Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-04-29

t8k6 WltnOub 0k0lA0tAO OA0NRGOAo
ere like doctors without diplomas and
ministers without ordination. Be-
cause a woman is pretty, is recognized
as belle, and has received some
adulation as an amateur elocutionist,
is she entitled to regard herself as a
brigh. and shining light, and forth
with to set herself up as a public
favorite? In parlor entertainments
she may have presented an
agreeable figure, but on the
stage, and with the full
glare of the footlights upon her, her
defects must Of a necessity seem gro
tesque. There is a rigid technicality
about all dramatic business that
brooks neither carelessness nor inabil-
ity, and which makes hands and feet,
1unskillfully directed, look as gigantic
as do the eyes and nose and mouth
when reflected in a magnifying mir
ror purposely gotten up to amuse.
These incongruities, not so much of
proportion, but of good taste. look
very out of place to the regular
theater-goer or the critic. Yet,
If the latter presumes to call
attention to the same he ruffles
the vanity of the lady to such an ex-
tent that she shuts herself up in her
private car or her hotel, and in that
retirement poses as a martyr. To
her friends and acquaintance she
claims that she is being unjustly ac-
scused of forcing herself into motor
iety, and insists that all the newspa-
Pers here conspired to effect her pro-
fessional ruin. She hedges her every
action in with mystery and a seclusion
which an artist would disdain, but
which is prevailing characteristic of
the professional snob. The greater
the genius the less the pretension.
Yet these women step out of the
ballroom into the theater, and be-
cause Of some petty social eclat or
conspicuous liaison, receive the best
engagements, travel about in special
oars and, like the gambler who holds
the cheat trick, secure at a venture
big stakes to which they have no
moral right. Such q usurpation of
genius ought to be boycotted, for to
encourage it with good houses, is to
disparage art and to rob the honest
.tciler for fame of that patronage
which conscientious labor ought
'to& secure. If the public wants
acting, it ought not to contenance
limitations; it ought, indeed, to turn
it's back completely against all such
dishonest claimants and thereby force
them back into the obscurity to which
they belong. 1t is poor encourage
'ment to the crowned heads of the
profession il their laurels are to be
divided with the audacious pretend
,ers, who do not even know how to
walk the boards. At the best, art is a
stern task-master, and can only be
satisfied by the most incessant
labor and painstaking devotion.
10 get to the top of the ladder
it is necessary to climb step by step, to
tread lightly upon insecure places,
and by consecrated application, con-
quer faults and acquire perfection.
Here and there prodigy of power
bursts full-hedged into fame, and, i'm
mortal as they are, have no need to
study the alphabet of motion
or of speech. But those who
are not so lavishly endowed,
yet who are eager, if only from mer-
'cenery motives, to contest for the
golden cup, should be compelled by
the critics and the public to success
fHlly play the chambermaid before
they attempt to enact the more ambi-
fios1a roles