CHAPTER

        I. A word of warning
       II.  The stage and real life
      III.  In connection with “Divorce” And Daly’s
       IV.  “Miss Multon” At the Union square
        V. The “New Magdalen” At the Union square
       VI.  “Odette” In the West. A child’s first play
      VII.  A case of “Trying it on A dog”
     VIII.  The cat in “Camille”
       IX.  “Alixe.”  The tragedy of the goose grease
        X. J.E.  OWENS’S “Wandering boys.”  “A hole in the wall” Incident
       XI.  Stage children.  My “Little breeches” In “Miss Multon”
      XII.  The stage as an occupation for women
     XIII.  The bane of the young actress’s life
      XIV.  The masher, and why he exists
       XV.  Social conditions behind the scenes
      XVI.  The actress and religion
     XVII.  A daily unpleasantness
    XVIII.  A belated wedding
      XIX.  Salvini as man and actor
       XX.  Frank Sen:  A circus episode
      XXI.  Stage forfeits and their humour
     XXII.  Poor Semantha

ILLUSTRATIONS

    Clara Morris (1883)
    Clara Morris in “L’ article 47”
    Charles Matthews
    Clara Morris in “Alixe”
    Clara Morris as “Miss Multon”
    Clara Morris as “Odette”
    Mrs. Gilbert, Augustin Daly, James Lewis, and Louis James
    John E. Owens
    “Little breeches”
    Clara Morris as “Jane Eyre”
    Clara Morris in “The Sphinx”
    Clara Morris in “Evadne”
    Clara Morris as “Camille”
    Tommaso Salvini
    W.J.  Le Moyne
    Clara Morris before coming to Daly’s theatre in 1870

CHAPTER I

A word of warning_

Every actress of prominence receives letters from young girls and women who wish to go on the stage, and I have my share.  These letters are of all kinds.  Some are extravagant, some enthusiastic, some foolish, and a few unutterably pathetic; but however their writers may differ otherwise, there is one positive conviction they unconsciously share, and there is one question they each and every one put to me:  so it is that question that must be first answered, and that conviction that must be shaken.

The question is, “What chance has a girl in private life of getting on the stage?” and to reply at once with brutal truthfulness and straight to the point, I must say, “Almost none.”