To His Daughter
New York, January 5, 1888,
… As for God’s reward for what I have done, I can hardly appreciate it; it is more like punishment for misdeeds (of which I’ve done many) than grace for good ones (if I’ve done any). Homelessness is the actor’s fate; physical incapacity to attain what is most required and desired by such a spirit as I am a slave to. If there be rewards, I am certainly well paid, but hard schooling in life’s thankless lessons has made we somewhat of a philosopher, and I’ve learned to take the buffets and rewards of fortune with equal thanks, and in suffering all to suffer—I won’t say nothing, but comparatively little. Dick Stoddard wrote a poem called “The King’s Bell,” which fits my case exactly (you may have read it). He dedicated it to Lorimer Graham, who never knew an unhappy day in his brief life, instead of to me, who never knew a really happy one. You mustn’t suppose from this that I’m ill in mind or body: on the contrary, I am well enough in both; nor am I a pessimist. I merely wanted you to know that the sugar of my life is bitter-sweet; perhaps not more so than every man’s whose experience has been above and below the surface…. Business has continued large, and increases a little every night; the play will run two weeks longer. Sunday, at four o’clock, I start for Baltimore, arriving there at ten o’clock….
To-morrow, a meeting of actors, managers, and artists at breakfast, to discuss and organise, if possible, a theatrical club[1] like the Garrick of London….