It isn't because we want to be 'looked at'
that we go on the stage and starve to stay there! It's because
we want to make pictures--to make pictures of characters in
plays for people in audiences. It's like being a sculptor or
painter; only we paint and model with ourselves--and we're
different from sculptors and painters because they do their work
in quiet studios, while we do ours under the tension of great
crowds watching every stroke we make--and, oh, the exhilaration
when they show us we make the right stroke!"
"Bravo!" he said. "Bravo!"
"Isn't it the greatest of all the arts? Isn't it?" she went on
with the same glowing eagerness. "We feed our nerves to it, and
our lives to it, and are glad! It makes us different from other
people. But what of that? Don't we give ourselves? Don't we live
and die just to make these pictures for the world? Oughtn't the
world to be thankful for us? Oughtn't it? Oh, it is, Mr. Canby;
it is thankful for us; and I, for one, never forget that a Prime
Minister of England was proud to warm Davy Garrick's breeches at
the grate for him!"
She clapped her hands together in a gesture of such spirit and
fire that Canby could have thrown his hat in the air and
cheered, she had lifted him so clear of his timidity.
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