Life on the Stage: My Personal Experiences and Recollections

by Clara Morris

And thus I found myself for the first time escorted by a gentleman, and after my hot embarrassment wore off a bit, I held my head very high and languidly allowed my skirt to trail in the dust, and said to myself: "This is like a real grown-up—surely they can't call me 'child' much longer now."

The star playing with us just then was a tragedian, but he was a very little man, whose air of alertness, even of aggressiveness, had won for him the title of "Cocky" Roberts. He wore enormously high heels, he had thick cork soles on the outside and thick extra soles on the inside of all his boots and shoes. His wigs were slightly padded at their tops—everything possible was done for a gain in height, while all the time he was sputtering and swearing at what he called "this cursed cult of legs!"

"Look at 'em!" he snorted—for he did snort like a horse when he was angry, as he often was, at the theatre at least. "Look at 'em, Ellsler; there's Murdoch, Proctor, Davenport, all gone to legs, damn 'em, and calling themselves actors! You don't look for brains in a man's legs, do you? No! no! it's the cranium that tells! Yes, blast 'em! Let 'em come here and match craniums with me, that they think it smart to call 'Cocky'! They're a lot of theatrical tongs—all legs and no heads!"

And yet the poor, fuming little man, with his exaggerated strut, would have given anything short of his life, to have added even a few inches to his anatomy, the brevity of which was quite forgotten by the public when he gave his really brilliant and pathetic performance of "Belphegor," one of the earliest of the so-called "emotional" plays.

I have a very kindly remembrance of that fretful little star, because when they were discussing the cast of a play, one of those tormenting parts turned up that are of great importance to the piece, but of no importance themselves. Capable actresses refuse to play them, and incapable ones create havoc in them. This one had already been refused, when Mr. Roberts suddenly exclaimed: "Who was it made those announcements last night? She spoke with beautiful distinctness; let that young woman have the part, she'll do it all right."

Oh, dear Mr. Roberts! never "Cocky" to me! Oh, wise little judge! how I did honor him for those precious words: "Let that young woman have the part." That "young woman!" I could have embraced him for very gratitude—a part and the term "young woman," and since, as my old washerwoman used to say, "it never rains but it pours," while these two words were still making music in my ears, by some flash of intuition I realized that I was being courted by Frank. The discovery filled me with the utmost satisfaction. I gave no thought to him, in a sentimental way, either then or ever; quite selfishly I thought only of my own gain in dignity and importance, for I started out in life with the old-fashioned idea that a man honored a woman by his courtship, and I knew naught of the lover who "loves and rides away." Yet in a few days the curious cat-like instinct of the unconscious coquette awakened in me, and I began very gently to try my claws.

I wished very much to know if he were jealous, as I had been told that real lovers were always so; and, naturally, I did not wish mine to fall short of any of the time-honored attributes of loverdom. Therefore I, one morning, selected for experimental use a man whose volume of speech was a terror to all. Had he been put to the sword, he would have talked to the swordsman till the final blow cut his speech. He was most unattractive, too, in appearance, being one of those actors who get shaved after rehearsal instead of before it, thus gaining a reputation for untidiness that facts may not always justify—but he served my purpose all the better for that.

I deliberately placed myself at his side; I was only a ballet-girl, but I had two good ears—I was welcome. Conversation, or rather the monologue, burst forth. Standing at the side of the stage, with rehearsal going on, he of course spoke low. I watched for Frank's arrival. He came, I heard his cheery "Good-morning, ladies! good-morning, gentlemen!" and then he started toward me, but I heard nothing, saw nothing of him. My upraised eyes, as wide as I possibly could make them, were fixed upon the face of the talker. Yet, with a jump of the heart, I knew the brightness had gone from Frank's face, the spring from his step. I smiled as sweetly as I knew how; I seemed to hang upon the words of the untidy one, and oh! if Frank could only have known what those words were; how I was being assured that he, the speaker, had that very morning succeeded in stopping a leaky hole in his shoe by melting a piece of india-rubber over and on it, and that not a drop of water had penetrated when he had walked through the rain-puddles; and right there, like music, there came to my listening ear a word of four letters—a forbidden word, but one full of consolation to the distressed male; a word beginning with "d," and for fear that you may think it was "dear," why, I will be explicit and say that it was "damn!" and that it was from the anger-whitened lips of Frank, who during the morning gave not only to me, but to all lookers-on, most convincing proof of his jealousy, and that was the beginning of my experiments.

I did this, to see if it would make him angry. I did that, to see if it would please him. Sometimes I scratched him with my investigating claws, then I was sorry—truly sorry, because I was grateful always for his gentle goodness to me, and never meant to hurt him. But he represented the entire sex to me, and I was learning all I could, thinking, as I once told him, that the knowledge might be useful on the stage some time, and I wondered at the very fury my words provoked in him.

We quarrelled sometimes like spiteful children, as when I, startled into laughter by hearing his voice break in a speech, unfortunately excused myself by saying: "It was just like a young rooster, you know!" and he, white with anger, cried: "You're a solid mass of rudeness, to laugh at a misfortune; you have no breeding!"