Have you nothing to tell us about your
different homes, your family life, your social diversions, your friends
and acquaintances? During your life there have been great changes in
manners and customs; political parties have altered; a great Queen has
died; your country has been engaged in two or three serious wars. Did
all these things make no impression on you? Can you tell us nothing of
your life in the world?"
And I have to answer that I have lived very little in the world. After
all, the life of an actress belongs to the theater as the life of a
soldier belongs to the army, the life of a politician to the State, and
the life of a woman of fashion to society.
Certainly I have had many friends outside the theater, but I have had
very little time to see them.
I have had many homes, but I have had very little time to live in them!
When I am not acting, the best part of my time is taken up by the most
humdrum occupations. Dealing with my correspondence, even with the help
of a secretary, is no insignificant work. The letters, chiefly
consisting of requests for my autograph, or appeals to my charity, have
to be answered. I have often been advised to ignore them--surely a
course that would be both bad policy and bad taste on the part of a
servant of the public.
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