What a splendid little artist she is!
"You are missing the sweetest thing on earth—romance," said Maude Adams in Barrie's play "What Every Woman Knows."
With what significance did those lines strike me while watching that clever little woman one afternoon. The house was packed, women were weeping and laughing with her. At the fall of every curtain it was raised and raised again. The little artist would bow demurely, coyly acknowledge the compliments bestowed upon her work and then shuffle to her dressing-room. I found her there during one of the intermissions and chatted a few moments with her.
Eight years before we had met in Switzerland. While her figure and manner had changed but little I could not help but notice the sharpness of feature which the eight years had chiseled upon her face. The promissory note demanded by eight years of success must be liquidated and the principal paid. The law of compensation must be obeyed. The little furrows on her tiny face were accentuated by the lustre of her large, blue-gray eyes that looked into yours as though they could penetrate into the recesses of your very soul.
When she talked it was with a little jerky delivery that plainly showed she had herself under perfect control and knew whereof she spoke. The secluded life she leads, I am told, has given her much time to devote to her art and study of the masters. One must do something besides act when not appearing in repertoire. The intelligence expressed in her work plainly indicates the thought she has bestowed upon it.
I consider Maude Adams one of the best English speaking actresses on the stage to-day. She has an appealing, modulated voice, is easy of carriage, graceful, has the power of expressing deep emotion and any quantity of comic power, combined with nice repose. These qualifications make an actress.
Miss Adams has enthralled the public of the United States; her name is a household word; she stands for all that represents true and virtuous womanhood; at the zenith of her fame she has woven her own mantle and placed it about the pedestal upon which she stands, alone. And yet as I looked into those fawn-like eyes I wondered! With all her powers, envied by the many, rich in worldly goods—did those searching liquid orbs denote complete happiness? I felt like taking those tiny little artistic hands in mine and saying, "Little woman, I fear you are unconsciously missing the sweetest thing in life—ROMANCE."
Would she exchange one for the other?
I wonder!
January, 1911