II. WITH OUR GREATEST ACTOR
That is to say, with Any One of
our Sixteen Greatest Actors
It was within the privacy of his own library that we obtained—need we say with infinite difficulty—our interview with the Great Actor. He was sitting in a deep arm-chair, so buried in his own thoughts that he was oblivious of our approach. On his knee before him lay a cabinet photograph of himself. His eyes seemed to be peering into it, as if seeking to fathom its unfathomable mystery. We had time to note that a beautiful carbon photogravure of himself stood on a table at his elbow, while a magnificent half-tone pastel of himself was suspended on a string from the ceiling. It was only when we had seated ourself in a chair and taken out our notebook that the Great Actor looked up.
“An interview?” he said, and we noted with pain the weariness in his tone. “Another interview!”
We bowed.
“Publicity!” he murmured rather to himself than to us. “Publicity! Why must one always be forced into publicity?”
It was not our intention, we explained apologetically, to publish or to print a single word—
“Eh, what?” exclaimed the Great Actor. “Not print it? Not publish it? Then what in—”
Not, we explained, without his consent.
“Ah,” he murmured wearily, “my consent. Yes, yes, I must give it. The world demands it. Print, publish anything you like. I am indifferent to praise, careless of fame. Posterity will judge me. But,” he added more briskly, “let me see a proof of it in time to make any changes I might care to.”