It was this state of mentality which inclined me again to consider the stage, and I began anew to see in it an outlet for “suppressed emotions.” I had in the fall of 1920 succumbed to an advertisement and taken some desultory instructions from a man who had his studio in the Auditorium Building in Chicago, but it had seemed for many reasons an unworthwhile investment and I had given it up. Now I pondered it seriously. To live another’s vicissitudinous experiences might, I thought, take my mind from my own mind and prove an emotional boon.

A very dear friend of mine, who knew the whole of my story, listened sympathetically to these arguments and agreed it might help enormously to relieve me both mentally and physically. She took me to see a friend of hers who had long been a leader in the motion picture world, but, after hearing from him and his wife that they would prefer to see their daughter “scrub floors in the Boston Store” (that being considered a low-priced department store in Chicago) than to enter upon a career in the movies, I felt less inclined to view it with approval myself, and this in spite of the fact that the motion picture magnate cordially volunteered to allow me to act in the next film he produced, and offered a camera test to see whether or not I screened well.

Still harboring a hope that this character of activity might benefit me, and feeling disinclined to return to secretarial work, and, moreover, firmly convinced that I ought not to remain at my sister Elizabeth’s entirely unemployed except for my preferred occupation of being with and caring for our darling baby, I took my problem in early June, 1922, down to Washington and laid it before Mr. Harding.

I remember how he smiled, the smile of an indulgent parent to a spoiled child perhaps, when he said, “Why, sure! Go on! I think that would be fine!” smiling at my tearful attempt to explain what must to him have seemed like a wild idea. “Then I’ll become a movie fan!” he added merrily, having only been twice to the movies in Washington, he told me. He said he was sure I could do as well as any actress he had ever seen(!), and he also said he could understand how the partial outdoor activity might do me good.

However, later on he wrote me, almost upon the heels of my departure from Washington, asking me not to consider going either into the movies or on the stage, saying he had thought it over and was “afraid” of it. No doubt he was thinking of possible publicity and ultimate exposure. At any rate, I gave up the idea altogether and have never been so tempted since. How I could have thought it possible to undergo the hardships to which even the moderately successful screen or stage artist is subjected—the rehearsals, travel, hours, etc.—is incomprehensible to me now, when I remember that I was then making two trips a week to the South Side to Dr. Barbour who was administering iron hypodermics, and who even found it necessary to recommend that I spend about half of my time in bed.

75

It was upon the occasion of this last-named visit to the White House that I showed Mr. Harding the picture of Elizabeth Ann’s “rescue” which had appeared in the Hearst paper in Chicago. I remember we were sitting at his desk, and I can just see his face twitch and the impatient gestures of his hands as he laid the picture upon his desk.

“Oh, Nan, why did you allow it? Why did you allow it?” he exclaimed over and over. I failed to see why it should cause him so much distress, and said so frankly. However, I told him in the same breath that I tried to stop them. I wondered as I looked with him again at the picture whether the headlines immediately above, which referred to another column and read, “INTIMATE CHAT AT WHITE HOUSE,” added to his disconcertion in seeing his daughter’s picture below. When I asked him he did not reply; he only shook his head, his expression betraying the perturbation he felt.

However, he had the happy ability to come out of things, and he picked up the picture and looked at it again. This time he studied it and a slow smile lit his face. It was Warren Harding, the man, the father, who spoke next.