New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-05-31

O be a leading lady and the head OF
vo,r own company at just eighteen
i would be enough 10 turn the heads
OF many girls, but i: has no such enee'
on Muriel Ostriche.
NurieI is as charming and unaffected
as II she had never heard a word d
praise in her life, although that is as iar
as possible from hef actual experience
OF course. any pretty girl OF eighteen mas
her admirers. bit not many can numpe'
them by thousands. We realized tha'
popular motion picture actresses have
tremendously wide and extended in1u-
ence but a call at Miss ostriche's home
showed US that. in her case at least we
had greatly underestimsted the interest
which the public takes In her
nv way OF starting conversation, We
asked her whether she had many letters
from picture fans.
Lust few" she replied. III get
some end let you look at them,
Business OF waiting a few minutes, wheh
there suddenly appeared approaching a
huge nile of letters. behind which Muriel
was barely discernible. We fastened 10
her aid. and the stack was soon heapeu
upon the table and the adjacent MOOR ~
made The parlor look like the interior oi
a railway mail car just after the CLERKS
have broac he'd the sacks.
Any attempt TO read the heap "ould
have been useless. but fortunately Mu-
riel could spot some of the best by ne
color of the paper A brief but full en-
her IA the SIlllf ST
and strangest letters are always written
on some OF that weirdly tinted notepaper
that the corner drug store sells as the
latest importation.
one Of these letters purportod to come
from a thirteen year-old cripple. whose
only pleasure IN life WAS when ne was
wheeled TO the movie theatre. lie begged
Miss Ostriche to send him a picture, ar
he regarded her as his ideal. Naturally
such a pathetic appeal resulted IN the M
mediate sending of photograph. pu'
imagine the little ladv's disgust when a
second letter from the same person 'o'u
her that he was not what ne had saiu
at all but healthy Young broker oi
tventv-fye. and that his first letter had
he.n test of her kind-hcartedness
D
/ Proba hly her picture and note OF sNmP'-
thy convinced him that Miss Muriel "dT
worthy of what he fondly but mistaken!
iraslnes himself to he. and ne supposed
that she would at once he captivated oS
his cunning ways.
II didn't even write him to return my
picture | was so ANNOYED by MS oneas
living" remarked Miss Ostrlche
whole set Of letters from wei
known preparatory school offers divert
ing side ligh, on schoolboy nature II
seems that one boy IN the school had II
some way obtained photograph OF MISE
ostr;che. and had proudly exhibited u u
some OF his classmates. num"cr VI
them at once wrote TO the screen star
and the tenor of all the letters Is INC
same. namely. that the writer Is GreNv'
IN see her picture i'm the hands OF 'h'
hoy who has IL. as he does not have
proner regard fer her, but that L she WI
send him one. then she can be sure ina
real adn,jrer has il and that 1t VIII d
cherished.
Another cycle of letters is from mem
her ~ the West Point football team wn'
also sent nearly life size photoSf"pi
of himself These are good, manly epi'
tles largely devoted to bemoanlnG t''
combining nature OF life AT the Miita4'
Academv and expressine respectful ad
miration.
Put the commun.cat' ons are by n