Part 38

To say that Clara Morris made a success in Cincinnati is the barest truth. Her first appearance was in the role of a country girl, Cicely, a simple milkmaid with only one speech to make, but one which taxed the ability of an actress to the uttermost to express what was meant. Clara played this part in a demure black-and-white print gown, with a little hat tied down under her chin. On the second night, she played what is called a "dressed part," a bright, light-comedy part in which she wore fine clothes; on the third night hers was a "tearful" part. In three nights she completely won the public, and on the third she received her first anonymous gift, a beautiful and expensive set of pink corals set in burnished gold. "Flowers, too, came over the foot-lights, the like of which she had never seen before, some of them costing more than she earned in a week. Then one night came a bolder note with a big gold locket, which, having its sender's signature, went straight back to him the next morning. As a result it began to be whispered about that the new star sent back all gifts of jewelry; but when one matinee a splendid basket of white camelias came with a box of French candied fruit, it delighted her and created a sensation in the dressing-room. That seemed to start a fashion, for candies in dainty boxes came to her afterward as often as flowers."

On the night of her first appearance, a lawyer of Cincinnati who saw her play the part of Cicely was so delighted with her interpretation of the small role that he at once asked: "Who is she? What is her history?"--only to find that, like most happy women, she had none. She came from Cleveland, she lived three doors away with her mother--that was all.

Having seen her a second time, he exclaimed, "That girl ought to be in New York this very moment!" and he added, "I know the foreign theaters--their schools and styles, as well as I know the home theaters and their actors. I believe I have made a discovery!"

After seeing her in the "tearful part," he said firmly: "I shall never rest till this Clara Morris faces New York. She need clash with no one, need hurt no one, she is unlike any one else, and New York has plenty of room for her. I shall make it my business to meet her and preach New York until she accepts the idea and acts upon it."

As a result of that determination, at a later date, he met the object of his interest and roused her to such an enthusiasm in his New York project that she wrote to Mr. Ellsler, begging his aid in reaching New York managers, and one day, shortly afterward, she held in her hand a wee sheet of paper, containing two lines scrawled in an illegible handwriting:

"If you send the young woman to me, I will willingly consider proposal. Will engage no actress without seeing her.--A. DALY."

It was a difficult proposition, for to obtain leave of absence she would be obliged to pay a substitute for at least two performances--would have to stop for one night at a New York hotel, and so spend what she had saved toward a summer vacation. But the scheme was too compelling to be set aside. That very night she asked leave of absence, made all other necessary arrangements, and before she had time to falter in her determination found herself at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in the great bustling city of her dreams. She breakfasted, and took from her bag a new gray veil, a pair of gray gloves and a bit of fresh ruffling. Then, having made all the preparation she could to meet the arbiter of her fate, in her usual custom she said a prayer to that Father in whose protecting care she had an unfaltering trust. Then, she says, "I rose and went forth, prepared to accept success or defeat, just as the good Lord should will."

Having found Mr. Daly, she looked bravely into his eyes and spoke with quick determination to lose no time: "I am the girl come out of the West to be inspected. I'm Clara Morris!"

That was the preface to an interview which ended in his offer to engage her, but without a stated line of business. He would give her thirty-five dollars a week, he said (knowing there were two to live on it), and if she made a favorable impression he would double that salary.

A poor offer--a risky undertaking, exclaimed Clara. "In my pocket was an offer which I had received just before leaving for New York, from a San Francisco manager, with a salary of one hundred dollars, a benefit, and no vacation at all, unless I wished it. This offer was fairly burning a hole in my pocket as I talked with Mr. Daly, who, while we talked, was filling up a blank contract, for my signature. Thirty-five dollars against one hundred dollars. 'But if you make a favorable impression you'll get seventy dollars.' I thought, and why should I not make a favorable impression? Yet, if I fail now in New York, I can go West or South not much harmed. If I wait till I am older and fail, it will ruin my life. I slipped my hand in my pocket and gave a little farewell tap to the contract for one hundred dollars; I took the pen; I looked hard at him. 'There's a heap of trust asked for in this contract,' I remarked. 'You won't forget your promise about doubling the contract?'

"'I won't forget anything,' he answered.

"Then I wrote 'Clara Morris' twice, shook hands, and went out and back to Cincinnati, with an engagement in a New York theater for the coming season."

As the tangible results of a benefit performance Clara was able to give her mother a new spring gown and bonnet and send her off to visit in Cleveland, before turning her face toward Halifax, where she had accepted a short summer engagement. At the end of it she went on to New York, engaged rooms in a quiet old-fashioned house near the theater, and telegraphed her mother to come. "She came," says Miss Morris, "and that blessed evening found us housekeeping at last. We were settled, and happily ready to begin the new life in the great, strange city."

From that moment, through the frenzied days of rehearsal with a new company, and with a large number of untoward incidents crowded into each day, life moved swiftly on toward the first appearance of Clara Morris on the New York stage.

With a sort of dogged despair she lived through the worry of planning how to buy costumes out of her small reserve fund. When at last all her gowns were ready, she had two dollars and thirty-eight cents left, on which she and her mother must live until her first week's salary should be paid. Worse than that, on the last awful day before the opening night she had a sharp attack of pleurisy. A doctor was called, who, being intoxicated, treated the case wrongly. Another physician had to be summoned to undo the work of the first, and as a result Daly's new actress was in a condition little calculated to give her confidence for such an ordeal as the coming one. She says, "I could not swallow food--I could not! As the hour drew near my mother stood over me while with tear-filled eyes I disposed of a raw beaten egg; then she forced me to drink a cup of broth, fearing a breakdown if I tried to go through five such acts as awaited me without food. I always kissed her good-by, and that night my lips were so cold and stiff with fright that they would not move. I dropped my head for one moment on her shoulder; she patted me silently with one hand and opened the door with the other. I glanced back. Mother waved her hand and called: 'Good luck! God bless you!' and I was on my way to my supreme test."

A blaze of lights, a hum of voices, a brilliant throng of exquisitely gowned, bejeweled women and well-groomed men, in fact a house such as Wood's leading lady had never before confronted! A chance for triumph or for disaster--and triumph it was! Like a rolling snowball, it grew as the play advanced. Again and again Clara Morris took a curtain call with the other actresses. Finally the stage manager said to Mr. Daly, "They want her," and Mr. Daly answered, sharply: "I know what they want, and I know what I don't want. Ring up again!"

He did so. But it was useless. At last Mr. Daly said, "Oh, well, ring up once more, and here, you take it yourself."

Alone, Clara Morris stood before the brilliant throng, vibrating to the spontaneous storm of enthusiasm, and as she stood before them the audience rose as one individual, carried out of themselves by an actress whose work was as rare as it was unique--work which never for one moment descended to mere stagecraft, but in its simplest gesture was throbbing with vital human emotion.

As the curtain fell at last, while there was a busy hum of excited voices, the young person whose place on the New York stage was assured slipped into her dressing-room, scrambled into her clothes, and rushed from the theater, hurrying to carry the good news to the two who were eagerly awaiting her--her mother and her dog. "At last she saw the lighted windows that told her home was near. In a moment, through a tangle of hat, veil, and wriggling, welcoming dog, she cried:

"'It's all right, mumsey--a success! Lots and lots of "calls," dear, and, oh, is there anything to eat? I am so hungry!'

"So while the new actress's name was floating over many a restaurant supper its owner sat beneath one gas-jet, between mother and pet, eating a large piece of bread and a small piece of cheese, telling her small circle of admirers all about it, and winding up with the declaration, 'Mother, I believe the hearts are just the same, whether they beat against Western ribs or Eastern ribs!'"

Then, supper over, she stumbled through the old-time 'Now I lay me,' and, adding some blurred words of gratitude, she says, "I fell asleep, knowing that through God's mercy and my own hard work I was the first Western actress who had ever been accepted by a New York audience, and as I drowsed off I murmured to myself:

"'And I'll leave the door open, now that I have opened it--I'll leave it open for all the others.'"

She did. Through that open door has passed a long procession from West to East since the day when the young woman from Cleveland brought New York to her feet by her unique ability and dramatic perception. A lover of literature from childhood, a writer of books in later days, Clara Morris moved on through the years of her brilliant dramatic career to a rare achievement, not led by the lure of the foot-lights or the flimsier forms of so-called dramatic art, but by the call of the highest.

Well may the matinee girl of to-day, or the stage-struck young person who responds to the glitter and glare, the applause and the superficial charm of the theatrical world, listen to Miss Morris's story of "Life on the Stage," and realize that laurels only crown untiring effort, success only comes after patient labor, and great emotional actresses come to their own through the white heat of sacrifice, struggle, and supreme desire.

ANNA DICKINSON: THE GIRL ORATOR

A very well-known lawyer of Philadelphia was sitting in his private office one morning when word was brought in to him that a young lady wished to see him. The office-boy had never seen her before, and she had not given her name, but she was very firm in her intention not to be refused an interview.

"Show her in," said the lawyer, pushing back his chair with a bored expression and a resolution to send the stranger away at short notice if she was not a client. What was his surprise when a very young girl, still wearing short dresses, was ushered in, and stood before him with such an earnest expression in her bright eyes that she instantly attracted him. Motioning her to take a seat, he asked her errand.