Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections

Life on the Stage
Previous Books by Clara Morris The Silent Singer Little Jim Crow
New York McClure, Phillips & Co. MCMII Copyright, 1901, by S. S. MCCLURE CO. 1901, by CLARA MORRIS HARRIOTT Fifth Impression
In memory of a labor shared, I affectionately dedicate this book to my husband.
I am Born.
If this simple tale is to be told at all, it may as well begin at the beginning and in the good old-fashioned and best of all ways—thus: Once upon a time in the Canadian city of Toronto, on the 17th of March, the sun rose 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 a broader one, the first brick was thrown—probably by a woman, as it hit no one, but metaphorically it knocked the chip off of the shoulder of every child of Erin. Down fell the banners, up went the fists! Orange and Green were at each other tooth and nail! Hats from prehistoric ages side by side with modern beavers scarcely fifty years old received the hurled brick-bat and went down together!