and sure, his eye for effect was as true, his dramatic instinct as keen as well could be.

We never exchanged so much as a frown, let alone a hasty word, over work. I realized that he had the entire play before his "mind's eye," and when he told me to do a thing, I should have done it, even had I not understood why he wished it done. But he always gave a reason for things, and that made it easy to work under him.

His attention to tiny details amazed me. One morning, after Mr. Crisp had joined the company, he had to play a love-scene with me, and the "business" of the scene required him to hold me some time in his embrace. But Mr. Crisp's embrace did not suit Mr. Daly—no more did mine. Out he went, in front, and looked at us.

"Oh," he cried, "confound it! Miss Morris, relax—relax! lean on him—he won't break! That's better—but lean more! lean as if you needed support! What? Yes, I know you don't need it—but you're in love, don't you see? and you're not a lady by a mile or two! For God's sake, Crisp, don't be so stiff and inflexible! Here, let me show you!"

Up Mr. Daly rushed on to the stage, and taking Crisp's place, convulsed the company with his effort at acting the lover. Then back again to the front, ordering us to try that embrace again.

"That's better!" he cried; "but hold her hand closer, tighter! not quite so high—oh, that's too low! Don't poke your arm out, you're not going to waltz. What in —— are you scratching her back for?"

It was too much; in spite of the awe in which Mr. Daly was held, everyone, Crisp included, screamed with laughter, while Mr. Daly fumed and fretted over the time that was being wasted.

One of my early experiences of his way of directing a rehearsal made a deep impression upon me. In the play of "Jezebel" I had the title part. There were a number of characters on in the scene, and Mr. Daly wanted to get me across the stage, so that I should be out of hearing distance of two of the gentlemen. Now, in the old days, the stage-director would simply have said: "Cross to the Right," and you would have crossed because he told you to; but in Mr. Daly's day you had to have a reason for crossing the drawing-room, and so getting out of the two gentlemen's way—and a reason could not be found.

Here are a few of the many rejected ideas: There was no guest for me to cross to in welcoming pantomime; no piano on that side of the room for me to cross to and play on softly; ah, the fireplace! and the pretty warming of one foot? But no, it was summer-time, that would not do. The ancient fancy-work, perhaps? No, she was a human panther, utterly incapable of so domestic an occupation. The fan forgotten on the mantel-piece? Ah, yes, that was it! you cross the room for that—and then suddenly I reminded Mr. Daly that he had, but a moment before, made a point of having me strike a gentleman sharply on the cheek with my fan.

"Oh, confound it, yes!" he answered, "and that's got to stand—that blow is good!"

The old, old device of attendance upon the lamp was suggested; but the hour of the day was plainly given by one of the characters as three o'clock in the afternoon.

These six are but few of the many rejected reasons for that one cross of the stage; still Mr. Daly would not permit a motiveless action, and we came to a momentary standstill. Very doubtfully, I remarked: "I suppose a smelling-bottle would not be important enough to cross the room for?"

He brightened quickly—clouded over even more quickly: "Y-e-e-s! N-o-o! at least, not if it had never appeared before. But let me see—Miss Morris, you must carry that smelling-bottle in the preceding scene, and—and, yes, I'll just put in a line in your part, making you ask some one to hand it to you—that will nail attention to it, you see! Then in this scene, when you leave these people and cross the room to get your smelling-bottle from the mantel, it will be a perfectly natural action on your part, and will give the men their chance of explanation and warning." And at last we were free to move on to other things.

Above all was he eager to have his stage present a home-like interior. Never shall I forget my amazement when I first saw a piece of furniture occupying the very centre of the stage, while I with others were reduced to acting in any scrap of room we could "scrooge" into, as children say.

Long trains were fashionable then, and it was no uncommon sight to see the lover standing with both feet firmly planted upon his lady's train while he implored her to fly with him—the poor man had to stand somewhere! Miss Davenport, in one of her comedy scenes, having to move about a good deal on the crowded stage, finally wound her trailing skirts so completely about a chair that, at her exit, the chair went with her, causing a great laugh.

One night a male character, having to say boastfully to me: "I have my hand upon a fortune!" I added in an undertone: "And both feet upon my white satin dress!" at which he lost his grip (as the boys say) and laughed aloud—said laugh costing him a forfeit of fifty cents, which really should have been paid by me, as I was the guilty cause of that disastrous effect. But the gentleman was not only gallant but well used to being forfeited, and unconcernedly paid the penalty exacted.

But really it was very distressing trying to make your way between pieces of furniture—stopping to release your skirts from first one thing and then another, and often destroying all the effect of your words by such action. One evening I petulantly observed to Mr. Daly: "I see now why one is only woolly in the West—in the East one gets the wool all rubbed off on unnecessary pedestals and centre-divans."

He laughed first, then pulled up sharply, saying: "Perhaps you did not notice that your comment contained a criticism of my judgment, Miss Morris? If I think the furniture necessary, that is sufficient," and I gave him a military salute and ran down-stairs. At the foot Mr. George Brown and one of the pretty young women stood. She was saying: "Now if any of us had said there was too much crowding from that rubbishy old furniture, he would have made us pay a nice forfeit for it, but Miss Morris gets off scot-free!"

"Yes, I know," said Mr. Brown, "but then she amused him first with the idea of rubbing the Western wool off here, and you can't very well laugh and then turn around and forfeit the person who made you do it."

And so I learned that if no detail was too small for Mr. Daly to consider carefully in his preparation of a play, so no detail of daily life in his theatre was too small for notice, consideration, and comment, and I resolved to try hard to curb my careless speech, lest it get me into trouble.

Early during that first week my friend, John Norton, said to me: "Have you spoken to Mr. Daly about your salary yet?"

"Good gracious, no!" I answered.

"Well, but you should," he persisted; "that is only business. You have made a great hit; he promised you to double thirty-five dollars if you made a favorable impression."

"Well," I cried, "wait till salary-day, and very likely I'll get it; he will keep his word, only, for mercy's sake, give him a chance! It would insult him were I to remind him, now, of his promise."

I was content to wait, but Mr. Norton was anxious. Monday came and, tremblingly, I opened my envelope to find thirty-five dollars—no more, no less. I knew what anyone else would do, I knew I was valuable to Mr. Daly, but, oh, those years and years of repression—for so long a time to be seen—not heard, had been the law of my weary life, and now the old thrall was upon me, I simply could not demand my right.

The tears fell fast as I went home, with that miserable wage in my hand. We were in such dreadful straits for clothing. Other needs we could hide, but not the need of outer garments. I was quite sick with disappointment and anxiety, yet I would not permit Mr. Norton to go and speak for me, as that would mean gossip as to his right to interfere.

I used to plan out exactly what I was going to say, and start a little earlier to the theatre, that I might have time to see Mr. Daly and remind him of his promise, and then, when I got there, unconquerable shame overcame me—I could not!

Then one night Mr. Daly asked me to sign a contract for five years, with a certain rise in salary each year. I utterly refused. I knew that would mean absolute bondage. He said he would raise my salary now, if I would sign; and I did actually whisper, that he had not kept his promise about this year's salary.

He curtly answered: "Never mind this year—sign for five, and this season will then take care of itself!"

"No," I said, and yet again "No!" "Mr. Daly," I cried, "I shall be grateful to you all the days of my life for giving me this chance in New York—you are treating me badly, but I am grateful enough not to rebel. I will play for you every season of my life, if you want me; I will never consider an offer without first telling you of it, but you must engage me but for one season at a time."

"Then you can go!" he said. "All my people are engaged from three to five years—I will not break my rule for anyone; so now you can choose!"

"Pardon me," I answered, huskily, "you chose for me when you told me to go!" I bowed to him and went out, sore at heart and deeply wounded, for I was keeping silent as to his broken promise out of sheer gratitude for the opening he had given me.

The letter-box for the company hung near his private office. One night, as he unlocked his door, he saw old man Keating (the stage-door man) sorting out letters for the various boxes. One caught Mr. Daly's eye, bearing the name of Wallack. He took it from Keating's hand; it was addressed to Clara Morris. No one ever called Mr. Daly a dull man, and when he put two and two together, even in a hurry, he knew quite well that the result would be four; and when he put the words, "Wallack's Theatre," and the address, "Clara Morris," together he knew equally well the result would be an offered engagement. Then Mr. Daly put back the letter and said sharply to the reverent Keating: "Whatever you do, don't let Miss Morris pass you when she comes in. Stop her before she takes her key. Remember, whether early or late, stop her anyway, and send her to my room. Tell her it is urgent—you understand? Before she gets her key (by the letter-box) I must see her!"

Yes, he understood, for when I came in I was switched away from the key-board in a jiffy and rushed by the elbow to the governor's office, and even held there until the summons to enter answered the knock of the determined and obedient Keating.

Inside, Mr. Daly, smiling benignly, greeted me as one greets a naughty, spoiled child, and pulling me by my fingers toward his desk, showed me a contract outspread: "A contract for one season," he said, giving me a light tap on my ear. "Though you must promise silence on the subject, for there would be an outcry of favoritism if it were known that I broke a rule for you! Salary? oh, the salary is only fifty-five dollars, but we will balance that by my assistance in the matter of wardrobe. Whenever you have five dresses to buy I will provide three, which will belong to me afterward, of course—and—and just sign now, for I'm in a great haste, child, as I have an appointment to keep! Oh, you don't want any time to think over an engagement of just one season! You obstinate little block! and, by the way, I'll add five dollars a week to your present salary for the rest of the season, if you sign this—yes, that's the right place!"

So pinched, so tormented were we for money that I signed instantly to secure that immediate poor little five dollars a week rise! Signed and went out to find, awaiting me in the letter-box, a better offer from Mr. Lester Wallack.

And let me say right here that about the middle of the season I found that some young actresses, who handed me cards on the stage, and in laced caps and aprons appeared as maids in my service, were receiving for their arduous duties a higher salary than I received as leading woman and their play-mistress. "It's a strange world, my masters, a very strange world!"

I had got safely through my first dreaded vacation. I had had two wonderful weeks at the seaside, where, with Mr. and Mrs. James Lewis and George Parkes, I had boarded with Mrs. By Baker, whom we left firmly convinced of our general insanity—harmless, but quite hopeless cases she thought us. Awed into reverent silence I had taken my first long look at the ocean; that mighty monster, object of my day-dreams all the years, lay that day outstretched, smiling, dimpling, blinking like the babe of giants, basking in the sun.

I had inhaled with delight the briny coolness of its breath, and with my friends had engaged in wild romps in its waves, all of us arrayed meanwhile in bathing dresses of hideous aspect, made from gray flannel of penitential color and scratchiness, and most malignant modesty of cut; which were yet the eminently proper thing at that time.

I almost wonder, looking at the bathing dresses of to-day, that old Ocean, who is a lover of beauty, did not dash the breath out of us, and then fling us high and dry on the beach, where the sands might quickly drift over our ugly shells and hide them from view.

All this happened, and much more, before I came to the play "L'Article 47," famous for its great French court scene, and for the madness of its heroine. I am so utterly lacking in self-confidence that it was little short of cruelty for Mr. Daly to tell me, as he did, that the fate of the play hung upon that single scene; that the production would be expensive and troublesome, and its success or failure lay absolutely in my hands.

I turned white as chalk, with sheer fright, and could scarcely force myself to speak audibly, when asked if I could do the part.

I answered, slowly, that I thought it unfair for Mr. Daly first to reduce me to a state of imbecility, through fear, and then ask me to make a close study of violent madness—since the two conditions were generally reversed.

The people laughed, but there was no responsive smile on my lips, as I entered upon a period of mental misery that only ended with the triumphant first night.

I did all I could do to get at Cora's character and standing before the dread catastrophe—feeling that her madness must to some extent be tinged by past habits and personal peculiarities. I got a copy of the French novel—that was not an affectation, but a necessity, as it had not then been translated, and I was greatly impressed with the minute description of the destruction done by the bullet George had fired into her face. Portions of the jaw-bone had been shot away; the eye, much injured, had barely been saved, but it was drawn and distorted.

As the woman's beauty had been her letter of introduction to the gilded world, indeed had been her sole capital, that "scar" became of tremendous value in the make-up of the part, since it would explain, and in some scant measure excuse, her revengeful actions.

Still, as the play was done in Paris, the "scar" was almost ignored by that brilliant actress, Madame Rousseil. I had her photograph in the part of Cora, and while she had a drapery passed low beneath her jaws to indicate some injury to her neck or breast, her face was absolutely unblemished.

To my mind that weakened Cora's case greatly—she had so much less to resent, to brood over.

I took my trouble to Mr. Daly, after I had been out to the mad-house at Blackwell's Island, and had gained some useful information from that awful aggregation of human woe. He listened to Bèlot's description of Cora's beauty and its wrecking "scar"; he looked condemningly at the Rousseil picture, and then asked me what I wanted to do.

I told him I wanted a dreadful scar—then I wanted to veil it always; and he broke in with, "Then why have the scar, if it is to be veiled?"

But I hurried on: "My constant care to keep it covered will make people imagine it a hundred times worse than it really is. Then when the veil is torn off by main force, and they catch a glimpse of the horror, they will not wonder that her already-tottering brain should give way under such a blow to her vanity."

Mr. Daly studied over the matter silently for a few moments, then he said: "Yes, you are right. That scar is a great factor in the play; go ahead, and make as much of it as you can."

But right there I came up against an obstacle. I was not good at even an eccentric make-up. I did not know how to proceed to represent such a scar, as I had in my mind.

"Try," said Mr. Daly. I tried, and with tear-reddened eyes announced my failure, but I said: "I shall ask Mr. Lemoyne to help me—he is the cleverest and most artistic maker-up of faces I ever saw."

"Yes," said Mr. Daly, "get him to try it after rehearsal; you have no time to lose now!"

Only too well I knew that; so at once I approached Mr. Lemoyne, and made my wants known. I had not the slightest hesitation in doing so, because, in spite of his sinful delight in playing jokes on me, he was the kindest, most warm-hearted of comrades; and true to that character he at once placed his services at my disposal, though he shook his head very doubtfully over the undertaking.

"You know I never saw a scar of such a nature in my life," he said, as he lighted up his dressing-room.

"Oh," I said, "you, who can change your nose or your mouth or your eyes at will, can make an ugly scar, easily enough," and off went hat and veil, and Mr. Lemoyne, using my countenance for his canvas, began work.

He grew more and more glum as he wiped off and repainted. One scar was too small—oh, much too small. Then the shattered jaw-bone was described. Again he tried. "Clara," he said, "I can't do it, because I don't know what I am aiming at!"

"Oh, go on!" I pleaded, "make a hideous scar, then I'll learn how from you, and do it myself."

He was patience and kindness personified, but when at last he said he could do no more, I looked in the glass, and—well, we both laughed aloud, in spite of our chagrin. He said: "It looks as though some street-boy had given you a swat in the eye with a chunk of mud."

I mournfully washed it off and begged him to try just once more—to-morrow; and he promised with a doleful air.

I had tears in my eyes as I left the theatre, I was so horribly cast down, for if Mr. Lemoyne could not make up that scar no one could. But he used too much black—that was a grave mistake, and—oh, dear! now what? Men were peeling up the stone walk. I could not go home by the Sixth Avenue car as usual, without a lot of bother and muddy shoes. I was just tired enough from rehearsal and disappointed enough to be irritated by the tiniest contretemps, and I almost whimpered, as I turned the other way and took a Broadway car. I dropped into a corner. Three men were on my side of the car. I glanced casually at them, and, "Goodness mercy!" said I to myself, "what are they gazing at—they look fairly frightened?"

I followed the direction of their eyes, and, I gasped! I felt goose-flesh creeping up my arms! On the opposite side sat a large and handsome mulatto woman, a small basket of white linen was on her knees, her face was turned toward the driver, and oh, good God! not so long ago, her throat had been cut almost from ear to ear!

The scar was hideous—sickening, it made one feel faint and frightened, but I held my quivering nerves with an iron hand—here was my scar for Cora! I must study it while I could. It had not been well cared for, I imagine, for the edges of the awful gash were puckered, as though a gathering thread held them. There was a queer, cord-like welt that looked white, while the flesh either side was red and threatening; and then, as if she felt my eyes, the woman turned and faced me. A dull color rose slowly over her mutilated throat and handsome face, and she felt hastily for a kerchief, which was pinned at the back of her dress-collar, and drew the ends forward and tied them.

I kept my eyes averted after that, but when I left the car weariness was forgotten. I stopped at a druggist's shop, bought sticking-plaster, gold-beaters' skin, and absorbent cotton, and with springy steps reached home, materials in hand, model in memory—I was content, I had found my scar at last!

If you are about to accuse me of hardness of heart in using, to my own advantage, this poor woman's misfortune, don't, or at least wait a moment first.

When I had gone through the asylum's wards and the doctor had called my attention to this or that exceptional case and had tried to make clear cause and effect; when I had noted ophidian's stealth in one and tigerish ferocity in another, I suddenly realized that to single one of these unfortunates out, then to go before an indifferent crowd of people and present to them a close copy of the helpless afflicted one, would be an act of atrocious cruelty. I could not do it! I would instead seize upon some of the general symptoms, common to all mad people, and build up a mad-scene with their aid, thus avoiding a cruel imitation of one of God's afflicted.

So in this scar I was not going exactly to copy that riven throat, but, with slender rolls of cotton, covered and held by gold-beaters' skin, I was going to create dull white welts with angry red spaces painted between—with strong sticking-plaster attached to my eyelid, I was going to draw it from its natural position. Oh, I should have a rare scar! yet that poor woman might herself see it without suspecting she had given me the idea.

Oh, what a time of misery it was, the preparation of that play! Poor Mr. Daly—and poor, poor Miss Morris!

You see everything hung upon the mad-scene. Yet, when we came to that, I simply stood still and spoke the broken, disjointed words.

"But what are you going to do at night?" Mr. Daly cried. "Act your scene, Miss Morris."

Act it, in cold blood, there, in the gray, lifeless daylight? with a circle of grinning, sardonic faces, ready to be vastly amused over my efforts? He might better have asked me to deliver a polished address in beautiful, pellucid Greek, to compose at command a charming little rondeau in sparkling French, or a prayer in sonorous Latin—they would have been easier for me to do, than to gibber, to laugh, to screech, to whisper, whimper, rave, to crouch, crawl, stride, fall to order in street-clothes, and always with those fiendish "guyers" ready to assist in my undoing. Yet, poor Mr. Daly, too! I was sorry for him, he had so much at stake. It was asking a good deal of him to trust his fate entirely, blindly to me.

"Oh!" I said, "I would if I could—do please believe me! I want to do as you wish me to, but, dear Mr. Daly, I can't, my blood is cold in daylight, I am ashamed, constrained! I cannot act then!"

"Well, give me some faint idea of what you are going to do," he cried, impatiently.

"Dear goodness!" I groaned, "I am going to try to do all sorts of things—loud and quiet, fast and slow, close-eyed cunning, wide-eyed terror! There, that's all I can tell about it!" and I burst into harassed tears.

He said never another word, but I used to feel dreadfully when, at rehearsals, he would rise and leave the stage as soon as we reached the mad-scene.

Then it happened we could not produce the play on Monday. An old comedy was put on for that one night. I was not in it, and Mr. Daly, seeing how near I was to the breaking-point with hard work and terror, tried to give me a bit of pleasure. He got tickets for my mother and me, and sent us to the opera to hear Parepa and Wachtel. I was radiant with delight; but, alas, when did I ever have such high spirits without a swift dampening down. Elaborately dressed as to hair, all the rest of my little best was singularly plain for the opera. Still I was happy enough and greatly excited over our promised treat.

Mother and I set out to go to Miss Linda Dietz's home, where we were to pick her up, and, under escort of her brother, go over to the Academy of Music. We could not afford a carriage, so we had to take one of the 'busses then in existence. Mr. Daly had sent me, with my box tickets, a pair of white gloves, and with extreme carefulness I placed them in my pocket, drawing on an old pair to wear down to Fifteenth Street, where I would don the new ones at Miss Dietz's house. How I blessed my fore-thought later on!

Long skirts were worn, so were bustles. A man in the omnibus was in liquor; he sat opposite me, right by the door. I signaled to stop. Mother passed out before me—I descended. The man's feet were on my dress-skirt. I tried to pull it free—he stupidly pulled in the door. The 'bus started—I was flung to the pavement!

I threw my head back violently to save my face from the cobbles, my hands and one knee were beating the cruel stones. Mother screamed to the driver, a gentleman sprang to the horses, stopped them, picked me up, and even then had to thrust the drunken man's feet from my torn flounce. I had faintly whispered: "My glass—my fan!" and the gentleman, placing me in mother's arms, went out into the street and found them for me. I sat on a bench in the Park: I was shaken and bruised and torn and muddy, but I would not go home—not I, I was going to hear Parepa and Wachtel!

The gentleman simply would not leave us; he gave me his arm to Miss Dietz's house, and I needed its aid, for each moment proved I was worse hurt than I had at first thought. There, however, when with my heartiest thanks we parted from our good Samaritan, the Dietz family, with dismayed faces, received us. They were kindness personified. I was sponged and arnicaed and plastered and sewed and brushed, and at last my ankle's hurt being acknowledged, it was tightly bound. The new white gloves safely came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome fan—applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten—saw me close my eyes. She thought it was the pain of my ankle, but it was a sudden memory of Cora and the mad-scene. As the whirlwind of applause roared about me, I sickened with a mortal terror of the ordeal awaiting me. I hope I may always thrust Satan behind me with the whole-hearted force I used in thrusting "L'Article 47" behind me on that occasion. I returned to "Il Trovatore." I enjoyed each liquid jewel of a note, helped to raise the roof, afterward declined supper, hastened home, romped my dog, and put her to bed. Got into a dressing-gown, locked myself in my room, and had it out with Cora, from A to Z. Tried this walk and that crouch; read this way and that way. Found the exact moment when her mind began to cloud, to waver, to recover, to break finally and irretrievably. Determined positively just where I should be at certain times; allowed a margin for the impulse or inspiration of the moment, and at last, with the character crystal-clear before me, I ended my work and my vigil.

After turning out the gas I went to the window and looked at the sky. The stars had gone in; low down in the east a faint, faint band of pink held earth and sky together. I was calm and quite ready to rest. All my uncertainty was at an end. What the public would do I could not know; what I would do was clear and plain before me at last.

Poor Mr. Daly! I sighed, for I knew his anxiety and uneasiness were not allayed. Bertie, tired of waiting for me, had curled her loving little body up in my pillow—a distinct breach of family discipline. A few moments later, feeling her small tail beating a blissful tattoo on my feet, I muttered, laughingly: "A little prayer, a little dog, and a little rest," and so sank into the sound sleep I so desperately needed, in preparation for the ever-to-be-dreaded first night of "L'Article 47" of the French Penal Code.

The house was packed. Well-known people were seen all through the theatre. Act I. represented the French Court with a trial in full swing—it played for one hour, lacking three minutes. I was on the stage ten minutes only. I was told Mr. Daly shook his head violently at the curtain's fall.

The next act I was not in at all, but it dragged, and when that was over Mr. Daly's peculiar test of public feeling showed the presence of disappointment. Like many other managers, he often placed men here and there to listen to the comments made by his patrons, but his quickest, surest way of judging the effect a new play was making, was by watching and listening at the very moment of the curtain's fall. If the people instantly turned to one another in eager speech, and a bee-like hum of conversation arose, he nodded his head with pleased satisfaction—he knew they were saying, "How lovely!" "That was a fine effect!" "We've had nothing better for a long time!" "It's just divine!" "It's great!" etc.

When they spoke slowly and briefly, he shook his head; but when they sat still and gazed steadily straight ahead of them, he called a new play for rehearsal next morning.

That second act had made him shake his head; the third came on with Cora's rejected love, her strangling tears of self-pity, her whirlwind of passion, ending with that frantic and incredible threat. The people caught at it! I suppose the swiftness of its action, the heat and fury following so close upon the two slow, dull acts, pleased and aroused them. The curtain went up and down, up and down, call after call, and when at last it was allowed to remain down, myriads of bees might have been swarming in front, and Mr. Daly, nodding and smiling as I rushed past on my way to change my gown, said: "Hear 'em—hear the bees buzz—that's good! Now if only you——"

I waited not for the rest—too well I knew how to complete the sentence: "If only I could safely hive those swarming bees" for him. Could I? Oh, could I? for the moment was at hand, the "mad-scene," so dreaded, so feared!

Three things I had counted upon to help my effects: the crouch, the laugh, the scar. The crouch had just done splendid service at the end of Act III. Would the other two be as effective?

I went up to the stage; I was to be discovered lying on a lounge. Miss Davenport, magnificently handsome in person and gown, beside me; the others at the gambling-table. As she took my hand she gave a sharp little cry: "Heavens!" she said, "you might be dead, you are like ice!" She touched my forehead, asking, "Are you ill? Why, your head is burning, hot! hot! hot! Mr. Daly, just touch her hands and head!"

He looked down on me in silence; two pairs of frightened eyes met; he gave a groan; threw out his hands helplessly; stepped off the stage, and signaled the curtain up on what was to make or break the play—and he knew no more what to expect than did one of the ushers out in front.

Under cover of the music and the applause accompanying the curtain's rise, I caught myself muttering, vaguely: "The power and the glory—the power and the glory," and knew that involuntarily I was reaching out for the old staff on which I had leaned so many times before.

The scene was on—the laughing cynicism of the Baroness—the chatter of the players—then, at last, George and Cora were alone!

My terror had slipped from me like a garment, I was in the play once more; save for just one awful moment! George had torn the veil from my disfigured face, and, casting in my teeth the accusation: "You are mad!" had left me there alone, standing, stunned by the word! That was the moment of actual dethronement of reason, and, as I slowly, stupidly turned my eyes, I saw Mr. Daly's white face thrust forward eagerly. His gray eyes wide and glowing, his thin hand tightly grasping the lapel of his coat, his whole being expressing the very anguish of anxiety!

One moment I felt I was lost! I had been dragged out of the play at the crucial moment! I clasped my hands across my eyes: "The kingdom and the power!" I groaned—I faced the other way! The low, eerie music caught my attention and awakened my imagination, in another second I was as mad as a March hare. The first time the low, gibbering laugh swelled into the wild, long-sustained shrieking ha! ha! a voice said, low and clear: "Oh, dear God!"

Yet I who had heard the genuine laugh at the mad-house knew this to be but a poor, tame, soulless thing, compared to that Hecate-like distillation—the very essence of madness, that ran through that real gibber of laughter.

Yet it was enough. At the end there came to me one of those moments God grants now and then as a reward for long thirst, way-weariness, and heart-sickness patiently borne! One of those foolishly divine moments you stand with the gods and, like them, are young and fair and powerful! Your very nerves thrill harmonious, like harp-strings attune—your blood courses like quicksilver for swiftness, like wine for warmth, and on that fair peak of Triumph, where one tarries but by moments, there is no knowledge of sin or suffering, of death or hate; there is only sunshine, the sunshine of success! love for all those creatures who turn smiling faces on you, who hold their hands to you with joyous cries!

There is no question of deserts, of qualifications! No analysis, no criticism then—they follow later! That is just a moment of delicious madness; and to distinguish it from other frenzies it is called—a Dramatic Triumph!