Chapter Eleventh
My Promiscuous Reading wins me a Glass of Soda—The Stage takes up my Education and Leads me through Many Pleasant Places.
I suppose it sounds absurd to say that during those first seasons, with choruses, dances, and small parts to learn, with rehearsals every day and appearances every night, I was getting an education.
But that depends upon your definition of the word. If it means to you schooling, special instruction, and formal training, then my claim is absurd; but if it means information, cultivation of the intellectual powers, enlightenment, why then my claim holds good, my statement stands, I was getting an education. And let me say the stage is a delightful teacher; she never wearies you with sameness or drives you to frenzy with iteration. No deadly-dull text-book stupefies you with lists of bare, bald dates, dryly informing you that someone was born in 1208, mounted the throne in 1220, died in 1258, and was succeeded by someone or other who reigned awhile—really you can’t remember how long, and don’t much care. There’s nothing in figures for the memory to cling to. But no one can forget that Edward V. was born in 1470, because he is such a tragic little figure, only thirteen years old and of scant two months reign, because there was the Tower and there the crafty, usurping Duke of Gloster eager for his crown.
Perhaps people would remember that Edward III. was born in 1312 and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard, if they were told at the same moment that he was father to that superb Black Prince, beloved alike of poet, painter, and historian.
Now, to be a good actress and do intelligent work, one should thoroughly understand the play and its period in history, as the mainspring of its action is often political. To be able to do that requires a large fund of general information. That I had from my very babyhood been a reckless reader, came about from necessity—I had no choice, I simply read every single thing in print that my greedy hands closed upon; the results of this promiscuous reading, ranging from dime novels to Cowper, were sometimes amusing. One day, I remember, an actress was giving a very excited account of a street accident she had witnessed. Her colors were lurid, and some of her hearers received her tale coldly. “Oh!” she cried, “such an awful crowd—a mob, you know—a perfect mob!”
“Oh, nonsense!” contradicted another, “there couldn’t have been a mob, there are not people enough in that street to make a mob!”
Then I mildly but firmly remarked: “Oh, yes, there are, for you know that legally three’s a mob and two’s a crowd.”
A shout of laughter followed this bit of information. “How utterly absurd!” cried one. “Well, of all the ridiculous ideas I ever heard!” laughed another. And then, suddenly, dear old Uncle Dick (Mr. Richard Stevens and player of old men, to be correct) came to my support, and, with the authority of a one-time barrister, declared my statement to be perfectly correct.
“But where, in the name of Heaven, did you get your information?”
“Oh,” I vaguely replied, “I just read it somewhere.”
“That’s a rather broad statement,” remarked Uncle Dick; “you don’t give your authority, page and line, I observe. Well, see here, now, Clara mia, in whatever field you found that one odd fact, you certainly gleaned others there, so if you can produce, at once, three other legal statements, I will treat you to soda-water after rehearsal.”
Oh, the delicious word was scarcely over his lips when I was wildly searching my memory, and presently, very doubtfully, offered the statement: “It is a fraud to conceal a fraud.”
But Uncle Dick gravely and readily accepted it. Another search, and then joyfully I announced: “Contracts made with minors, lunatics, or drunkards are void.”
A shout of laughter broke from the kind old man’s lips, but he accepted that, too. Oh, almost I could hear the cool hiss of the soda—but now not another thing could I find. My face fell, my heart sank. Hitherto I had been thinking of papers, now I frantically ran through stories. Suddenly I cried: “A lead-pencil signature stands in law.”
But, alas! Uncle Dick hesitated—my authority was worthless. Oh, dear! oh, dear! was I to lose my treat, just for lack of a little legal knowledge? Sadly I remarked, “I guess I’ll have to give it up, unless—unless you’ll take: ‘Principals are responsible for their agents,’” and, with pleasure beaming in his kind old eyes, he accepted it.
Ah, I can taste that vanilla soda yet—and, what is more, the old gentleman took the trouble to find out about the legality of the lead-pencil signature; and, as my statement had been correct, he took great pains to make the fact known to all who had heard him question it, and he added to my little store of knowledge, “that a contract made on Sunday would not stand,” which, by the way, later on, saved me from a probably painful experience.
I mention this to show that even my unadvised reading had not been absolutely useless, I had learned a little about a variety of things; but now, plays continually presented new subjects to me to think and read about; thus “Venice Preserved” set me wild to find out what a Doge was, and why Venice was so adored by her sons, and I straightway obtained a book about the wonderful city—whose commerce, power of mart and merchant may have departed, but whose mournful beauty is but hallowed by her weakness.
So many plays were produced, representing so many periods, so many countries, I don’t know how I should have satisfied my craving for the books they led me to had not the Public Library opened just then. I was so proud and happy the day my mother surprised me with half the price of a membership, and happier yet when I had the right to enter there and browse right and left, up and down, nibbling here, feeding long and contentedly there. Oh, the delight of reading one book, with two or three others in my lap; ’twas the pleasure of plenty, new to one who could have spelled “economy” in her sleep.
Then, again, if it is the Stage that is making you read, you have to keep your eyes wide open and take note of many things. Some girls read just for the sake of the story, they heed nothing but that, they are even guilty of the impertinence of “skipping,” “to get to the story more quickly, you know.” But if you are on the stage you understand, for instance, that different kinds of furniture are used for different periods and for different countries; so even the beginner knows, when she sees the heavy old Flemish pieces of furniture standing on the stage in the morning, that no modern play is on that night, and is equally sure that the bringing out of the high tile-stove means a German interior is in preparation. Therefore, if you read for the stage, you watch carefully, not only Sir Thomas’s doings, but his surroundings. If his chair or desk or sideboard is described, you make a note of the “heavily carved wood,” or the “inlaid wood,” or the “boule,” or whatever it may be, and then you note the date of the story, and you say to yourself: “Ah, such and such furniture belongs to such a date and country.”
I once heard the company expressing their shocked amazement over the velvet robes of some Macbeth. I could not venture to ask them why it was so dreadful, but later I found some paper stating that velvet was first known in the fifteenth century, and was confined to the use of the priests or high ecclesiastical authorities—and my mind instantly grasped the horror of the older actors at seeing Macbeth swathed in velvet in the grim, almost barbaric Scotland of about 1012; for surely it was a dreadful thing for an actor to wear velvet four hundred years ahead of its invention.
You never know just where the Stage is going to lead you in your search for an education; only one thing you may be sure of, it will not keep you very long to any one straight road, but will branch off in this direction or in that, taking up some side issue, as it seems, like this matter of furniture, and lo, you presently find it is becoming a most important and interesting subject, well worth careful study. You come to believe you could recognize the workmanship of the great cabinet-makers at sight. You learn to shrink from misapplied ornament, you learn what gave rise to the “veneering reign-of-terror,” you bow at the name of Chippendale, and are filled with wonder by the cinque-cento extravagance of beauty. You find yourself tracing the rise and fall of dynasties through the chaste beauty or the over-ornamentation of their cabinet work. If all that Sir Henry Irving knows on this subject could be crowded into a single volume, the book would have at least one fault—’twould be of most unwieldy size.
Then holding you by the hand the Stage may next lead you through the green and bosky places that the poets loved, and, having had your eyes opened to natural beauties, lo! you go down another lane, and you are learning about costumes, and suddenly you discover that “sumptuary laws” once existed, confining the use of furs, velvets, laces, etc., to the nobility. Fine woollens and linens, and gold and silver ornaments being also reserved for the privileged orders. That the extravagant young maids and beaux of the lower class who indulged in yellow starched-ruff, furred mantle, or silver chain were made to pay a cruel price for their folly in aping their betters. So it was well for me to make a note of the date of the “sumptuary law,” that I might not some day outrageously overdress a character.
It is a delightful study, that of costume—to learn how to drape the toga, how to hang the peplum; to understand the meaning of a bit of ribbon in the hair, whether as arranged in the three-banded fillet of the Grecian girl or as the snood of the Scottish lassie; to know enough of the cestus and the law governing its wearing, not to humiliate yourself in adopting it on improper occasions; to have at least a bowing acquaintance with all foot-gear, from sandals down to an Oxford tie; to be able to scatter your puffed, slashed, or hanging sleeves over the centuries, with their correct accompanying, small-close, large-round, or square-upstanding ruffs. Why the mere detail of girdles and hanging pouches, from distant queens down to “Faust’s” Gretchen, was a joy in itself.
Then a girl who played pages, and other young boys, was naturally anxious to know all about doublets, trunks, and hose, as well as Scottish “philibeg and sporran.” And wigs? I used to wonder if anyone could ever learn all about wigs—and I’m wondering yet.
But as one studies the coming and going of past fashions in garments, it is amusing to note their influence upon the cabinet-makers, as it is expressed in the changing shape of their chairs. For instance: when panniers developed into farthingale and monstrous hoop, chairs, high and narrow, widened, lowered their arms—dropped them entirely, making indeed a fair start toward our own great easy-chair of to-day.
I remember well what a jump my heart gave when in rooting about among materials—their weaves and dyes—I came upon the term “samite.” It’s a word that always thrills me, “samite, mystic, wonderful.” Almost I was afraid to read what might follow; but I need not have hesitated, since the statement was that “samite” was supposed to have been a delicate web of silk and gold or silver thread. How beautiful such a combination must have been—white silk woven with threads of silver might well become “mystic, wonderful,” when wrapped about the chill, high beauty of an Arthur’s face.
But hie and away, to armor and arms! for she would be but a poorly equipped actress who had no knowledge of sword and buckler, of solid armor, chain-mail, rings of metal on velvet, or of plain leather jerkin—of scimitar, sword, broadsword, foil, dagger, dirk, stiletto, creese.
Oh, no! don’t pull your hand away if the Stage wants to lead you among arms and armor for a little while; be patient, for by and by it will take you up, up into the high, clear place where Shakespeare dwells, and there you may try your wings and marvel at the pleasure of each short upward flight, for the loving student of Shakespeare always rises—never sinks. Your power of insight grows clearer, stronger, and as you are lifted higher and higher on the wings of imagination, more and more widely opens the wonderful land beneath, more and more clearly the voices of its people reach you. You catch their words and you treasure them, and by and by, through much loving thought, you comprehend them, after which you can no longer be an uneducated woman, since no man’s wisdom is superior to Shakespeare’s, and no one gives of his wisdom more lavishly than he.
Therefore, while a regular school-education is a thing to be thankful for, the actress who has been denied it need not despair. If she be willing to work, the Stage will educate her—nor will it curtly turn her away at the end of a few years, telling her her “term” is ended. I clung tightly to its hand for many a year, and was taken a little way through music’s halls, loitered for a time before the easel, and even made a little rush at a foreign language to help me to the proper pronunciation of names upon the stage; and no man, no woman all that time rose up to call me ignorant. So I give all thanks and all honor to the profession that not only fed and clothed me, but educated me too!