The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-09-14
STAGE STRUCK WOMEN
Have SisterIy Advice From
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
WHO TELLS THEM DON'T"
Married Women Who For
sake Family and Home.
WHO TELLS THEM DOM 7"

The theatrical season is with US again
and new stars are to shine upon US.
Some of them will triumph for brief
night or two. and then set in impene-
trable clouds of oblivion.
Others may CLEAN feebly at the start
and grow in lustre until that brilliant
brief glory of theatrical success it at
tanned before winter reaches its merid-
ian.
In no other vocation do such possibili-
ties lie for misery and delight in a single
brief season-even a single night-as in
the profession of the actor.
1t takes weeks, if not months, for an
| author to discover whether his book is a
success or not, even after the long vital
labor of its construction is over.
! The artist must wait the slow linking Of
| individual opinions into one complete
| chain of approval before he can konw
himself to be famous
But the successful actor is made in a
night
He rises frorm obscurity to fame from
o'clock to midnight.
And while the author and artist die
hard, and are ofttimes dead before they
realize it, the actor dies and knows that
he dies in an evening.
1t is the possibility of sudden success,
sudden glory, which so attracts women
to the profession of the stage.
Women do not as a rule like to work
for fame They like to leap to it.
Each woman who goes upon the sage
has a secret expectation in her heart of
immediate success. She knows it Is only
one actor in one Thousand WHO'D has such
an experience, but she believes she is
that one exception of the 999 rule.
1 must confess that great as the sue
cess of a great actress is, when we care
fully weigh its gain and its loss find it
hard to understand why so many girls
rush toward that doubtful goal.
Unless a woman is a great actress, the
life seems to me utterly undesirable from
every standpoint The profession of
second or third rate actress brings poor
pay, great hardships, no comfort and
small glory. And there is an utter loss
of home happiness and the domestic hab
it's, without which a woman's life seems
to be ca sar failure.
A real home must be a place which IS
pervaded by the feminine presence, and
this cannot exis in connection with one
night stands.
It does not seem to me that the theat
rical profession leads to immortality any
more than any other career which takes
people away from the home environment.
The woman who leaves her home ties
to travel and see the world for plasure Is |
rather more inclined to hold herself !
t1o
who leaves home for a purpose. But there
there is something in the fact that the
actress to be a great success must never
be herself, but somebody else-which ex-
plains to me in a measure the lack of
sincerity in the love life of many the |
atricaI people.
If an actress of great powers of repre- |
senting noble characters could create her |
own plays and choose her own role, she !
might exert a tremendous influence on
the world, for there can be no question |
ing the fact that the stage has a vast |
power for good and for evil.
But when a woman goes into the the
atrical profession in these days she is
obliged to take what she can get and
to play the part for which she is cast.
If she is cast year after year to play
the role Of faithless and immoral char
acters she is very much in the same
situation she would be in real life if she |
were thrown into close association with !
an immoral woman several hours each |
day
There is a gret deal of talk these days
right to express what is within her" I
have heard several married women with
aspirations for the stage use that phrase.
have seen two or three of them in
the act of expressing" what was within
them to unapDreciative audiences. One,
who I knew had left beautiful home, a |
tender and generous husband and lovely |
children to the mercy of servants. seemed /
to have not even a mess of pottage in
exchange for her birthright, so pitifully
poor was her expression" of herself.
Another, who was lovely and gracious
woman is social life, was little less than /
ugly on the stage. so untitled to the foot
lights was he Ttype.
Oh. the pity of it when wives of good
husbands and mothers of sweet children
cannot realize that they are crowned with
Godo's greatest blessings. and must needs
away from the softly shaded stu1y lamp
and the smile of loving eyes 10 the glare
OF the footlghts to seek for cheap ap-
plause from a Caarici0us public.
When a woman's domestic life IS in /
ruins she may as well go on the stage as
anywhere. Since happiness is gone, she +
is right to seek success n whatever Inie .
she feels her power lies
But the woman who has a home AMI /
a husband who loves her and supports .
her comfortably has no right 20 enter a
theatrical career unless she offers her
husband his freedom in the start.
OF course, I am not talking OF man
who marries an actress. No matter if she
tells him she Will give up her profession,
he knows the probabilities OF her return
eventually.
But refer 10 women who have develop
ed the mania after years OF married lie.
and who are willing TO sacrifice every
thing dear and precious in 4 usually 4
hopeless attempt at becoming success
ful actress.
do not know a half dozen women who
have not conhded 70 me at some time
stage 1t seems 20 M the universal in
preston among the sex that they are
gifted with dramatic powers.
man rarely tells me that he would
have liked - 60 on the stag, but Il Is
a matter Of surprise 70 me when 7 neet
a woman who does not make that state
uaent sooner or later.
The loved wife and mother who cannot
express herself save BY going into the
atrscal lie = an abnormal creature Just