The record-union., 1897-05-09
INDIVIDUAL EFFORT
ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS
(Written for the Record Union by
Trilby Foye.)

| written for the Record Union by
Trilby Foye)
She sat in front of the footlights and
| longed to be an actress. 1T looks so
brilliant, so exciting, so fascinating
she exclaimed. She had already taken
an active part in amateur theatricals,
for local benefits, in the village, and
thought she could spring. Minerva-like
from that in TO full-fledged star.
As the youthful aspirant turned her
attention toward the stage, / looked at
her catechisingly to discern the two
strongest aids for securing a hearing
in that line-beauty of face and figure.
l know girls cannot all be Trilbys, but
the public likes to see a pretty woman
behind the footlights. Yes, she was
PRETTY prettier than the average;
young, sweet, attractive. and, 1 believe,
pure as the vestal virgin Rubria.
She must also possess natural bodily
eloquence subject to the laws which
regulate the actors bearing, walk and
movement of face and figure. She must
be able to assume what is appropriate
to the particular affections of the mind,
their combinations of emotions, pas
sions of physical and mental conditions,
joy and grief, health and sickness,
waking, sleeping and dreaming, mad
ness collapse and death, particular ages
of life and temperaments, as we'll as
distinct characteristics of race, class
and nationality.
Could my friend accomplish all this?
She was one upon whom fortune had
smiled in her girlhood days, had been
reared under the happy environments
of a beautiful home, with a joyous
childhood, sweet trusting and~full of
hope She had never earned a dollar,
nor a dress, nor meal of victuals. She
had always lived under caves of excel
lent schools, with nothing to hinder her
from drinking deep of the Perian
spring" but Indifferent to the educa
tional advantages accessible, with no
higher aim in life than the conscious
ness that she would be one of the heirs
to papa's millions, marry some rich
man. and life would go on in the same
joyous strain forever and ever.
Suddenly fortunes wheel turned back
ward, the father became victim to the
winecup, bartered away a princely for
tune, forsook his wife, abandoned his
children, deserted his home. Since then
she has drifted aimlessly along, clothed
with the remnants of her once better
and brighter days, dependent on others
for her daily bread.
In her have been inculcated no spe-
cial virtues of industry and thrift, no
doctrine of that essential human equal
ity that hightens the dignity OF labor,
which has a powerful effect in moraliz-
ing life. Nature has done much for her
sparkling with youth. vivacity and
girlish purity, but the twin vices of in
dolence and standardization have left
her mental and physical powers unde-
veloped.
Like the average girl of the aristo-
cratic poor, she entertains the idea that
many of the self-supporting positions
occupied by young ladies are menial,
ignoble, degrading, and she longs to
rise above them all, and be an actress,
Mental as well as physical services
are but subjects of human exchange,
no girl is a menial because she is a
wage Garner, and none are SO menial as
they who are willing to eat the bread
of dependence.
There are many essential attributes