“I also remember Miss Allen’s apologetic remark about the salary. ‘The money is nothing,’ she said.
“As for that part of it—money—it had never entered my mind. The happiness of having the opportunity was enough; and to think of being paid, actually paid, for simply doing what I loved to do! It was all very beautiful.
Appalled by Reality.
“To skip rehearsals, which, needless to say, were a source of great enjoyment, as it was all so new to me, the opening night in Albany came, and there my troubles began.
“The ‘characters speaking in chorus’ formed a mob, and extra supernumeraries were engaged for the night in Albany. It was a wild enough mob; my pride suffered, and my toes, too, for both were trodden upon. The damp cellar dressing-room with its many occupants, and the harsh, severe directions of the stage manager—it was all so different from what I had expected.
“In the course of the evening I found a lonely corner in the despised cellar and wept long and bitterly. Was this the way to Fame? Could I bridge these humiliations and discomforts? The goal seemed very far off, and I remember repeating to myself:
“‘I’m cured! I’m cured!’
“However, I went on to Washington with the company. There I tried another day of it, but conditions grew worse instead of better. During the afternoon of the second day in Washington I packed my bag, walked to the station, bought a ticket for New York, said nothing to any one of my resolution, but wired my father to meet me, and got on the train, bound for home.
Moth Again Seeks Flame.
“And oh, how glad I was to see my father, and he to see me! And how glad he was that I was ‘cured’ of my desire to be an actress!