Anna Morgan

a I B R.AR.Y

OF THE

U N I VLR.S ITY OF ILLINOIS

Anna Morgan.

My Chicago

by

Anna Morgan

"Where are they gone, and do you know If they come back at fall o' de<w. The little Ghosts of long ago, That long ago "were you?

And all the songs that ne'er were lung And all the dreams that ne'er come true Like little children dying young — Do they come back to you?"

Ralph Fletcher Seymour

Publisher, Chicago

Copyrighted 1918

By Anna Morgan

Other books by Anna Morgan

AN HOUR WITH DELSARTE

THE ART OF EXPRESSION

SELECTED READINGS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Anna Morgan Frontispiece

Mrs. Scott Siddons Opposite page 28

Anna Morgan as she appeared with Scott Siddons in 1881 32 Reproduction of the portrait of Anna Morgan by Harriet

Blackstone . . 52

Bernard Shaw reading to Anna Morgan from the manuscript

of Captain Brassbound's Conversion 74

Charles L. Hutchinson 116

Mrs. Harry Gordon Self ridge 122

Mrs. Mary H. Wilmarth 140

Franklin H. Head 142

Mrs. Chatfield-Taylor 143

Mrs. Potter Palmer . 144

Marian Morgan Carr 146

Ida Morgan Palmer 147

John T. McCutcheon 148

Mrs. Jacob Baur 154

Jessie Harding 155

I I 27d69

Foreword

N THE midst of Chicago's turmoil, there has been for a number of years a colony of painters, writers, and lovers of the Fine Arts which has been striving with might and main to create within our material city a spirit of idealism. A scant corporal's guard at first, these pioneers of the finer things of life have slowly grown in number, until they form a goodly sized regi- ment exerting a noble influence upon Chicago's soul. The city's uncouthness, however, has been a thorn in the side of this aesthetic colony; and, living aloof as they have from the material world about them, its members have been tempted, I fear, to brush aside unfeelingly the achievements of her captains of in- dustry, while magnifying unduly their own en- deavors. But if the artists and writers of Chicago have one of the common failings of their craft, they are, I am proud to say, singularly free from the other; since nowhere, I believe, is there an artistic colony so untainted by jealousy as is that of Chicago. In- deed, those of its members to whom success has opened her glittering doors, have ever extended a helping hand to their comrades at the threshold. Never has the green-eyed monster played the baleful

My Chicago

role in their midst it plays, all too often, in the artistic coteries of older cities. It is the pioneer spirit, I believe, which has united our artists and writers in generous friendship, and made them strive as one for the betterment of the city they have seen grow from an upstart village to a world metropolis, before their astonished eyes.

Many a member of this sympathetic colony is introduced to the reader in the pages of Miss Mor- gan's book; while the story of its growth and achieve- ments is told by her with a genuineness and a sim- plicity which are truly refreshing in a day when clap-trap is so rife. It is meet, moreover, that she should be its chronicler; for in the creation of Chi- cago's aestheticism she has been truly a pioneer.

From that day, long years ago, when a stranger asked at her door for "Miss Anna Morgan the dramatic reader," and gave her a first engagement for the modest honorarium of ten dollars, to this year when "the shadow of war lowers over the land" she has been a tireless champion of dramatic art, and ever true to its ideals.

Upon the little stage of her studio, or in some theatre of the city at a special matinee given by her pupils, we, who are of her following, have made first acquaintance with the plavs of such modern masters as Ibsen, Maeterlinck, and Bernard Shaw. Indeed, she had a knack of scenting the greatness of such men as these, when even their names were unknown in America; and I am constrained to confess that it

Foreword

was she who introduced me to Carlo Goldoni, the Venetian, whose biographer many years later I be- came.

While the plays she has given have been chosen with rare discrimination, the sincerity with which they have been acted has been quite as notable. In- deed, I confess that I have never seen a performance by her pupils, — even that of Hamlet with only girls in the cast, — in which the note of earnestness was lacking. Although the histrionism of some of the players has been crude at times, I have never left her theatre without feeling that the play had been honestly given, and that she had succeeded in in- spiring her pupils with true reverence for her art.

Although others have given notable plays in Chi- cago from time to time with an equal defiance of the box-office, it is well to recall to our civic mind the fact that the trail which our dramatic ideals have followed, albeit with faltering steps, was blazed by Anna Morgan. Throughout the years she tells of in her book, her courage has never faltered ; nor has her loyalty to her art been dimmed by the many discouragements she has met. Her Chicago, more- over, is the Chicago of that zealous colony of artists and writers of which I have spoken. By its mem- bers, one and all, she is loved for her endearing qual- ities, and admired for her many achievements.

H. C. CHATFIELD-TAYLOR.

Preface

This book was written when the shadow of war was lowering over this country deepening as the months went by that followed the first year of our entry. They are growing still darker and spreading toward what depths, we do not know; creeping round every home in the land, peering through every window like a sinister stranger.

My story deals with happier times, and throngs with faces once familiar, always beloved.

What we shall find when we emerge into the light once more, we cannot guess; but we have hope that the old days now obscuring will be compensated by better days, for the world could not pass through a Gethsemane so poignant without a wonderful refining in which much dross and many errors must be cast out. A new state of being, social, ethical, political and spiritual, is coming toward us.

That we shall remember tranquil times, filled with the ardor and the glow of old ambitions, old achieve- ments, is sweet and proper. That we shall look forward to a new heaven and a new earth, confidently, is natural. But between the two states we find ourselves confronted by one great, plain duty, the duty of Work. Work for the one end now worth striving after — the liberation of all the races of men that dwell upon the face of the earth; and no one must neglect or evade any jot or tittle of the labor that comes to our hands asking to be done.

The women of Chicago like those of other cities have risen to a realization of this one duty. The men of

Preface

military age have gone and are going into battle. The women are doing what they can for these men. All those I know are laying aside other things for this. To name them would not only be to reprint the social register, but also to print the names of hundreds of noble women in the humbler walks of life. How much they have done, how much they will find to do is a matter of public knowl- edge, and therefore needs no particularization here.

I send this book out at this time as a possible one among the many things that will be useful, I may say needful in the hours of rest. I send it now because I realize the period of my professional work must soon draw near; and because my share in the war work calls me and is not to be denied.

My wish has been to share with you who read, the pleasure and profit which were mine in knowing those who nave here been brought before you; if you have enjoyed this experience it will therefore prove to be my greatest reward.

NNA, why don't you take up public read- ing? I think you'd make a great success of it."

The words came gaily, lightly, from a young friend of mine who at that par- ticular moment was engaged in painting a bunch of pop- pies on a china jar. There was a pause of some minutes. Then I inquired from the couch where I was lying,

"How would you go about it?"

"I would go to the Hershey Music School and enter the classes of Professor Walter C. Lyman."

I had never heard of the Hershey Music School nor of Professor Lyman, nor had I ever heard anyone read for entertainment with the exception of Mrs. Scott Siddons, although at that time dramatic reading and the recital of dialect and humorous selections was already popular, with several successful artists in the field.

Why the idle remark of my friend should have made a sufficiently deep impression upon my mind to cause me to act upon her suggestion, is a psychological question I am not prepared to answer. I only recall that nothing further was said upon the subject, but that nine o'clock the next morning round me in the office of the Hershey School.

I was met by Mrs. Hershey, who informed me that Professor Lyman's connection with the school had been

II

12 My Chicago

severed and that a young man from Elgin, Mr. Samuel Kayzer, had been engaged to take his place and was to give his first class lesson at ten o'clock, and added that she would be happy to have me stay and hear the lesson. I did.

Mr. Kayzer had been in America but a short time. He came from Warsaw, where as a child he had been a devotee at the shrine of Madame Modjeska. He had been earning his living as adjuster in a watch factory in Elgin where, being an appreciative and talented student of dramatic literature, he had found his way to the classes which Professor Lyman was then conducting there and had won so much approbation for his interpretative read- ings that Professor Lyman had cordially recommended him to fill his place in the Hershey School. He gave up his position in the watch factory and entered upon his career as instructor in 1877.

Of course my first class lesson was all Greek to me; but for the same unknown reason which brought me to the school I engaged a term of lessons, and took a private lesson before leaving. The lesson consisted of repeating after my teacher, line by line, a poem, then popular, by J. F. Waller, called "Magdelena, or The Spanish Duel," the first verse of which is:

"Near the city of Sevilla, years and years ago, Dwelt a lady in a villa, years and years ago. And her hair was black as night And her eyes were starry bright. Olives on her brow were blooming, Roses red her lips perfuming, And her step was light and airy As the tripping of a fairy; When she spoke, you thought, each minute, 'Twas the thrilling of a linnet;

My Chicago 13

When she sang you heard a gush Of full-voiced sweetness like a thrush.

Ah 1 that lady of the villa ! And I loved her so, Near the city of Sevilla, Years and years ago."

The poem was long, filled with unpronounceable names, but effective when recited by men reciters of that day. I went through it, as I said, parrot fashion, and hastened home to report the result or my visit to my mother, and to learn the poem.

We were living at 447 West Washington street, which at that time was the most desirable residential district in Chicago. In our block lived Bishop Whitehouse and his family, the Albert Spragues, Tuthill Kings, Philo Carpenters, J. J. Glessners, T. M. Averys, R. T. Cranes. A little farther east were the Benjamin H. Campbells. After Abraham Lincoln's death, Mrs. Lincoln and her children sojourned for a time at number 375. Not far from them lived Bishop Fallows and near by was the home where Hobart C. Chatfield-Taylor was born and passed his childhood. On the corner of Ada Steet lived Dr. Joseph P. Ross who with Dr. DeLaskie Miller and Dr. Ephraim Ingalls (both of whom lived in the neighbor- hood), were the three great physicians in Chicago at that time. Dr. Miller was the father of Mrs. Charles C. Curtiss. In the next block west lived the Andrew Mc- Leishes and the C. K. G. Billings. Two blocks south on Monroe Street were the Allan Pinkertons, Thomas Chalmers, and the Francis A. Riddles. Around the cor- ner on Ashland Avenue were the John A. Hamlins, E. Nelson Blakes, Henry Wallers, J. Harley Bradleys, J. Russell Jones, Carter H. Harrisons and a few years later, the William J. Chalmers and Heaton Owsleys.

14 My Chicago

My father, Allen Denison Morgan, had died at Auburn, New York, where we lived during the panic of 1871, and left my mother (who before her marriage was Mary Jane Thornton), with five children — my two brothers, Seward and Charles, both of whom died in 1890, two sisters, Ida and Marian; and myself. My mother upon the advice of friends had moved with her children to Chicago in 1876.

China painting was then the rage, and my sisters were proficient artists. My sister Marian taught in one of the schools in St. Louis in 1877. Later she had classes in Chicago, one of them being at the home of Mrs. John M. Clark, 2000 Prairie Avenue. My part was to or- ganize the classes. Mrs. Clark was a bride at that time, and I shall never forget how fascinated I was by her beauty, and charm of manner.

I had grown tired of "promoting" and was eager to enter upon a career of my own, which in a measure accounts for the readiness with which I acted upon my friend's advice to become a "reader" as she called it. I had had no preparation for a public career, had lived very quietly in Auburn and the country about it, had at- tended few lectures, concerts or plays; in fact, I think I had only attended two plays — "Fanchon the Cricket" and "Jane Eyre" — but from the departure from my home and the taking of my first lesson I seemed to have been imbued with the determination to succeed, not so much to win renown as to become independent financially and to be able to help others who might need my help. So I worked with unflagging interest and a steady determina- tion, which was never deterred by the innumerable ob- stacles which everyone who sets out on an artistic career is bound to encounter.

Being ignorant of the ways of the world, of the history of great artists, of their beginnings, struggles and achieve- ments, I was unable to estimate what it meant to attain

My Chicago 15

to a masterful position in art; so I rushed in, dared to do what I should now hesitate to undertake, and thus arrived shortly where I could command opportunities and demand a good price for my services.

Like all schools of Music and Dramatic Art, the Hershey School, which had been founded in 1873 by Sarah Hershey, a successful teacher of singing, frequently gave recitals, to present the members of the faculty and such students as had proven their ability to appear be- comingly with them.

My first ambition was to be on one of those programs. The opportunity came in due time in the receipt of the following letter :

Hershey Music Hall, Chicago, Feb. 6, 1880. My dear Miss Morgan : — Would you like to assist us at our next Popular Concert on Tuesday or Wed- nesday evening of next week? If so, I would be glad to give you one, two, or three places on the program, which will be an excellent one, and the audience will undoubtedly be large. If you can accommodate us, please send the titles of your selec- tions by bearer.

Yours in haste,

H. CLARENCE EDDY.

I put down, among other things to recite, a little Scotch dialect selection called "Charlie Machree." Charlie's sweetheart was on one side of the river, he on the other. She calls out to him to come over to her. The poem relates the perils of his undertaking, and the words "he's sinking, he's sinking, oh, what shall I do?" are repeated several times. I remember my mental state as the time for my appearance on the platform arrived. I determined to seem very much at home and do various "things" which I had seen professional artists do when

16 My Chicago

they stood before an audience. One or two of them was to move a table slightly, or a chair or both; turn over the leaves of a book (which need not necessarily contain the selection to be recited), touch the lips lightly with a handkerchief, then place it on the table, adjust the "train," clear the throat, then with a patronizing smile and a "real bow" announce in a sententious tone the title of the thing to be recited. I believe I carried out these details to the letter, and started off fairly well ; but alas and alack! I began to be overtaken by stage fright — a usual part of first appearances, and when Charlie was in the middle of the stream I forgot my lines. I kept on repeating "He's sinking, he's sinking, oh, what shall I do?" The audience became a black and seething mass. I wrung my hands and wildly kept on crying "He's sink- ing, he's sinking, oh, what shall I do?"

Finally the concluding lines came to me and I landed Charlie safely in the arms of his sweetheart, and so concluded one of the greatest pieces of realistic reciting I ever remember being engaged in. I recall that when I reached the green room Mr. Eddy remarked,

"Poor Charlie ! We thought at one time he was going to the bottom, but thank Heaven you landed him safe and sound."

The faculty of the Hershey School at this time com- prised H. Clarence Eddy, Frederick Grant-Gleason, Frank T. Baird, Clayton F. Summy, W. S. B. Matthews, Samuel Kayzer, Prof, von Klenze and his wife Clara von Klenze, and Mrs. Hershey. Among the advanced music students were Grace Hiltz, Mina, Pauline, and Annie Rommeis, and Agnes Cox. Grace Hiltz afterward mar- ried Mr. Gleason; Mina Rommeis became the wife of Mr. Summy; and finally Mrs. Hershey became Mrs. Clarence Eddy.

The one member of the faculty of the Hershey School whose memory stands out by reason of his written work

My Chicago 17

was W. S. B. Matthews, a man of unusually broad and varied mental equipment. His text books on music have become standard the whole world round. He was less a musician in the ordinary sense than he was a master in the knowledge of the theory and art of music. He was the only one of the few great scholars in music with whom my work has brought me into contact, who was totally without bias in his attitude toward all the departments of the art, to all of the socalled schools of music, and to the performances of professional musicians.

It is highly unusual to find creative or^ synthetic powers residing peacefully in any one mind side by side with the power of analysis. Mr. Matthews had both, and their possession and coordinate action made him a truly great critic. As illustrative of this I remember a curious embarrassment that overtook Will Eaton, while Will was music critic on the Chicago Times. Will Eaton used to say of himself that all he knew about music of any kind was whether or not he liked it; and that all he could write about it was why he liked or disliked. He was honest enough to feel that his public was in all fairness entitled to a judgment that would stand; so when he was confronted by performances that required high technical knowledge, he called in Matthews to go hear the thing and write the criticism. A succession of such criticism, highly informed and expressed in phrases that anybody could understand, brought recognition and respect from all the great lights in music in this country and Great Britain. They were quoted, sometimes reproduced in full, in publications devoted to music. Hence the em- barrassment of Eaton. He found himself with a reputa- tion he had not earned, and it took him a long time to get that credit transferred to Matthews. Neither one of the two had been aware that their style of writing was the same.

Mr. Matthews had a curious sense of humor. But he

i8 My Chicago

had a defect of oral delivery which made him unintel- ligible to most people, a fact of which he himself was totally unaware, and which was productive at times of strange results. He had a story that must have been up- roariously funny, because he could not tell it without going into paroxysms of laughter. No one ever found out any more about it than that it was concerned with two dogs. Several of his newspaper friends, aching to get at it, tried to induce him to put it in writing. The request invariably stirred him to indignation. He regarded it as an attempt to make public property of the funniest story that was ever told. He is dead now ; and the story died with him.

While I was at the Hershey School and he was one of the instructors he made a point once every week of lectur- ing to his class — with the assistance of a blackboard. These lectures usually occupied an hour, and the class would go away without understanding a solitary word that he had uttered.

In a short time I rose to the distinction of giving sev- eral numbers in an evening recital with Mr. Kayzer, I having the first half of the program, he the last. This opportunity was considered a great honor. I wish I might put down the numbers on the program, but I cannot recall a single one. The Tribune of August loth, 1879, con- tained the following announcement.

"Professor Kayzer will give the third of his series of readings at Hershey Music Hall on Thursday evening, August 1 2th. The program will consist of a choice se- lection of miscellaneous pieces in which Miss Anna Morgan, a young lady who is said to possess excellent dramatic powers, will take part."

My next appearance was at Austin, Illinois, where I received my first five dollars. The town was deluged with posters announcing that Miss Anna Morgan, Chicago's Favorite Reader, would appear in the town hall

My Chicago 19

on Tuesday evening November i6th. Admission twenty- five cents.

I now considered myself a professional. Soon after that on a never-to-be-forgotten evening about seven o'clock the doorbell rang, and I opened the door. A very dignified man said:

"I am looking for Miss Anna Morgan, the dramatic reader."

I was greatly annoyed to have been deprived of the privilege then in vogue, and thought an essential point in business, of keeping him waiting and then sailing into the "parlor" with an air of great importance, calculated to impress the caller. In this case I had to admit that I was Anna Morgan, and ask him to be seated. He told me he had been sent by the Bryant Literary Society to engage me to read on a program to be given the following week. He said he wanted two numbers and would send a carriage and pay me ten dollars. I remember I straightened up, assumed much dignity, knit my brows and tried to figure out whether my engagements would permit my accepting this date. I finally said I could, and the man left with what seemed to me much satisfaction at having secured my services. I don't remember who composed the Bryant Literary Society, nor where it was situated, nor whether I ever had been on the north side before. I remember I recited "The Maiden Martyr" and "Asleep at the Switch," and some humorous encores, and regarded it as the most important event in my life up to then.

About this time occurred a most amusing incident. My mind had begun to expand beyond the limits of Chi- cago, and as Mr. Kayzer had lived in Elgin I thought it would add to our fame and fortune to give an entertain- ment there. Accordingly my brother Seward made a trip to Elgin as advance agent and engaged Mendelssohn Hall for Thursday evening November I4th, 1878. It was the custom to intersperse readings with musical numbers

2O My Chicago

at that time, so we engaged the Chicago Ladies Quartette, which consisted of Grace Hiltz, Agnes Cox, Mina and Pauline Rommeis. My brother, who by the way had never had the slightest experience in promoting an entertain- ment, had some bills struck off and distributed about the town, confident that they would produce a crowded house.

The day came and we all went down, my brother Charlie going along to take the tickets and the money. Alas! as between the performers and the audience, the latter was in the minority; and we returned to Chicago having paid dearly for the privilege of appearing in Elgin.

Sometime in 1879, Henry L. Slayton, a manager of local entertainments, got up a Readers' Tournament, which was given in McCormick hall, situated on North Clark Street just over the bridge. I remember George Vandenhoff, Sr., one of New York's famous readers, was on the program, also James E. Murdock, a reader and teacher much respected and admired, one of America's numerous Hamlets, and who was asked to read "The Lord's Prayer." I remember he said he could not do this in cold blood, but consented to read a selection in which it was suitably introduced.

There now seemed to be a "growing something" in the air about "Anna Morgan's recitals," and one day Mrs. E. Nelson Blake, mother of Mrs. H. H. Kohlsaat called at my home to engage me to read in the Second Baptist church, which was then in Sangamon street on the west side, and of which she and her husband were leading mem- bers. She said she would pay me twenty-five dollars, which she did, making me feel as though I belonged to the Rothschild family. I do not remember what I read, nor what I wore, which was an all important thing — more so then than now; but I do remember that immediately after Mr. Franc B. Wilkie, then one of the editors of The Times, engaged me to read on the west side in a Baptist Church on Park avenue, and that I wore a black

My Chicago 21

velvet gown the train of which was so long th'at it could not be accommodated on the high pulpit platform, but swept off on the floor. This I felt must look very grand as I sat with the utmost dignity in one of the high backed pulpit chairs and recited Mrs. Browning's "Mother and Poet" and other funereal numbers.

I remember driving with Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie after the program to Thompson's restaurant in Madison street for an oyster stew, which was the gay thing to do at that time. Mr. Wilkie remarked that my program had re- counted as many deaths as were recorded in the play of Hamlet. I also remember that there appeared in The Times the next morning the first professional criticism of my work which I had received.

After this, for a time, I never went outside my home without imagining that everyone was saying "There she comes!" or "There she goes — that's Anna Morgan!" A few years opened my eyes to the fact that the world has too many interests to concern itself with the advent of any new aspirant to artistic honors, and that a man or a woman must do something phenomenal to become a subject of uni- versal recognition and comment. How delightful, then, is the blissful ignorance of youth, which admits of a few brief hours of veritable triumph and happiness before the hardships and real struggle of a professional career begin !

On April 1 2th, 1879, posters announced a Reading and Musicale in the Third Presbyterian church at Ashland and Ogden avenues. The announcement stated:

"A Dramatic and Humorous Recital will be given by the highly talented and favorite reader Anna Morgan, her last appearance in Chicago this season, in combina- tion with the celebrated Chickering Quartette, Charles A. Knorr, Charles H. Clark, John E. McWade and Charles F. Noble, forming one of the most attractive entertainments ever offered to the West Side public. Tickets twenty-five cents."

22 My Chicago

The Chicago Tribune on Sunday December 25th, 1880, contained a half-page advertisement of the Star Lecture Course to be given in Central Music Hall under the management of Henry L. Slayton. Holders of season tickets were asked to pay twenty, thirty, forty and fifty cents for each entertainment, including reserved seats. The course opened with four "stars" — Jessie Couthoui, Reader; Joseph Heine, the great blind Violinist (first appearance) ; and The Chickering Quartette. The second date was October 2yth, with Clara Louise Kellogg and her Company, Herr Emil Liebling, Solo Pianist. On November i6th the program announced A. P. Bur- bank, the renowned dialect reader. Anna Morgan the fa- vorite reader, and the Chicago Quartette.

On February loth, 1880, I appeared for the benefit of the Foundling's Home in conjunction with the Chicago Lady Quartette; reciting "How the Old Horse Won the Bet," and "How Ruby Played." On September 2d of that year I appeared in Highland Hall, Highland Park, in an entertainment given by Mrs. N. E. Swarthout, read- ing "How Ruby Played." Others on the program were Samuel Kayzer, who recited "The Diver" by Schiller; Laura Dainty, who recited "Tom's Little Star," by Foster; and the Harmonic Quartette.

Perhaps it is time for me to mention the readers best known in the field in Chicago at this period. They were Robert L. Cumnock, founder of the School of Oratory in Northwestern University; Alfred P. Burbank, a successful reciter of dialect selections; Jessie Couthoui, Laura Dainty, myself, and a few others of less achievement. Miss Couthoui and Mrs. Dainty were popular for sev- eral years. I remember Miss Couthoui chiefly by her masterful recital of "Darius Green and His Flying Ma- chine," written by Trowbridge in 1868. After Daedalus and Icarus, Darius is usually taken as the first man who wanted to try mechanical flight. Mr. Trowbridge's effort

My Chicago 23

may be allowed the license usually granted to poetry, but as a matter of fact it expressed the disbelief of his own day. It hit the public fancy partly on that account, and partly because it was intrinsically funny, but it overlooked the fact that man in all ages has wanted to emulate the bird, has yearned to conquer the one element that seemed beyond his power to subdue. Long before the day of Darius Green, Montgolfier succeeded in levitating him- self far above the ground by means of a balloon filled with heated air — all unaware creating in himself a demon- stration of an illusory value now commonly deprecated in a slang phrase. Later on another Frenchman, whose name I have forgotten, did succeed by means of artificial wings attached to his arms and legs, in flopping through several yards of air between the roof of a building and the turf of a lawn, where he landed with considerable per- sonal injury to himself. I do not know whether Mr. Trowbridge got his quaint conceit from this last named performance, but about forty years later the Wright brothers justified the query entertained by Darius by mak- ing their first long glide in a heavier than air machine at Kittyhawk, North Carolina ; and we all know what has happened since. Then and there they answered the sturdy question of Darius :

"The birds can fly

And why can't I ?

Must we give in,"

Said he with a grin,

"That the blue bird and phoebe

Are smarter'n we be?"

"Nur I can't see What's the use of wings To a Bumble bee Fur to get a livin' with,

24 My Chicago

More'n to me. Aint my business Importanter'n hisen is?"

Miss Couthoui had very large eyes and a broad mouth, and when she impersonated Reuben as he watched Darius about to launch from the barn door in the loft, she had a trick of first contracting her mouth, and then slowly opening it as Reuben's amazement increased, until it as- sumed such unusual proportions that it brought storms of applause.

Mrs. Dainty had a large repertoire of humorous selec- tions, among which were "How the Old Horse Won the Bet," "A Naughty Little Girl's Views of Life in a Hotel," "Tom's Little Star." "Money Musk" and "The Dead Doll." Some years later Mrs. Dainty became Mrs. Fred Pelham, and has since been associated with Hull House, where she has efficiently and successfully developed and managed the Hull House Players, whose fame is more than local.

In the latter part of November, 1879, just two years from the time I had resolved to succeed as a reader, I made my first appearance in New York City. Among my testimonials is the following:

New York, December 3rd, 1879 My dear Miss Morgan: — I want to thank you for the excellent entertainment you gave us last even- ing in the parlor of the Church of the Messiah. The gathering was one you might well be proud of, both as to number and quality. They were all delighted with your wonderful recitations, as I was, and gave proof of their feelings in swift laughter and tears.

ROBERT COLLYER.

Doctor Collyer at that time was one of the few emi- nent clergymen in the United States, and this word of

My Chicago 25

commendation from him proved helpful to me. I remember it brought an engagement in Boston on De- cember i yth. I do not recall the auspices under which I read, but I have an excerpt from the Boston Journal of December i8th, in which the critic stated that "Miss Morgan read with marked effect, the audience giving decided evidence of appreciation of her ability as a public reader."

On April 2Oth, 1880 I gave a recital in the Academy of Music in Auburn, N. Y. This was an important event to me, for I had been reared there, also my father and mother and their parents. Nathan Gallop Morgan and his wife Ann Allen (for whom I was named). Stephen Thornton, my maternal grandfather, and his wife Charlotte Purchais, were all born in the vicinity of Auburn and lived and died there. Cayuga County was often spoken of as a "hive of Morgans." My grandfather Morgan and my father Allen D. Morgan, were promi- nent as members of the state legislature and were inti- mate friends of William H. Seward, our most illustrious fellow-townsman, after whom one of my brothers was named. Roscoe Conklin was a classmate of my father at Hamilton College at the same time my mother attended Miss Kelly's School at Utica, famous at that time.

As nearly everyone in Auburn and vicinity had known my parents, and me as a child, my appearance as a public performer was a matter of general interest. I was greeted by a large and enthusiastic audience. The Auburn Adver- tiser the next day gave a glowing account of my appear- ance, and Herrick Johnson, D.D., who was in the audience and later was identified with the Fourth Presbyterian Church and McCormick Theological Seminary here in Chicago, gave the following testimonial:

"I have heard Miss Morgan with real pleasure. She does not rant and this is an unspeakably grati-

26 My Chicago

fying thing to say in view of so much that is heard in public readings. Grace and naturalness of manner, a voice into which can be put tenderness and tears, a quick appreciation of varying shades of thought and feeling, and a judgment that prevents the extravagance of extremes, are Miss Morgan's marked characteristics."

During April, 1882, I filled a number of engagements in Kansas, receiving flattering notices from Lawrence, Atchison, Wichita and St. Joe, Missouri. In the latter place I was entertained by Constance Runcie, a poetess of considerable local fame. My engagement to read there followed soon after the capture of Jesse James, an out- law who had outwitted the officers for some time, and who had become a serious menace to the community and to the state. His capture had caused much excitement throughout the country. I mention this because of what followed.

My next engagement was at Mound City, and the night after that I was to read in Lincoln, Nebraska. In order to reach there in time I was obliged to drive from Mound City, which was off the main line of the railroad, and catch a train on the main line at 2 a. m. I engaged a liveryman to take me over after my reading in Mound City, and reached the station about 10 o'clock. It was pitch dark save for a dim light which came from a window in the station. The man deposited my trunk and myself on the platform. I paid him, and he drove off. I groped my way into the station and discovered that it was empty save for the ticket agent. I had also observed that the house was isolated, no other building being in sight, I was somewhat frightened, but resolved to put on a brave front, although I realized that I was in an uncomfortable position.

I ventured to speak to the ticket agent, who informed

My Chicago

27

me that he usually stayed to meet the two o'clock train, but that that night he had to leave at once because his wife was ill. My heart sank at the thought of being left alone at such an hour on a Kansas prairie. My alarm was increased by the entrance of six burly men, whom I im- mediately concluded were accomplices of Jesse James and part of his gang. My trunk on the platform contained my best clothes, a valuable set of diamonds, and three hundred dollars ; and I wore a new sealskin coat. I saw the man in the office and myself gagged and tied with a rope — if not murdered — and all my effects appropriated by the desperadoes. It was a terrible moment, but I sat apparently composed in a chair close to a red hot stove with my eye on the man at the office window until the train

came.

The agent, be it said to his credit, did not leave me, but stayed and saw me safely aboard the train for Lincoln. For years I could not get over thinking of what might have happened, and how perilous it was for a young woman to go out on a lecture tour alone, although in this instance a companion would have been of little help had the six men proved to be desperadoes.

Chapter Two

BOUT this time Mrs. Scott Siddons was an- nounced to appear in a matinee recital at a small hall on the south side of Madison street between Clark and La Salle streets. It was called Farwell Hall. I said not a word to anyone, but purchased a ticket and took an inconspicuous seat and listened with rapt attention to her dramatic recitals from Scott and Shakespeare, entranced by her rare beauty and gorgeous costume.

28 My Chicago

As I came down the stairs, when the program was finished, I was suddenly seized with the idea of going to see her. I learned she was staying at the 1'remont House in Lake street. I had never been in an hotel in my life, but I mustered up sufficient courage, sought out the Tremont House, and sent up word to Mrs. Siddons that a young lady wished to see her. She requested that I be shown to her room. I found her at dinner, which she had ordered served upon her return from her reading.

She received me cordially, and to my surprise asked me to recite for her, which I did, selecting from my repertoire "The Bells of Shandon" and then "Rock of Ages," a poem which depicted the singing of the hymn by an old woman, a young child and other characters. When I had finished she said,

"Miss Morgan, you read very well. I should like you to appear on one of my programs the next time I come to Chicago."

I replied that I should like it very much and that I thought it would be nice if we could do something to- gether. She asked what I would suggest, to which I promptly responded,

"The garden scene from Mary Stuart by Schiller."

She said she thought it was a good idea, and asked me which part I preferred. I told her Queen Elizabeth; whereupon she said she would study the scene and mem- orize the part of Mary Stuart, and we shook hands and parted.

For months I walked on air in anticipation of this great event. One day in November, in 1881, as I was about to board a Madison street car in front of McVicker's theatre, a man who knew of my expectation hailed me with:

"Did you know Scott Siddon's agent was in town?"

I said, "No." Whereupon he said, "You better go over and see Carpenter."

Mrs. Scott Siddons.

LibhARY OF THE

OF ILLINOIS

My Chicago 29

"Mr. George Benedict Carpenter was then the Man- ager of Central Music Hall in State street, at the corner of Randolph, now covered by a part of Marshall Field's establishment.

My feet scarcely touched the ground as I fairly flew to Mr. Carpenter, who told me that Mr. J. Leslie Allen had just arranged for Mrs. Siddon's appearance in Central Music Hall, that he was stopping at the Tremont House, and that I had better get hold of him at once. Over I went, and instead of going to the office I asked the elevator boy if he knew Mr. Allen. He said he did and that Mr. Allen was up in his room. I asked him if he would point him out to me when he came down, and seated myself and waited patiently for two hours, when a dapper little fellow came out of the elevator.

I immediately stepped up to him, told him my name, and asked him if Mrs. Siddons had told him of our agree- ment that I should appear on her program. He said "No."

"Where is Mrs. Siddons to-day?" I asked.

He gave me her address, which was some town in Indiana. I went to the telegraph office and sent this message:

"Please telegraph your agent informing him of your invitation to me to appear with you here. — ANNA MORGAN." In two hours the message came :

"Put Miss Morgan on my program. MARY F. SCOTT SIDDONS."

When the eventful day came I was in bed with an old- fashioned sore throat, and my beloved mother, following a custom of the time, had my throat "done up" in salt pork enveloped in red flannel. I was very ill, but when night came I determined to brave it out and go down to the hall. Central Music Hall at that time was new, and a beautiful place it was. It is a great pity Chicago was

3O My Chicago

deprived in 1903 of such a desirable and much-needed temple of art, one which never has been adequately re- placed.

Mrs. Siddon's appearance was the first dramatic re- cital to be given in Central Music Hall. The interest on the part of the public in seeing the new hall, with that of seeing and hearing an artist possessed of historic name as well as of fame and beauty, attracted a representative audience which tested the capacity of the house.

When I arrived in the dressing room Mrs. Siddons greeted me as a well loved friend, which did much to quiet my temperature — physical and mental. I was so en- tranced by her beauty that I completely forgot myself and watched her put the finishing touches to her makeup, an art of which she was complete mistress. Even after she went upon the platform she had a fashion of changing a rose from one side of her belt to the other and doing various little things to give the audience time to become acquainted with her before she announced her readings.

The first part of her program consisted of selections from Scott's "The Lady of the Lake." Then appeared in distinctive type "How Ruby Played," by Miss Anna Morgan." I had selected this sketch, which had shortly before been printed in the New York Tribune, and which never had been given in Chicago. It was a countryman's description of Rubenstein's playing on the piano. The ac- count was not only humorous, but truthful. Coming in contrast to Scott's classic poem and preceded by Mrs. Siddons' announcement that the next number on the pro- gram would be given by Miss Anna Morgan, whom she had no need to introduce to a Chicago audience, and who was suffering from a severe cold which she as a sister artist could fully sympathize with, resulted in a storm of applause — in fact a perfect ovation. I remember she kissed me and said:

"You must give them something more."

My Chicago 31

After going out and bowing a couple of times, I recited a pathetic little sketch called "Poor Little Joe," which recounted the death of a little waif, and left the audience in tears.

I remember I thought it would show great composure to move the chair on which I had been sitting while I gave the sketch, after I had finished, and that later on Mrs. Anna Cowell Hobkirk, an actress who was in the audience told me I must never do it again because it de- tracted from the pathos of my climax. To my amaze- ment The Associated Press the following morning an- nounced that Miss Anna Morgan had appeared in Chicago with Scott Siddons and had carried off the honors of the evening. While mortifying to me at the moment, it prob- ably had no serious effect upon Mrs. Siddons' business, and did secure for me immediate openings in the larger lecture courses of the country, and my fee rose from $25 to $100.

I never knew why Mrs. Siddons was prompted to do this for me. Mr. Carpenter said the next day :

"It's the most generous thing I ever knew Mrs. Siddons to do."

At any rate, it gave me a tremendous "boost" which I have always appreciated, and I wish to contribute my little bunch of rosemary in remembrance of her kindness.

Mary Frances Scott Siddons was the daughter of Cap- tain William Young Siddons, and was the great grand- daughter of the famous Sarah Siddons. She was born in India and educated in Germany. In 1862 she married Scott Chanter, a British naval officer. In 1865 she prefixed the name Scott to that of Siddons, and took up a career upon the stage as an actress and dramatic reader. Her debut was made in London as Juliet. Her American debut was in Boston, where she appeared as Lady Macbeth.

In 1869 Mrs. Siddons was a member of Augustin Daly's Company at his Fifth Avenue theatre in New

32 My Chicago

York, playing Rosalind, Viola, Beatrice, King Rene's Daughter, and other parts. She was then in her twenty- fifth year, and her appearance was characterized as that of a demure vitality, not great in any part, but charming in everything. In reply to a letter I wrote her in which I spoke of her advantage in possessing beauty and a his- toric name, she replied,

"Before closing allow me to say that in my opinion, you, in common with many others, err greatly in supposing that either great beauty or an inherited historic name are of so great an advantage to me. Beauty never serves for long, and a great name is a most onerous burden unless there happens to be a good foundation to support it. The inheritance of the name of Siddons is enough to crush at once any aspirant to dramatic honors, unless he or she possess something more than that and beauty to make good the claim. The only good that my maiden name did me was that it attracted the attention of the public toward my first efforts; but it never helped me to satisfy their high expectations — rather the reverse. Yours faithfully,

Mary F. Siddons."

Mrs. Siddons' last performance in Chicago was in 1 883, when she played at McVicker's Theatre in "King Rene's Daughter." She died in London in 1896.

Immediately after my engagement with Mrs. Siddons I went to New York to secure if possible an appearance in a large course of entertainments then being given in Chickering Hall. I sought out the manager, one Mr. Vail, who had an office somewhere on Broadway, I think near Fourteenth street. I told him of my wish to appear in his course. He scarcely looked at me, and said,

"My course is full."

"I muttered, partly to myself, something about being disappointed, something about Chicago; when he sud-

Anna Morgan,

as she appeared with Scott Siddons in 1881.

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

My Chicago 33

denly turned in the revolving chair in which he sat and said,

"You are not the young woman who has recently ap- peared in Chicago with Scott-Siddons?"

"Yes, I am," I replied. Then he said,

"Well, Vandenhoff has the gout, and may not be able to appear on the twenty-eighth."

Then he went on to mention possible openings, and finally said in a patronizing manner never-to-be-forgotten.

"Let me have your address, Miss Morgan, and I will telegraph you if I can make an opening for you."

I was staying with some cousins who lived well on the outskirts of Brooklyn, and thinking the telegram would reach me quicker, I gave my cousin's business address in Wall Street and took my departure, feeling perfectly sure the message to "read" would be forthcoming. My cousin, Mr. Franklin Morey, was an unsophisticated man of Quaker origin, wholly unacquainted with people in profes- sional life, and I never shall forget with what an air of something distinctly out of the ordinary he came home in the middle of the afternoon a few days later with a telegram :

"Have put you on the program for January twenty- eighth. J. VAIL."

I haven't a program and cannot recall what I read, probably "How Ruby Played," "How the Old Horse Won the Bet," "The Brakeman At Church," and other numbers then in demand. I remember my appearance was produc- tive of good results, and other engagements in Brooklyn and that vicinity followed.

On November 2ist, 1882, I appeared in the Roberts Course, Boston Music Hall. Several years before, my father had paid a visit to Boston and on his return had given a wonderful account of the great organ which was a distinctive feature of this hall, and which he had heard in connection with the singing of Parepa Rosa.

34 My Chicago

Through the •introduction of a friend I went to Hotel Winthrop in Boylston street, which at that time was the winter home of John G. Whittier, Celia Thaxter, and other professional and artistic folk. Soon after my arrival I met Charles Kent, an English actor, then at the Boston Theatre in a play called "The World," in which he died in the first act, which enabled him to come to Music Hall in time to hear me; and I remember how much he encour- aged and helped me through this eventful occasion. I re- member that as I stood on the most trying of platforms, which was remote from the audience (a faulty way of building platforms at that time), and realized that I was singing "Rock of Ages" to the great organ which I had heard my father talk about years before, I was almost paralyzed with fear. I must have disguised the fact, for Mr. James H. Roberts, manager of the course, sent me a testimonial the next day in which he said:

"Miss Anna Morgan of Chicago appeared in the Roberts Course, Boston Music Hall, November 2ist, 1882, and made a successful appearance. Although a stranger to our people, she was heartily encored."

I remained a guest at Hotel Winthrop for two weeks, during which time I made many charming and helpful acquaintances, the most important of whom was John G. Whittier. We used to assemble in the parlor evenings after dinner and listen to his reminiscences. He was the simplest of men, wholly unsophisticated and untraveled, in appearance strongly resembling my grandfather Morgan. His memory was somewhat at fault He used to tell us over and over again about a trip he once made to Hartford on the celebration of (I think it was) the seventy-fifth birthday of Harriet Beecher Stowe. On that occasion he was delegated to cross the lawn escorting Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, who had a fashion at that time of dressing in an eccentric way. Mr. Whittier fairly blushed as he told of his embarrassment in escorting her

My Chicago 35

to her seat. He presented me with a copy of his poems, on the fly leaf of which was written To Miss Anna Morgan, from her friend John G. Whittier."

This little volume I prized highly. Unfortunately it disappeared from my studios years ago, and I never was able to recover it. He read to me his poem "Marguerite" one evening when we were alone in his little parlor, and told me that he had planned a long poem on the subject of the French neutrals, but that Longfellow's "Evan- geline" appeared on the same subject before he had collected his material, so he contended himself with pub- lishing the shorter poem. I read for him on this occasion, and the next day he sent me the following letter:

Hotel Winthrop, Boston, May 22, 1883

"I have had the pleasure of hearing Anna Morgan's recitation of Father Prout's 'Bells of Shandon' and other pieces, which seemed to me nat- urally and admirably rendered. She has a clear perception of the thought and fancy of the author, and a remarkable adaptation of the tone and gesture to their grave or gay words.

JOHN G. WHITTIER."

In June, 1883, I was invited to pay a visit to some rela- tions in Evansville, Indiana. Soon after my arrival I was induced to remain and give instruction to a large number of society folk who were interested in doing things dra- matic at that time. The work proved successful and enter- taining, and at the end of six weeks, as a result of this, my first experience in teaching, I returned to Chicago with between five and six hundred dollars in my pocket, which seemed quite wonderful to me then.

36 My Chicago

Chapter Three

HEN the Chicago Opera House was built, in 1884, David Henderson who had been man- aging editor of The Daily News, became its manager. At that time Franklin H. Sargent of New York had started The Academy of Dramatic Art in connection with the Empire Theatre, and Mr. Henderson, wishing to keep abreast of the times, proposed a similar scheme in connection with his Opera House, and entrusted Mr. Kayzer, who was an intimate friend of his, to organize a school which at first was called The Chicago Opera House Conservatory.

Rooms were secured in the Reaper Block at the north- east corner of Washington street, diagonally across from the Opera House. This was not a desirable location for an aesthetic school, but it was thought it must be situated near the Opera House. The rooms were any- thing but attractive, but the moment for starting such a project seemed auspicious. The school flourished from the beginning. Unfortunately the records of those first years, in fact of all the succeeding years, were destroyed. I write of them entirely from memory.

In view of the fact that I had been successful in my efforts at teaching and rehearsing in Evansville, I was invited to become a member of the faculty, which num- bered twenty-five, the names of whom I cannot recall with the exception of Colonel Monstery, a celebrated fenc- ing master, George Sweet, and Katherine Van Arnhem (who taught singing), George B. Berrell from the Opera House (who was engaged as Dramatic Coach), Mr. Kayzer, and myself. Later on John Stapleton who had been associated with Augustin Daly, became the stage

My Chicago 37

manager and produced some very attractive plays at the Opera House, which helped to bring the school into im- mediate notice and favor.

It was the policy of the school to give a miscellaneous program of recitations and musical numbers before thr public performance of plays. On one occasion I was re- citing the garden scene from "Mary Stuart" when smoke began to appear from the rear of the stage. Realizing that a panic was imminent, I stepped to the footlights and assured the audience that the building was fireproof and there was no danger, and at once began the recital of a humorous sketch. The next morning The Associated Press announced in big headlines, "Panic in Theatre Averted by a Woman," and then went on to state the facts.

Some time in 1886 Frederick Perry, who has been more or less distinguished upon the dramatic stage, joined the Conservatory classes, and I rehearsed him in the first part in which he ever appeared before an audience. The play was a one-act farce called "Sixes and Sevens." Bella Tomlins and Sarah Truax, two young women who have since won distinction as artists, were also in the cast.

Of course a teacher in dealing with pupils from all grades of society, and with widely differing ideas re- garding the art which they are seeking to represent, is bound to encounter painful as well as humorous occur- rences. I will mention one which happened in the early days of the Conservatory. I had rehearsed a young woman Miss Katherine Alvord in the character of Bar- bara in a one-act play by Jerome K. Jerome, called "Bar- bara." Barbara was a poor girl and in the original pro- duction of the play was properly costumed in a simple grey gown with plain collar and cuffs. The girl made such a success of the role that a few weeks later, when Louis James was playing an engagement in Chicago, we decided to repeat the play at a matinee performance in order that

38 My Chicago

Mr. James, who was looking for a leading woman, might judge of her ability. I was ill when the day came, and unable to be present. After the play I was informed that Miss Alvord, in order to impress Mr. James, had appeared in a black gown heavily jetted. She thought it would give her a finer appearance, and furthermore she had taken an artificial rose which had been improvised as a property at the last moment because a genuine one had not been provided, and in an emotional climax had pulled the rose to pieces, disclosing to the audience the cotton on which it was built. Nothwithstanding these errors of judgment she was engaged, and played several suc- cessful seasons with Mr. James, and later with Augustin Daly.

In those beginning years of the Conservatory, evening as well as day classes were conducted. One night I came down to the school about 7 o'clock, and as I reached the elevator I discovered a little mite of a girl, her curly head and expressive eyes enveloped in a red woolen hood. She was accompanied by her brother, a youth of perhaps seventeen, who informed me they had come to see Miss Morgan because his little sister was talented and wished to take lessons. When we reached my studio I asked her name and was told it was Dora Drosdovitch, and that her father kept a second-hand clothing store in South Clark Street. I asked her to recite for me. Her recita- tion was full of all sorts of exaggerations and tricky "business" which had been taught her by some inartistic teacher of the old school. But the absurdities could not hide the expression of real talent with which I readily dis- covered the child was endowed. I was thrilled with the belief that I had found another Rachel, and immediately began to think of plays in which to exploit a child of ten.

A few years previous Augustin Daly had translated a play from the French for Bijou Heron, then a member of his New York company, in which the heroine was a

My Chicago 39

little girl. The name of the play was "Monsieur Al- phonse." I had seen it produced at McVicker's Theatre. Happening to be in New York, I sought an interview with Mr. Daly and asked his permission to produce the play with Dora as the star. When he told me that his price would be two hundred and fifty dollars for a single per- formance my enthusiasm waned, and I contented myself with scenes between Hubert and Prince Arthur, from King John, and some performances of "Editha's Burg- lar" written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a play which then was popular. "Dora" proved a distinct feature of Conservatory matinees for about three years, but for reasons which I do not recall her family moved west, and so far as I know she never had any connection with the professional stage.

Previous to that, Walker Whiteside, a lad of ten, had come to Chicago from Kansas, and after two years' train- ing with Mr. Kayzer in Shakespeare parts made a suc- cessful debut at The Grand Opera House as "Hamlet" and "Richard the Third." On the opening night I yielded to his childish wish to wear a diamond ring of mine which he greatly admired and from which, after the play was over, a large diamond was missing, but it was miracu- lously discovered later on rolled up in the stage carpet. After this first engagement Walker grew so tall he could no longer star as a prodigy, and did not play until some years later, when he reappeared in "Hamlet" at The Schiller Theatre. I remember I sat next Teddy Mc- Phelim, then dramatic critic of The Tribune, and how thrilled we both were as Hamlet left the stage after the scene with the ghost, uttering the words "Go on, I'll fol- low thee." We both agreed it was the most inspired de- livery we had ever heard in a Shakespeare play. I might add that Walker Whiteside has continued to act from that time on, and is still an honored member of the dramatic profession.

4O My Chicago

Among other juvenile recruits to the Conservatory ranks a little later were the Murphy children, Fred and Marie, who came from Danville, Illinois. Fred was one of the most interesting and satisfactory members of my classes, and turned out to be an excellent reader and actor.

Under the stage name of Fred Eric, Fred joined Julia Marlowe's Company while yet he was a boy, remaining with it six seasons, during which time he won wide recog- nition as the one actor of the younger generation capable of reading blank verse with intelligence and proper em- phasis. He played with Otis Skinner in a varied reper- toire, and later accompanied the Sothern-Marlowe Company to England, where he won high praise from the London critics. He is the youngest American actor to win recognition at home and abroad for unusual gifts in the interpretation of poetic drama.

At this period Steele MacKaye had returned to New York from Paris where he had been studying with Francois Delsarte his analysis of expression. There was a great deal of excitement about Delsarte just then. Stu- dents were flocking to New York from all over the country, standing in line eager to pay twenty dollars an hour for instruction, convinced that this "new method" was a certain road to fame and fortune on the musical and dramatic stages.

I was impressed with the fact that it was a grammar of expression and that it would have a great vogue, so I went down and interviewed Mr. MacKaye, secured two books, translations of Delsarte's lessons written by two of his pupils, and at once began to teach the Delsarte Method of Expression, with the result that large numbers were attracted to my classes. I arranged a series of ex- hibition exercises for which I had music specially written, drilled a class of men in a pantomime depicting the death of Julius Caesar, and another which I called "The Fate

My Chicago 41

of Virginia," based on Macauley's poem, and announced "An Hour with Delsarte" which was given in the Opera House.

I designed the costumes, and in order to get an artistic arrangement of colors went over to Marshall Field's and got samples of cheesecloth which I proceeded to pin on a large sheet of brown paper and experimented with them until I secured a satisfactory combination. This occasion was my first introduction to Elia W. Peattie, who had just begun to write for Chicago newspapers. She was sent by the Daily News to write up the novel perform- ance, which she did. Her story with its illustrations oc- cupied three columns of the paper. I remember she was greatly amused at sight of my sheet of brown paper with its bunches of color pinned on here and there. I still have that sheet in my possession.

Franklin H. Sargent, newly graduated from Harvard, had with many others become interested in the Delsarte Method of Expression, and as I have before stated, had started the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York. In 1886 he paid a visit to Chicago and accepted my invitation to give a talk at the Conservatory, in which he set forth the principles of Delsarte in the peculiar terms which enveloped that teacher's philosophy, dilating upon the concentric position of the right foot when the left arm was eccentric centro, and so on. I dared not look at Mr. Kayzer, John Wilkie, Lyman Glover, Robert Peattie, or John Stapleton during the talk, and as soon as Mr. Sargent took his departure they all swooped down upon me and said,

"Will you tell us what this man has been talking about? It's the biggest tommyrot we ever heard."

But it wasn't, — it was a grammar of expression couched in terms of art and at first presented in an impractical fashion, with much exaggeration which brought it into

42 My Chicago

more or less ridicule, but which left its impress upon the art of expression through voice and action.

Shortly after this, as I stood before one of my classes, I was impressed with the necessity for a book that would be of more practical value than the translation from the French, and I said "I must write it." So I set about it at once and prevailed upon my sister Marian and a friend to make some sketches of my pupils illustrative of the work, which they did. Before the book was finished I de- termined to go to New York to arrange for its publica- tion. I had not the faintest idea of publishers, nor of their policies, nor methods, but the name of Appletons made a strong appeal to me, and upon reaching New York I went at once to their office. The reader for this then foremost publishing house in New York was an elderly man, very kindly in his manner. He told me their rule was never to accept a book without taking time for con- sideration; but when I told him I was obliged to return to Chicago the next day he politely consented to take the manuscript to his home in Brooklyn and read it.

I was in his office waiting for him upon his arrival in the morning. He told me the Appletons would publish the book, bringing it put in a paper cover to sell for fifty cents. This proposition did not meet with my approval, so I bade him good-morning and repaired to Houghton and Mifflin's New York office and presented my case. Young Mr. Mifflin told me I had better go over to Boston and see his uncle Mr. Houghton, the senior member of Houghton and Mifflin (by the way, they still are in the front rank of publishers) ; so I took the night boat for Boston. As I approached their office I encountered Moses True Browne, then at the head of the Boston School of Oratory. He inquired my errand in Boston and when I told him he said,

"I doubt whether Houghton & Mifflin will take your book, for they are just bringing out a book of mine and

My Chicago 43

it is against their rules to bring out two books on the same subject in the same year," which proved to be the case.

At their suggestion I went to Lee and Shepherd's and placed with them the book, "An Hour with Delsarte." They brought it out in most artistic style. It sold for two dollars a copy.

Among the pupils in the Conservatory classes at that time were the children of Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand W. Peck. Mr. Peck had become interested in the school and in Mr. Kayzer. As a consequence when the Auditorium building was projected it was decided the name should be changed to The Chicago Conservatory, and that we should remove to rooms especially designed for us in that building. The school became established in those new and beautiful quarters in 1889. Eminent teachers were added to the musical department, William H. Sherwood being placed at the head of the Piano Department, Leo- pold Godowsky, Calvin B. Cady, W. S. B. Matthews, Julia Lois Caruthers, and others being associate teachers.

Sig. Carpi of Milan was engaged as head of the de- partment of singing, which included many distinguished teachers. I retained my position as head of the dramatic department, Mr. Hart Conway being engaged as stage director and producer of plays. The faculty was a large one, including all branches of music, dramatic art, danc- ing, and French, German and Italian.

I cannot undertake to record the many fine concerts given by members of the faculty and their professional pupils, nor of the stage productions given by Mr. Hart Conway from 1889 to 1899, for I have no records of them.

44 My Chicago

Chapter Four

of my own productions during my con- nection with the Conservatory are worthy of record as being among the earliest efforts in Chicago to produce the literary drama, which later on was called the New Theatre Movement and The Little Theatre.

On March 21, 1896, I gave the first presentation in America of Ibsen's "The Master Builder" at Powers Theatre, before a crowded house of representative social, educational, literary and artistic members of Chicago society. I had taken great pains in rehearsing it. I was fortunate in having an ideal cast. Altogether it was an event of dramatic importance in Chicago, and was truly appreciated by the small number who at the time knew something of Ibsen and who at least partially realized what an important share he was to have in the evolution of the drama.

Unfortunately Edward J. McPhelim, for some years the dramatic critic of The Tribune, a man of rare literary intuition and attainment, was too ill to attend the per- formance though he had looked forward to it with much interest. He was thoroughly familiar with this most literary of the Ibsen plays, and enthusiastic over its being done in Chicago ; and of course would have written an intelligent criticism of the performance. As it was, Mr. Barrett Eastman was detailed by The Tribune to write the article. He acknowledged to the Chatfield- Taylors, with whom he sat at the play, that he had never read it, had never even heard of it.

Mr. Hamlin Garland, newly arrived in Chicago and much interested in the new theatre movement, made some

My Chicago 45

remarks before the curtain rose on the first act, in which he said among other things, "Ibsen is not on trial to-day, but the people of Chicago." Mr. Eastman took this remark for his cue and devoted about three columns to "roasting" Mr. Garland, the play, and its author. I have dwelt at length on this, because I wish to record the lack of appreciation and encouragement I encountered from our critics on this and subsequent occasions.

This being the first production of the play in English, the cast should be recorded:

Halvard Solness, a master

builder Mr. Edward Dvorak

Aline Solness, his wife Miss Katherine Knowles

Dr. Herdal, their family phy- sician Mr. Albert Augustus

Knute Brovik, formerly archi- tect, now assistant to Solness . .Mr. John Dvorak

Ragnar Brovik, his son Mr. Herbert Skinner

Kaja Foslic, his niece Miss Margaret Wagner

Hilda Wangel Miss Sophea Levea

Miss Maud Caruthers

Ladies Miss Jessie Harding

I also produced in 1896 "Old Wine," a one-act play written by Herbert Stuart Stone and Harrison Rhodes during their college days at Harvard. These young men had just started the publication of "The Chap Book" and for many reasons were popular, and their play, which was given at Powers Theatre, was largely attended and much appreciated by their numerous friends.

Mrs. Edward Mysenberg, mother of Janet Beecher and Olive Wyndom, was in the cast and distinguished herself as an old and privileged servant.

In 1896 Maeterlinck, as well as Ibsen, had appeared on the literary-dramatic horizon, and I had fallen

46 My Chicago

in love with the charm of his work, especially with a one-act play "The Intruder." Possibly my interest in the play and its author and the desire to meet him actu- ated me to visit Europe in July of that summer. I took passage on an Atlantic transport steamer for Paris. The boat carried freight chiefly, having accommodation for only forty passengers. Before we fairly set sail I be- came possessed of the idea to write an article "In a Modern Noah's Ark, or From America to Paris by Freight." There happened to be a man on board bound for Calcutta who made some clever sketches for me il- lustrative of my article, one of the Captain and his pet lamb, and some of the horses on board. I also wrote an article on Maeterlinck during the trip, called "The Belgian Shakespeare." Both articles were published in The Chicago Herald.

On this trip I made the acquaintance of Dr. Marcus Simpson, who had recently been graduated from Colum- bia University and who was on his way to Munich for a course in German literature. He happened to be in Brussels as-guest of the American consul when I arrived there on my search for Maeterlinck, and readily accepted my invitation to go with me to Ghent and help find him. Upon our arrival after an hour's ride by train, we drove to a bookstore to learn his address. I remember the man whom we addressed said he knew no one by the name of Maeterlinck in Ghent. Whereupon Dr. Simpson said,

"Why, this lady has come all the way from America to see him. He is a famous man."

After some deliberation the man produced a card from a small drawer in a secretary remarking, "That might be the man." We jumped into our waiting cab and drove to the house, only to find a note tacked to the door saying Maeterlinck was at Oostaeker, his country home, a five mile drive into the country.

Although we had promised to join a party of friends

My Chicago 47

on the twelve o'clock train for an afternoon at Bruges, we determined to carry out our plan of finding Maeter- linck, so off we started. We arrived at his home in the nick of time, just as he was mounting his bicycle to go for a ride. From the nature of his writings I had ex- pected to see a thin, pale, aesthetic looking man. In- stead I found a man who was the picture of health, with black hair, eyes too blue to be violet, a ruddy complexion, and above the medium size. He was cordial but reti- cent, spoke French only, asked many questions about art and literature in America, expressed great interest in hearing of the production of "The Master Builder." When I told him I was going to produce "The Intruder" he seemed greatly pleased. He took us into his garden and picked a huge bouquet of old-fashioned flowers which he presented to me, after which we bade him good- bye in order to make our train. After my return to America I received a charming letter from him in which he referred to my brief visit, adding that he found in me "one not at all a stranger."

I began rehearsals of "The Intruder" in December, 1896, and although the play required less than thirty minutes in performance I continued work on it for three months, presenting it at Steinway Hall, February 27, 1 897. It is safe to say it is one of the greatest one-act plays ever written, and the most difficult to rehearse, one that calls for the utmost patience. I sat and listened to it by the hour until I got the tone work and the rhythm which the play demanded, in several instances trying as many as twenty voices before finding the quality which the lines required. Three days before the date announced for the production, the man who had rehearsed the blind grand- father for three months was taken critically ill, and a new man had to be rehearsed. Fortunately he had been present at most of the rehearsals and was thoroughly

48 My Chicago

familiar with the lines and "business" and was able to give a creditable performance.

The play was given at 9.30 P. M. in Steinway Hall before the most critical audience which Chicago could offer, most of whom thoroughly appreciated my enter- prise and courage in giving Chicago the opportunity of hearing this remarkable play. The newspaper men for the most part sat on the back seats and grinned, regard- ing both it and me as being "queer." I have no record of their printed criticisms, but Mr. Henry B. Fuller in an article written for the Atlantic Monthly on the theatres of Chicago at that time, said "Little can be found for approval beyond the efforts of Miss Anna Morgan of the Chicago Conservatory, who gives infrequent per- formances of Ibsen, Maeterlinck and the like, a work which she carries on with great enthusiasm and optimism despite the indifference of the middle public and the re- sentment of the newspaper press."

Following "The Intruder" I gave the first presenta- tion of Browning's "In a Balcony" as a play, Miss Jessie Harding playing the Queen, Miss Amy Swartchild being the Constance, and James Carew (who later became the husband of Ellen Terry) acting the role of Norbert. I took infinite pains in its preparation, building a special setting in Recital Hall, the Auditorium. When the evening came the first person to arrive was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, the dean of the Browning cult in Chicago, who greeted me with these words:

"Miss Morgan, I am afraid to go in. You know this is a great poem and I am afraid to see it acted."

As Miss Harding in the role of the Queen slowly descended the steps of the balcony, draped in some gor- geous brocaded window hangings which we had resur- rected from somewhere on the north side, looking the very embodiment of that particular woman, and said, "This hair was early grey," the expression of Mr.

My Chicago 49

Jones' eye prepared me for the eulogies which he re- corded of her work and of the entire performance and which were printed in Unity Magazine.

An actor, a former student of mine who witnessed the performance, returned to New York shortly after and described it to Mrs. Sarah Cowell LeMoyne, then famous as an interpretative reader of Browning. Mrs. LeMoyne was loath to believe the poem could succeed as a play. Nevertheless she herself presented it at the Grand Opera House five years later, with Eleanor Robson as Con- stance, Otis Skinner as Norbert, she herself acting the Queen. It was about as unrelated a cast as possibly could have been selected. Mrs. LeMoyne smacked of the reading desk of the old school, was dressed in a con- ventional theatrical costume ; Mr. Skinner was fresh from rehearsals of Mark Antony, Miss Robson being the only fresh material, devoid of traditional mannerisms.

Mrs. Peattie, who criticized their performance, was careful to note that neither Miss Harding nor our per- formance in any way suffered in comparison.

In 1898 I gave the first presentation of "The Land of Heart's Desire" by William Butler Yeats, at a matinee at the Great Northern Theatre, which had just been com- pleted; and a little later gave a notable performance of two one-act plays, "Afterglow" and "The Stranger with- in the Gates," from Mr. Henry B. Fuller's volume of twelve one-act plays entitled, "The Puppet Booth."

One incident in "The Stranger within the Gates" de- manded that the heroine arrive on the scene in a coach. I had secured from Mr. Leroy Payne the use of an historic coach then in his possession. Just before the curtain was to rise on this act, one of the stage hands came to me in great distress, telling me the coach had arrived but that it was so large it could not be gotten through the stage door. Whereupon I flew to the door and called to the driver of a cab who chanced to be in

^o My Chicago

the alley, to take his horse from the cab and bring it upon the stage at once, which he did. When the moment came for the arrival I had the man whip up the horse so that his head could be seen from the wings, and amidst much excitement the heroine, who supposedly had alighted from a coach, appeared on the scene; and the audience applauded, little dreaming of what had trans- pired off stage.

A few months later I gave the first American produc- tion of "The Fan," by Goldoni, especially translated for my use by Mr. Henry B. Fuller. These plays called for large casts. In them were Mr. Harold Heaton, Mr. Irving K. Pond, Mr. John Robbins, and Miss Katherine Knowles, who later became Mrs. Robbins.

For years "Hamlet" had been a favorite play of mine, and one day in 1898 I suddenly realized what a variety of tone work the play represented, the role of Hamlet alone calling for the widest scope in the use of the speak- ing voice. Accordingly I planned and gave a recital of the play with nine Hamlets and three Ophelias, selecting the voices with special reference to their adaptability to the various scenes, each Hamlet leaving the stage as his scene Was completed, and another Hamlet taking up the next scene — and so on to the end of the play.

The first Ophelia gave the farewell scene with Laertes as Laertes is leaving for France; the second gave the scene between Ophelia and Hamlet, ending with Ophelia's speech "Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown" ! To the third was given the mad scene where Ophelia pathetically chants fragmentary and wandering thoughts regarding her father's death, and takes leave of the Queen and her brother as she goes out to drown her- self. Sarah Truax, who had been given these particular scenes, was studying with an Italian singing teacher at the time, who advised her that this was too good an oppor- tunity to display her singing quality not to be taken ad

My Chicago 51

vantage of. Accordingly, to my consternation, when she came upon the stage she proceeded to sing in genuine Italian operatic style. When the distressing scene was finished I rushed to the dressing room madly exclaiming, "You have ruined my play!" It is needless to add that our professional relations came to an end then and there.

Burton Holmes took some lessons in voice culture in the Conservatory before starting out on his career as a lecturer, and gave his first talk in Recital Hall, at which all his neighbors and friends congregated. Mrs. H. O. Stone declared it to be the best lecture she had ever listened to up to that time. He scoffed at the idea of ever being classed with Stoddard, yet he has far out- distanced Stoddard in the extent of his lectures, the sub- jects treated, and their numbers.

An interesting event in the days of the Conservatory in the Auditorium was a visit from Patti, who attended one of our matinees. A little one-act play called "Fast Friends" proved so attractive to her that she invited one of the girls to accompany her to her home in Wales that she might rehearse the play there and present it to her friends. Of course the girl accepted the invitation.

Chapter Five

N 1897 a young woman appeared in my studios. She said she was from Galesburg, Illinois, a teacher in one of the high schools there, and added that her name was Harriet Blackstone and that she wished to take some lessons; Quickly discovering her talent for charteriza- tion, I advised her to make a special study of Riley's boys, which she did and in which she was successful. She continued to come up now and then from Galesburg

52 My Chicago

and continue her work with me, then disappeared for two or three years during which she studied painting in Brook- lyn and New York. One day she reappeared in my studios exclaiming,

"Miss Morgan, I am here to stay. All my earthly possessions including my mother are here, and I have taken an apartment near you on Lake avenue."

"What are you going to do?" I inquired.

"Paint portraits" was the prompt reply.

I smiled, though my heart sank at the thought of it, but she knew what she was about, and went at it in the spirit of certainty she had derived from her New Eng- land ancestry. And she was right. Her first order was to paint Ottilie Liljencrantz, a young author whose un- timely death was a grief to all who knew her. Next came a commission to paint Judge Ewing. Then she moved to Glencoe, where she executed enough orders to enable her to build a charming bungalow and later on a studio. Miss Blackstone has been an industrious and painstaking worker, and for some years has been recognized as one of our best portrait artists. I arranged the composi- tion for the portrait which she painted of me, a reproduc- tion of which appears in this book. When she entered the room and took in my scheme for the picture she ex- claimed,

"Do you expect me to paint that — well, if I don't I'm a fool, if I do I'm a good one." And she was — a good one.

Ottilie Liljencrantz, whom I have just mentioned, was a pupil of mine for several seasons, an attractive young woman with a mind unusually endowed. She had a vivid fancy and a true sense of proportion, she seemed to have been set apart for a career in literature, and in this I believe she would have won distinction. She was under twenty-five when she was called away, yet voung as she was she had written one book that would have done

e -Si • 2 b-

"*

*•

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credit to an older head and much longer experience. I mean her story "The Thrall of Leif the Lucky," really a noble book, rich not only in imagination but in his- torical knowledge of the Norse settlements upon the coast of Greenland a thousand years ago. The book had im- mediate success. It appeared about 1903, and the best evidence of its value lies in the fact that it still is selling.

During that season I gave a series of dramatic mati- nees in Recital Hall of the Auditorium, presenting in addition to various recitations, monologues and duo- logues, two one-act plays each week, thus affording valuable practice for professional members of my classes who were able to test their ability before an audience of five hundred. These recitals were supplemented by a series of noon Shakespearean programs.

I recall that Prof. David Swing was present at one of the afternoon recitals when a sketch I had adapted from Anthony Hope was given under the title "Nature and Philosophy." A young girl (Nature) endeavors to draw out a confession of love from a hyper-intellectual pro- fessor (Philosophy). The Professor is much engaged in research of some kind when she obtrudes herself upon his time and attention, and presents the case of a girl having two lovers, which he takes down in legal form under the titles of A and B. They have a long scene in which he remains obtuse to her intimations of admira- tion for him, until finally in despair she takes her de- parture. After some minutes the Professor looks at his watch, exclaims,

"Good gracious! Two o'clock. I shall be late for lunch!" (Rises with books and eyeglasses in hand, takes a few steps, pauses, speaks.) "Rather an interesting story, that of Miss May's. I wonder which she'll marry, A or B."

It has always been pleasant to know that the last time Professor Swing entertained a caller at his Lake Shore

54 My Chicago

home, a few days before his death, as he stood looking out over the lake he nodded his head, up and down, and quoted from the play: "I wonder which she'll marry, A or B."

In 1898 a very effeminate looking blond young man appeared at the Conservatory offices one day and en- gaged twenty private lessons. When I inquired what he wished to take up he replied that he desired to take the entire twenty lessons on the grave digging scene from "Hamlet" with which he proposed entering a public speaking contest at Northwestern University, Evanston.

He seemed so sanguine of his ability to succeed if given a chance that I began the lessons, with the result that I gave him the opportunity to appear in one of my noon Shakespearean recitals, which he did with credit both to himself and me. The contest resulted in the prize being equally divided between him and a young man who was quite famed for his rhetorical powers and a great favorite with the audience. The adage "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" was in his case illustrated.

Another similar case occurs to me : A young woman not at all prepossessing in appearance came in one day and said she wished to take up a two years' course of study, after which she proposed to go before the public as a platform entertainer. I was inclined to doubt the possibility of her success, but she was confident. A few months after her graduation a man came to my office and asked to see me. He said he was looking for a reader for Lyceum work in connection with a concert company. I telephoned this young woman, who fortunately was able to get to the studios in less than half an hour. The man heard her, and engaged her then and there. She traveled with his company for two years, then organized a company of her own, and for years made successful trips from Maine to Oregon, and finally made a profes- sional trip to China. Her name was Emily Waterman.

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The World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 was chiefly distinguished to the intellectual people of all coun- tries by a series of congresses and conventions — philo- sophical, poetical, artistic and educational. With one of these gatherings I was personally concerned. This was a convention of Elocutionists. Elocution had flourished amazingly during twenty or more preceding years. It had its professors, and the professors their followers, all of whom took it and themselves seriously. It was sup- posed to be an art, where as we know now it was only a manifestation of an attribute of an art. The Exposition found it at its apogee. Thereafter it declined in a manner reminiscent of what Mr. Wegg described as "The Rise and Fall Off the Rooshan Empire." Today the wonder is that any of its professors ever were regarded as ponti- fical; and for its followers and their performances, "the winds have blown them all away."

As a part of my system of teaching I had been obliged to concede a place to it; and because I was at the head of a great school in Chicago, these Elocution people de- pended upon me for help. My friend Eugene Field was the most widely known poet then residing here. He had been doing considerable platform work, principally concerned with his own verses, and in that way had acquired wide personal popularity. I called on Melville E. Stone, who as editor of The Daily News had been instrumental in bringing Gene to Chicago. Mr. Stone had become general manager of the Associated Press, and I wanted him to give the convention publicity in con- nection with Gene's appearance. I thought I would better do that before approaching Gene himself. Mr. Stone threw his hands in the air and cried out to me.

"Oh Anna! an elocutionists' convention! The boys will have the time of their lives with it!"

And then he laughed and laughed, but finally he agreed to do what he could. Then I went after Gene and landed

56 My Chicago

him on condition that he would neither be asked to re- cite nor be recited at.

On the evening of the event Gene was the first arrival; he whispered to me,

"I will recite if you want me to."

When he was due for his turn, I asked Mr. Stone to introduce him. Mr. Stone agreed, mounted a chair, and said,

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Eugene Field has de- clared his intention to recite. If you will kindly wait 'til I get out of the building, I shall be much obliged."

Some of the visitors who did not know the relation- ship existing between the men were somewhat shocked but were soon engrossed in the retorting wit and original recitations of Mr. Field. No one present can ever for- get the humor of "The Conversazzhyony," "Casey's Table d'Hote" or the pathos of "Long Ago" and "Little Boy Blue."

Few of us have ever been privileged to know another personality so winsome, so whimsical, so sincere as Eu- gene Field. Few of those who did know him have ever given him the place and rating that truly belong to him. He was widely esteemed as a poet of childhood, the I children's poet. It was an error to adjudge him so. He I wrote wonderfully beautiful and touching poems about ; children, but not for children. His poems of childhood were written for grown ups. Take for example the poem of "The Lyttel Boy." No mother or father who has lost a child can read that poem without tears. Indeed I doubt whether any normally constituted adult could read it and not be deeply and tenderly touched. But to no child did it or could it have any meaning. The same thing is true of all that group of poems the center and jewel of which is, "Little Boy Blue." To his closer friends he made no pretense of anything else. In fact he held but slight estimate of any of his work. It was not easy to

My Chicago 57

get him to talk of it. He has been known to admit with candor that he liked to make the women boo hoo. It is true he was a lover of children, even of his own, but his sense of being an affectionate father, indulgent and devoted, sometimes took on strange forms. It was his joke once when he got home around three o'clock in the morning after his work on the paper was done, to go up stairs and rout the children out of bed with the exciting information that they might find a great big candy mine in the dining room; and when they had whooped and tumbled down the stairway to overturn all the furniture in a search for that nonexistent treasure, he would go to his own room, close the door, and quietly go to bed. It was on some such occasion that the children got even with him. A man who has been up and working until two o'clock or thereabout may be understood to have need of rest. The whole troupe stole upstairs on such a night, and pounded on his door, one at a time, and scuttled off giggling, and finally came back and went in and dis- turbed him, also one at a time, until he got tired of it — and arose and drove them forth with a great simulation of wrath. Then he returned to his pillow and was slip- ping away to dreamland when the littlest boy softly pushed the door wide open and stood there in his little white night shirt and spoke at the top of his dear little voice, and said,

"Wats you terrior; mice, you pup; turn in to the alley, I'll do you up!"

He gave up, and got up and played with them at their rough little games until he wore them out. It so hap- pened that he had to be at the office by ten o'clock that morning; and he complained bitterly to Mr. Stone of the miseries of a man whose family would not let him sleep.

An interesting dramatic event connected with the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 was the presenta-

'58 My Chicago

tion by the Augustin Daly Company on June 3Oth of a pastoral performance of "As You Like It" on the grounds of Fairlawn, the home of Mr. Charles B. Farwell at Lake Forest, in aid of the Children's Home of the Ex- position. Interesting as the whole occasion was atten- tion was largely centered upon Mrs. Chatfield-Taylor, then a bride, who received the guests as they alighted from their carnages, standing under the spreading branches of an elm tree, wearing a muslin gown with a blue sash and a wide leghorn hat, a veritable American Beauty "Rose."

In June, 1899, I went on a visit to New York and upon / my return found matters in the Conservatory in a chaotic ; condition, so much so that it seemed expedient that I should set out on an independent venture which I had seriously considered doing for some time. In taking leave of the Conservatory I wish to express my appre- ciation of the opportunities it offered me in working out my plans, in those beginning years of my professional career. If I brought youth, enthusiasm and ability which helped to make it distinctive, it generously supported my endeavors; and so the connection was of common benefit.

It is doubtful whether any similar school has ever been so splendidly equipped both in the corps of distinguished and efficient teachers and in its artistic and adequate en- vironment attracting discriminating and professional stu- dents from the east as well as the west. Mr. Kayzer, its founder, was a man of rare good taste both in music and dramatic art, but notwithstanding the fact that he had Mr. Lyman B. Glover and Mr. John B. Wilkie asso- ciated with him as managers, from time to time the very large salaries demanded and paid many of the instruc- tors, together with other large expenses, made it impossi- ble for a school not endowed to stand the financial strain.

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In consequence Mr. Kayzer gave up the school and trans- fered his activities to New York, where he continues them.

Chapter Six

HE severance of my long connection with the Conservatory came so suddenly and so com- pletely that I was wholly unprepared for the change. It was really a trying hour for me. I had to decide for myself what I should do. I walked through Van Buren street, and as I reached the corner of Michigan avenue I suddenly determined to go into the Studebaker building. I had heard it was being fitted up for studios. It has since been known as The Fine Arts Building. There I met for the first time, although we had been workers side by side for many years, Mr. Charles C. Curtiss, who had undertaken to open and direct this temple of art. When I explained to him the state of affairs and that I thought I ought to go to New York, I remember he said, "We want you right here, Miss Morgan," whereupon he proceeded to mark off the space he thought I ought to have on the eighth floor. I summoned my architect friend Irving K. Pond to the conference. Mr. Pond at once offered valu- able advice and suggested plans, and I all at once found myself embarked upon an independent enterprise.

I can still see my friends Mrs. Peattie and Mr. Fuller, who came in to look over the ground, standing in one of the windows and shaking their heads dubiously at what seemed too great a venture — it was then late in the sum- mer for securing students for that year.

But I proceeded to sit down and write a catalogue an- nouncing the founding of "The Anna Morgan Studios," Miss Jessie Harding, assistant teacher, and called up

60 My Chicago

Donnelley's printing office. Ben Donnelley answered the telephone. I said,

"Ben, I'm starting a new school; I haven't any money, but if I live you'll get your pay. Do you wish to do my printing?"

The reply came, "You bet we do," and the catalogues were printed and mailed.

In the meantime the Studios were built and decorated. The woodwork was black, and the walls were covered with a grayish purple burlap, and altogether they pre- sented a unique and distinctive appearance. In fact the entire building quickly acquired the artistic atmosphere which Mr. Curtiss had desired and worked to obtain.

In other places, especially in connection with the art movements that led to the erection of The Art Institute and its galleries of paintings, I have mentioned various localities that were occupied from time to time by this or the other group of artists whose affair it was to pro- mote or deal with one or other of the liberal arts. There is an aspect of the resultant situation apart from that presented by the Art Institute itself. A little later I will deal with the first effort to set up a permanent local center of art interests at the Auditorium; but for the present purpose I consider it more pertinent to the main issue to describe the real consummation of that desire in the present Fine Arts Building.

About the year 1889 Charles C. Curtiss, becoming aware of the insufficient work done up to that time, took it upon himself to bring into concrete form the distinct elements of a generally necessary purpose, and formulated the plan of a building sufficiently commodious, and per- fectly located, which might house and become a focal point of all these interests. After a somewhat difficult negotiation he got possession of a part of the Studebaker property facing Michigan avenue; then had plans drawn for The Fine Arts Building, and with admirable tenacity

My . Chicago

took hold of and carried through the financial organiza- tion necessary to the end in view. Everyone now knows his ideas were sound. The intermediate years, in which so many other related things have shifted and changed so often, have left his architectural and other subordinate ideas just as they were the day the building was thrown open for occupancy. This dignified and worthy enter- prise could not have been carried to completion by any man of less repute in matters involving foresight, and probity of character. His own knowledge of art was based not so much upon schooling as upon native good taste and clear intuition. His reputation for integrity and his peculiar ability to deal with all sorts of men made his achievement one of comparative ease. He has been in charge of the property from the first, and has managed it with admirable skill.

In the beginning years of The Fine Arts Building there was a blending of the social with the artistic life in the studios that was truly delightful. We were all prosperous, with plenty of work to do, yet somehow there seemed to be time to exchange visits with our co-workers and take an active interest in the work which each was doing. Visitors were frequent; almost any day we were sure to see a group of Chicago friends who were enter- taining out-of-town guests by bringing them to The Fine Arts Building and its attractive studios. It was a show place in the town, a rendezvous where you were sure to see interesting people. The samovar was in daily service between the hours of four and seven, and for a few years it was almost a continuous party. On my floor, in addition to The Fortnightly, John McCutcheon was domiciled during the first years he was in Chicago. John was a good neighbor, and of course a most interest- ing one to my patrons and my visitors. Meeting him in passing was an event in the day to the men as well as to the women who traversed the eighth floor in the

My Chicago

early nineteen-hundreds. After a time John moved to the tenth floor, which was exclusively an artists' colony. There he had for neighbors Lorado Taft, Charles Francis Browne, Ralph Fletcher Seymour and the Alderbrink Press, Herman MacNeil, Frank and Joe Leyendecker, Blanche Ostertag, Ralph Clarkson, George Ade, The Rose Bindery (founded by and presided over by Mrs. Chat- field Taylor) , and many other wellknown artists. Most of the occupants of this floor constituted the artists' colony who had their summer camp at Oregon. Many of them are still there. Not only afternoon teas but night spreads, generally in the Browne studio, were of weekly occurrence, the company being augmented by a privileged few from the outside, with an occasional out- of-town visitor. There was an informality, a comrade- ship that is sweet to remember. Passing years and changed conditions have transferred those happy meet- ings to other places. The circle has been broken; many have gone away to other art centers. In addition to The Little Room, The Arts Club and The Cordon have come in to claim a share in the social life of the building, and to provide for the greatly increased number now affiliated in artistic endeavor.

The Woman's Club has maintained its roomy and hospitable quarters on the ninth floor and has not only increased in numbers but in the range of its activities and influence in both educational and civic movements, and has contributed in many ways to bringing Chicago up to a level with her eastern sisters.

Opposite the Woman's Club on the ninth floor was located the studio of Mrs. Milward Adams. Mrs. Adams and I began our work as teachers in Chicago almost simultaneously, working side by side for about twenty-six years. It is my privilege to record this tribute to her memory:

Miss Florence James of Keokuk became the wife of

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Milward Adams on August 23, 1883. It was at the time when the Delsarte theory of expression had suddenly sprung into notice, and Mrs. Adams had benefited by training in the east, especially with Steele MacKaye. Aside from Mrs. Adams' acquired equipment for her chosen profession, she was possessed of a unique per- sonality, an alert and subtle mind, and an especial gift for impressing the importance of her work upon the community. That it was the psychological moment for full fruition there can be no doubt, and the fact that Mr. Adams was manager of the Auditorium gave her unusual opportunities to come in contact not only with the great artists who constantly visited Chicago, but the public as well. This made the advantage a reciprocal one, and certainly provided a helpful environment. Un- fortunately Mrs. Adams died in 1910, deeply regretted by hosts of friends the world over, a few of whom at- tested their devotion and love for her by placing a *. memorial statue in the Art Institute, and endowing the University of Chicago with a permanent scholarship in her name.

Ferdinand W. Peck had preceded Mr. Curtiss in the matter of time and with a large but different idea, in which the art feature was a detail. Mr. Peck like his father before him was a large figure in the financial affairs of the city. But when upon his father's death he became the head of the family and had a large fortune at his control, he faced at once toward the higher things in the life of the city, the things that were to shape and develop so much of the best in its future. He had been active in bringing about that memorable season of opera in the old exposition building about 1885. Adelina Patti and some of the finest voices of that time, sup- ported by a gigantic orchestra, poured out the best of all the great works to audiences of ten thousand people. One of the most earnest if not the most able apostles of

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music then administering culture to Cook County and its inhabitants was a soulful eyed individual bearing up most nobly under the name of Silas G. Pratt, a name suggesting less music than his preceptorship conferred upon those who were so fortunate as to be his acolytes. Mr. Pratt was in the spotlight, whenever it wobbled, during all those memorable performances; and at their end pro- ceeding to have an idea.

This idea was stately. It included a vast temple, prob- ably to be erected by the power of some such decree as produced in Xanadu the wondrous pleasure building of Kubla Khan — the source of funds immeasurable to man but necessary to the project being no affair of his to bother about. That was a detail to be dealt with by men of money. Logically, in the circumstances Mr. Peck was such a man; wherefore he hied him to Mr. Peck and revealed his plan. Mr. Peck was an excellent man of business. He did not care for Mr. Pratt's bold propo- sition in its entirety, but he caught the main point and set himself about the business of creating a great hotel, the biggest theatre in America, and an office structure, all three included, as a unit, in a single real estate operation. The result was the Auditorium, the hotel facing Michi- gan avenue, the Auditorium theatre with its main en- trance facing Congress street, and the Auditorium build- ing for offices facing Wabash avenue. It was a great undertaking, so cleverly devised that its financial returns would be large. Unhappily this last expectation has not always been realized, but the project itself as a whole became famous, the theatre has ever since housed the great opera companies that have sung here, and the office building has been fairly well filled all the time. But while the intent of the office building was to create an art center, its location and the rapid rise and demand for business space in that locality shouldered the artists

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out of that domination which had been hoped for. This dereliction gave Mr. Curtiss his cue.

The architect of the Auditorium had already estab- lished a high reputation. He was Louis Sullivan, a Chi- cago man who had shown sane and well proportioned genius in several instances. The complete skill and the perfect good taste he manifested in the case of the Audi- torium put him at once in the very first rank of great American architects. His subsequent works were largely in other cities, but our own treasures many of them. He planned the Transportation Building at the World's Fair, the beauty of which must dwell in the memory of all who saw it. Architecture in itself is a noble art. Mr. Sulli- van, being one of its masters, may be taken as standing forth to all the world as one of the greatest artists Chi- cago has produced.

Let me take occasion here to speak of John Wellborn Root whose creative genius as an architect has been uni- versally conceded. He and his partner Daniel H. Burn- ham (who is mentioned elsewhere) were appointed architects in chief of the World's Columbian Exposition. Mr. Root had wondrous visions which, no doubt, would have reached full fruition had he lived. Chicago has always fully realized the great loss it sustained in Mr. Root's untimely death in 1891, two years before the opening of the exposition.

Mr. Peck has done much more than create the Audi- torium group. He was one of the founders and later the president of the Illinois Society, and has been vice presi- dent of the Board of Education and president of the Union League Club. He was one of the commissioners sent by our government to Paris in behalf of and pre- ceding the World's Columbian Exposition, and in 1900 was appointed by President McKinley to be United States Commissioner at the Paris Exposition of that year. As a matter of local history I am reminded that the national

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convention which nominated President Harrison was held in the Auditorium Theatre in 1888, a year or two before the building was finished. It had to be temporarily fitted up for that purpose. It was the only hall in town big enough to hold such a gathering, and it served its pur- pose admirably.

The dedication occurred December ninth, 1889, and was celebrated on the scale of a national event. Presi- dent Harrison and Vice President Morton, governors of several states, and Canadian officials, as well as many men and women of distinction from all over the country, were in attendance. Harriet Monroe wrote a Festival Ode, which was set to music by Frederick Grant Gleason, one of our most scholarly musicians and most accom- plished men we ever had among us. The music was in the form of a symphonic cantata and was sung by the Apollo Club, supported by a large orchestra. The Apollo Club gave several other numbers. The climax of the program was furnished by Mme. Patti, who sang "Home, Sweet Home," and for an encore the "Swiss Echo Song" of which she was so fond.

For the opera season which followed the dedication Franklin H. Head auctioned off the boxes and cajoled George M. Pullman, Marshall Field, R. T. Crane and other men of civic pride into paying from seven hundred to sixteen hundred dollars as premiums for choice, George M. Pullman paying sixteen hundred for first choice and Walter L. Peck eight hundred for twelfth choice.

In that opening season I recall Patti, Albani, Signer Perugini, Signer Del Puente, and Signor Tamagno. Since then we have heard Emma Eames, Sembrich, Nordica, Gerster, the De Reszkes and of recent times Caruso, Muratore, Mary Garden and Galli Curci, who in less than one year has taken her place at the head of women singers of opera, Patti not excepted. As for Mary Garden, she stands in a class distinctly by herself, unap-

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preached by any artist in individuality and the special tone work which is called for in the operas in which she appears. There is an aloofness about her that lifts her hearers above their surroundings into the realms of crea- tive expression, which is as charming as it is wonderful. Those persons, and there are many of them, who measure every new work of art by tradition and are not satisfied unless they see and hear what they have always seen and heard, do not appreciate Miss Garden and never will be able to understand her, more's the pity. Personally I have never had such joy as she has given me, since the advent of Henry Irving, whose performance of Hamlet swept aside the traditions by which the stage had been burdened, giving us new readings and new stage business.

Chapter Seven

OR two or three years before I came into the Fine Arts Building I used frequently to walk past the old Armory building (later replaced by the Illinois Theatre) which for some time stood vacant, and longed to take possession and convert it into a theatre for the production of the plays of Shakespeare in a modern and artistic manner. My idea must have been similar to Rheinhart's, the dif- ference being that he not only dreamed about it, but made his dream an actuality. At that time my presentations of the plays of Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Yeats and other drama- tists had made a distinct impression and I imagined that some of my admirers would come forward and offer the money with which to provide an artistic playhouse. Time went on and the money did not come — and I did not ask for it. When I went into the Fine Arts Build- ing I determined to abandon the giving of plays alto-

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gether and confine my efforts to educational and cul- tural work, the development of the speaking voice, inter- pretative readings, and the study of literature. My reasons were that I was not properly equipped to give plays on an adequate scale, and the worry and bother of trying to give them without adequate means was discour- aging. Another reason was, the constant presentation of plays gave the public the impression that I was con- ducting a preparatory school for the professional stage.

Of course I know now that my digression into drama was an error. It was prompted by a strong admiration of the glorious literature and picturesque vividity of English drama. To me it seemed that here lay the best of all material for educational uses. That prompting was sound; but its realization would have involved com- plete abandonment of the field I had so successfully made my own, and an occupation of other fields requir- ing managerial skill as well as a technical knowledge of stagecraft, neither of which I possessed in full. The ambition to present Shakespeare or the lesser masters with a company of amateurs carried within itself the ele- ments of its own frustration. Besides, even the little I did toward realizing it created the impression that I was conducting a school of acting, which was not so, other than cultural instruction in the various parts of a play was evolved.

I found myself perplexed by outside comment upon the whole thing. Parents of my pupils became uneasy lest the pupils might be drawn to the stage as a career. Yet with the natural vanity of parenthood, if I were going to produce a play they would object first on that ground and then exhibit acrid disappointment if the principal part were not assigned to that particular pupil each set of parents owned. Then again, when parents asked their friends about me they got one of two answers : either that "Miss Morgan is the best kind of a teacher,

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but she can't place her pupils on the regular stage," or else "Miss Morgan is one of the best dramatic coaches and can always find a professional opening for her pupils." In this situation, to use a current phrase, I got it both ways, going and coming, and I do not know which of these ways was worst for me. In retrospect I think that each seemed considerably worse than the other.

Anyway, I stopped in time and returned on my own track to the place whence I had started, taking back with me something I had discovered and through which I found an advantage. I added little plays to my course of in- struction, and found the addition good. It was free from the friendly objections cited above; it was interesting and informative for my pupils, and pleasing to their parents and their friends. It in no wise disturbed other studies, but on the contrary gave them deeper and more permanent values. An account of these plays I have written in another place in this book.

Consequently, and in this place, I am going to take credit to myself for having originated and carried for- ward to this hour with unimpaired success the "Little Theatre" idea. There have been many Little Theatres here and elsewhere. Most of these have been meretrici- ous, faddy, or feeble. Nearly all of them have professed a purpose to elevate the drama, and in the face of the plain fact that the drama has been consistently and steadily elevating itself, have been plausible enough to extract considerable sums of money from perfectly well- intentioned people who were entirely unaware of that fact. Practically all the little plays produced in these little theatres might be described as half baked, lacking even that little leaven which (on apostolic authority) can leaven a whole lump.

I can and should except two instances, the work done by Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Browne at the Chicago Little Theatre in the Fine Arts Building for several seasons,

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and the work carried out by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Aldis in the artistic little theatre on the Aldis estate at Lake Forest. Concerning this latter I cannot do better than quote Mrs. Elia W. Peattie, who wrote in The Chicago Tribune that "Mrs. Arthur Aldis of Lake Forest has long been an interesting figure in amateur dramatic and literary circles. With leisure, force and originality, and free from all the compulsions that poverty entails, she was, from the first, in the happy position of being able to choose her vocations and amusements. She could, if she liked, coax life along pleasantly by playing golf, go- ing to teas, giving dinners, and sitting in a box at the opera. These diversions proving, upon trial, not par- ticularly satisfying, she paid respectful heed to certain stirrings of talent, commanded a little theatre in her garden, and in it gave piquant, grotesquely tragic, or capriciously farcical plays of the most modern type. Her actors were her friends; her small, critical audiences were also her friends. Or interchangeably, her friends were actors and audience. It was immensely interesting, and not infrequently the actors surprised themselves by the excellence of what they did. Ambitious, erratic young playwrights found here an opening for their abilities. Young ladies who had been doomed all their lives to being merely polite and innocuous, seized upon this chance to show that they understood poetry in its most exotic forms, and repeated Dawson in a moonlit garden to the sound of falling waters and the gentle applause of appre- ciative hands."

Aside from the point I make in regard to the origin of little theatres, there is one other: Less than ten years ago Irish plays came into favor and were much in demand for several seasons, but I have not heard of any per- formance of an Irish play preceding my production of Synge's "The Shadow of the Glen."

All these Irish plays have mystic lure. A strange

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charm, as strange as those elusive qualities in the complex of Irish character which gave to that people a power to sense the elemental; the unseen; the witchery of desolate moors coursed by silent shadowy hounds, of moonlight on flowing waters, of the little people, of the ancient ghosts that hover in the hills, and the ancient blood that stirs in the heart at a dance in the moonlit road, or the song of a wandering poet. They have a spiritual tinge. They touch the lighter joys of life, its deepest shadows, its pleasures, its moaning, its shuddering tragedy. No one of these plays sounds the whole gamut, but when you group them all you see beyond the outer form the heart and soul of a race essentially poetic, quick to feel, quick to act, a race in which feeling dominates logic. A lovable race, the Irish — with a perfect genius for the irrational. I do not recall any other series of performances that attracted me more or at one and the same time raised so many questions in my mind than the Irish series given under direction of Lady Gregory during the two seasons she passed in this country for that purpose. The short play commends itself by being short and compact, but makes poor material for an evening's entertainment, par- ticularly upon repetition. I think this is one reason why the Irish vogue died away. The first impression nearly always was a deep one; the second and subsequent per- formances served rather to flatten out that effect. To stand repetition, a play must give more than one side of human nature. There is such a thing as happy tears, but I doubt very much whether anyone would care to be crying all the time.

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Chapter Right

avenue anc

N 1890 I had a singular experience with Mrs. Fiske. She was playing an engagement at the Grand Opera House and was invited by the Woman's Club, whose rooms at that time were on the northeast corner of Wabash Washington street, to speak on the subject of the Theatre Trust, to which she and her husband were much opposed. The committee of arrangements for the occasion invited me to call for her and bring her to the club. I ordered a carriage and drove to the Congress Hotel, where she was stopping. She was awaiting my arrival, and promptly was seated in the carriage. Know- ing that she was naturally somewhat nervous over mak- ing her speech, I decided not to talk to her on irrelevant matters, and not a word passed between us until I handed her over to the committee.

After the speech was over an intimate friend in my presence told her something of me and of my work along her line in Chicago. When we reentered the carriage to return to the hotel I thought "now that her anxiety is over and she knows something of me and my work, she will probably talk." I waited for her to take the initiative. Not a word did she utter until just as we were at our destination she threw up her hands exclaiming, "Oh, I wonder if I've said the right thing!" I told her she had spoken from conviction, and not to worry.

We alighted from the carriage — I presented her with a large bouquet of violets which I carried, bade her good afternoon, and went my way.

When she visited Chicago a year later I received a summons to visit her at the hotel. She received me cor-

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dially, as though we had met frequently. We discussed several books on occult matters in which she seemed deeply interested, and I took my departure. No reference was made to our former meeting. No reason assigned for desiring this interview. I have not met her since.

Among the plays given during 1899 was "The Twilight of the Gods," by Edith Wharton, with Anne Walker, Andrew Sheriff and Robert H. Melloy in the cast. Mr. Chatfield-Taylor, who attended the play, declared it to be the best amateur performance he had ever attended, and asked if I would not repeat it in order that others might have the pleasure of seeing it.

In 1900 I presented "Gringoire," a translation from the French, which introduced for the first time Mr. Taylor Holmes, since famous as "His Majesty Bunker Bean." Later in that year I gave memorable recitals of Bernard Shaw's "Candida" in which Mr. Holmes dis- tinguished himself by creating the character of March- banks. Mr. William Archer, well known as the trans- lator of Ibsen, happened to be in Chicago at the time and witnessed a performance. He pronounced the entire cast of the play excellent, and wrote Mr. Shaw it was the best performance of a play he had seen in America. As a result I received a letter from Mr. Shaw, forwarded from America to me at Carlsbad, whither I had gone for my summer vacation, in which he cordially invited me if I were coming to England to visit Mrs. Shaw and himself at their country home at Hazelmere, a two hours' ride from London. Of course I went, and went prepared for the worst; for I did not know what to expect from the greatest satirist of his age. In fact I was warned before leaving London that I would probably be made to feel mighty uncomfortable, that I, a woman and a Chi- cago woman at that, should presume or dare to produce his plays. I was not entirely reassured by the cordial greeting of both Mr. and Mrs. Shaw upon my arrival at

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their home about ten o'clock one hot July morning. We were at once comfortably seated, and in less than ten minutes I felt I was in the presence of a friend and a friend of long standing.

We chatted about matters dramatic in America. He referred to Mr. Archer's enthusiastic account of the per- formance of "Candida," and said that while he would not on any account go to hear the play given by profes- sionals, he would journey a long way to hear my per- formance. He was delighted to see a picture of Taylor Holmes as Marchbanks, which I presented to him. At that time he had just finished writing "Captain Brass- bound's Conversion" and read me portions of it. He had submitted it to Irving and Miss Terry, and while we were at luncheon the postman brought a letter from Miss Terry, declining the play as there was no suitable part for Irving. After Irving's death Miss Terry produced the play in America. Mr. Shaw had seen my pupil James Carew playing with Maxine Elliott and recommended that he play Captain Brassbound, which he did, with the result that during their American tour in the play they fell in love and were married.

To return to Shaw and my visit to him: He told me at its conclusion that I could do any of his plays and he would be interested in hearing the result of my efforts. When I wrote him in 1902 that I was presenting "Caesar and Cleopatra" with a cast of girls which included Miss Edith Moss as Julius Caesar, and Miss Florence Bradley as Cleopatra, I received the following letter:

10 Adelphi Terrace W. C.

My Dear Miss Morgan : — Great Heavens ! Is my Julius Caesar going to be created at last by a Chicago young lady! Oh Anna, Anna, how can I show my face in Chicago after this? Yours Stupended,

G. BERNARD SHAW.

Bernard Shaw reading to Anna Morgan,

from the manuscript of Captain Brassbound's Conversion.

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

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The play had been written for Mansfield and had been declined by him. It was afterwards played profes- sionally by Sir Forbes Robertson, with Gertrude Elliott as Cleopatra.

Richard Mansfield happened to be playing at the Chi- cago Opera House while I was working on the play. I invited him to attend a rehearsal, which he did. The next day to my astonishment he sent me the following letter:

The Virginia, Chicago.

My Dear Miss Morgan: — I neglected to con- gratulate you upon the excellent acting of your pupils yesterday; I really was quite astonished, and I am sure their remarkable proficiency is due en- tirely to your admirable method of teaching. Pray accept this sincere word of praise now, with the best wishes of your very faithful servant,

RICHARD MANSFIELD.

Miss Jeannette Gilder, editor of the New York Critic, in writing of my work said, "It is safe to say that no other school has called forth more universal expressions of ap- proval from thoughtful persons in public life whose opinions are worthy of note. . . . Miss Morgan's young people have presented Rostand's "The Romancers" and Maeterlinck's "The Intruder." They have boldly plumbed the depths of Ibsen; they have played Stephen Phillips' poetical drama; they have tried Henry Fuller's parodies, and spoken Edith Wharton's subtle, finished dialogue. The astonishing thing is that they have done all of these things well. The performances are looked forward to as a unique feature of the Chicago season — to an extent they take the place of a Theatre Libre.

"Mr. G. Bernard Shaw's 'Caesar and Cleopatra' has been given its first appearance in Chicago before select

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audiences, largely composed of the literary and artistic people of the town. It is not the first time Miss Mor- gan's pupils have played in a Shaw piece. A year or two ago, when Mr. William Archer was travelling through the country to study American matters dra- matic, they gave a remarkable interpretation of 'Can- dida.' Mr. Archer's report of it was sufficient to make Mr. Shaw grant special permission to put on 'Caesar and Cleopatra.' '

In 1903 I said to Miss Florence Bradley, who had created the role of Cleopatra, "What would you like to rehearse?" "Hamlet," she replied, without a moment's hesitation. As I had been very much given to rehearsing Hamlet for a number of years, I replied "All right, I'll put it in rehearsal."

The play was given at Powers' Theatre on May nth, 1903, the cast for the first time in the history of the play being composed entirely of women, Miss Bradley play- ing the title role. The play was given in costume, with- out scenery or properties, with a simple background of green curtains, and owing to the extreme length of the play closed with Hamlet's speech at the end of the grave digger's scene: "Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away; O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!' " To which I added these lines, which occur later in the play: "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be."

There was a large audience, composed of a discriminating public and many members of the dramatic profession then playing in Chicago, among them Miss Julia Marlowe, who was then filling an engagement and by whose courtesy we had the use of the theater. On

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the whole I consider it the supreme effort of my career as a dramatic instructor. At the invitation of Miss Jane Addams the play was repeated at Hull House.

Chapter Nine

LONG about 1904 I began to hear a great deal about Miss Marjorie Benton Cooke, then recently graduated from the University of Chicago, and one night she was pointed out to me at the theatre, a very individual looking young woman with black eyes and Titian hair. It happened that she came to see me a few days later. I recall her vividly as seated on the window bench she dis- closed her literary ambition to me, and asked what she should do. It was at the time when the monologue form of writing was beginning to develop, and for which there was a great demand. She listened to what I had to say with the poise which has always been one of her marked characteristics, and took her departure, returning in a few days with her first monologue, "Cupid Plays Coach." The occasion was the day of a woman's golf tournament, the scene the veranda of a club house, on which the mem- bers and their friends listen to the successful competitor. The monologue ended with a love scene and altogether was effective. This first effort was followed in swift succession by many others, which resulted in the publica- tion of two volumes entitled "Modern Monologues!" and "More Modern Monologues," and "Dramatic Epi- sodes," many of which were given on the stage of my studios, conspicuous among them being one in which Miss Cooke played the part of Nell Gwynne, William Raymond (a prominent Chicago youth then studying with me who has since flourished on the professional

78 My Chicago

stage) playing the part of King Charles II. After win- ning considerable reputation in Chicago, Miss Cooke went to New York, where she has continued as a writer and has won distinction, especially in two of her novels, "Bambi" and "Cinderella Jane."'

Alice Gerstenberg, another member of my profes- sional classes, a little later began her career as an author while in the studios by writing a one-act play, "Captain Joe," the title part being especially designed for Miss Josephine Lydston, a fellow student. Miss Gerstenberg has since written other things, a one-act play called "Overtones," which has been produced with success pro- fessionally. She also adapted "Alice In Wonderland" for the professional stage.

Once while playing an engagement here during the early nineteen hundreds, Maxine Elliott came to the Studios and one of our classes rehearsed "A Midsum- mer Night's Dream" for her entertainment. Bottom, who was being represented by a girl, had not been on the stage five minutes before Miss Elliott exclaimed, "that girl, why, do you know, she's a wonder. She is pos- sessed of talent for real comedy. Don't you see she's funny whether she speaks or not? I must let Mr. Dil- lingham (her manager) know of her at once. She has a talent rare upon the stage."

The girl in question was Alice Gargeer, a Bohemian by birth, who had taken an opportunity to come to this country in the capacity of a nurse. One of our wealthy women, discovering her talent and desire for a dramatic career, brought her to my Studios for a course of study. In appearance she looked much as I imagine the dis- tinguished Mme. Janauschek must have looked at twenty years of age. During that summer Miss Gargeer ac- cepted a position in a company in order to gain a better knowledge of English, and to get stage experience. One morning in August I picked up The Tribune, where, on

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the first page was the announcement of her tragic death. She had been thrown from a motor car and instantly killed. Two weeks later a telegram came to me one morning,

"Send Miss Gargeer to me at once for rehearsals,

DlLLINGHAM."

By her death our American stage was robbed of one who in all probability would have become a great comedienne.

While we were at work on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Paul Lawrence Dunbar came to a rehearsal. I found he was a charming man as well as a delightful poet. He was well versed in Shakespeare, and made many valuable suggestions. I was at that time com- piling a volume of "Selected Readings" and he gra- ciously gave me permission to include several of his poems in my collection ; and later himself chose the ones which were published in that volume. He was not only the greatest poet among his own people, but was among America's sweetest poets. Like Shelley, Keats, Ben King, Stephen Crane, and many other gifted writers, he died in his early thirties.

My "Selected Readings" was published that year by A. C. McClurg and Company, also a companion volume called "The Art of Speech and Deportment." In the spring of that year I wrote a Shakespearean fantasy, "The Great Experiment," in which I summoned the Shakespearean heroines to a tea party. The booklet was published by Ralph Fletcher Seymour.

Just before the opening of my classes that fall a woman perhaps sixty years of age, who had once been a leader in Chicago society, and had spent large sums yearly in entertaining her friends, came to me and con- fessed that she was entirely without means. Her hus- band had become involved in speculations of various

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kinds, and had lost her fortune as well as his own before his death. She told me that she was unwilling to accept checks from her friends, and said she wished to take up reading as a profession in order to make her living. Beerbohm Tree had just produced "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in London with success, and a good deal was being said about it. As this woman was mistress not only of English but the various languages and dia- lects with which this play abounds, I started her off with readings from it, with charming results.

When the classes met a little later for their opening rehearsal, I decided to use this play for the beginning work, simply to familiarize the pupils with a Shakespeare

flay seldom read and little used in schools of expression, had no thought it would prove anything more than of* momentary interest. But at the first rehearsal Falstaff appeared in the person of a very pretty girl, Miss Leora Moore, who later on became one of my instructors. It was extraordinary; she would walk up stage, turn and come down facing the audience, and in some subtle way the characteristics of that unctuous old knight were instantly suggested so cleverly that even those in the room who were entirely unfamiliar with the character were convulsed with laughter. Strange as it seemed and incredible as it must appear to my readers, one after another of the varied characters developed in the play until the entire cast was secured; and strange as it is to relate the girls who created the male roles were more remarkable than those who characterized the Merry Wives. In Beerbohm Tree's production of the play the wives were played by Ellen Terry and Mrs. Kendal. I gave a recital of the play one evening in my Studios and invited the members of the Little Room to be my guests. I remember that Fanny Bloomfield Zeisler came to me upon her arrival and said, "I remarked to my husband as we came down on the train that Anna Morgan had given

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a great many clever performances, but how on earth she expected to do anything with the Merry Wives, with a cast of girls dressed in tailored skirts and shirt waists, was beyond my comprehension." The play proved inter- esting and entertaining to her as well as to all who saw it, and its production remains one of the unique recitals given in my Studios.

I have dwelt at length upon the presentation of plays during my professional career as a teacher of dramatic art for the reason that they have been the avenues through which the culture obtained in the general classes was displayed, the "show work," so to speak, of the school.

One of the most educational and interesting of recent plays was the presentation of "The Contrast" in 1917. This play was the first comedy written by an American. Its original production was in New York in 1783.

It is quite impossible for me to go into further details regarding my production of innumerable plays during the past ten years, but I may say they included ''The Hour Glass," by William Butler Yeats, and the Greek plays "Antigone" and the "Electra" of Euripides, in these and many plays given during the last five years I have been materially assisted by Miss Lillian Fitch, an honored member of my faculty.

I should like to recount if it were possible the many social affairs given in my Studios during the past nineteen years. Such an account would include a famous luncheon given on my stage to Sir Forbes-Robertson and Gertrude Elliot in 1902, at which Mme. Modjeska and her hus- band, Count Bozenta, also were guests; and of the visits of Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Maxine Elliott, E. H. Sothern, Julia Marlowe, and hosts of other men and women illustrious in the various fields of art.

In the year 1910, when there was unusual interest in the publication of dramatic plays, I gave a series of four

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lenten readings which attracted large audiences. The course opened at the home of the Chatfield-Taylors, who at that time were occupying the residence of Hamilton McCormick at the corner of Ontario and Rush streets, where I read Maeterlinck's "The Blue Bird." On Feb- ruary fourteenth I read "The Faith Healer," by Wil- liam Vaughn Moody, at the Harold McCormick home on the Lake Shore Drive. The reading for February 2 ist was to have been given at the home of the James B. Wallers on Superior street, but was given at the Mark Willings on Rush street instead. The course ended with a reading of "What the Public Wants," by Arnold Bennett, at the Robert B. McGanns in Pearson street.

Chapter Ten

URING the season of 1904 I instituted a series of book recitals in which ten or more students took part. The idea was to pre- sent the entire book, parts of it being related to connect the most striking scenes that were read. Early in the series Miss Clara E. Laughlin's story "Felicity" was presented, Miss Laughliri herself being present. The occasion was unusually interesting.

Miss Laughlin's gifts are various. She is recognized by magazine editors as one of the best judges of sub- mitted scripts. Her judgment is sound and just, though kindly. She is a writer of excellent fiction, essays and description. Her perception of character makes her an unusually good biographer. She is blessed with humor. She has an unusually departmented mind, with all its departments immediately at command. Her style is lucid, and so simple no one need read any line of hers a

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second time to know exactly what it means. Probably the truest story of Riley's career and output was the one she wrote shortly after he passed away. A warm friendship had grown up between them during Riley's declining years — a friendship based upon mutual under- standing of the finer things of lire, and a respect which each had for the genius or the talent of the other.

Just here I am reminded of an incident in connection with one of the many recitals of Mr. Riley's sketches I had given previous to the recital of "Felicity." A new pupil, a bashful, unsophisticated girl from some suburb, had come to me for instruction. I asked her to recite. To my surprise and joy she gave Riley's "The Happy Little Cripple" with singular vividity. I was particularly enthusiastic because I considered it one of Riley's master- pieces, and up to that time I had never found any one who could bring out its peculiar pathos. Of course I at once determined to put it on a program and so informed her. The following day she came to me accompanied by her mother, who told me she would not like her daugh- ter to appear in "that little thing of Riley's," that she wanted her to do something big and dramatic. It took much reasoning on my part to convince them that "Truth is the strong thing," and not the size of a canvas nor the subject or length of a poem that counts.

One of the most interesting events in my Studios was a visit of Joseph Jefferson the year before his death in 1905. The capacity of the Studios is supposed to be about one hundred and twenty-five, but on this occasion I believe about five hundred crowded in, squeezing each other off their feet. Girls fought for places at his feet, and on the arms of his chair. Among them was Mar- jorie Cooke, who became one of his special admirations, and I did not know but he would carry her off with him. Mansfield did some time later and she rehearsed with

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him, but decided that she would not give up her writing for a dramatic career.

I came to know a good many things about Mr. Jeffer- son that are not known to many people. He had as many facets as a rose diamond. He was an excellent painter in water colors, but not so good in oils, though he prided himself as a master in oil painting. He had pet peculiarities, referable to his self acquired education. He knew nothing of scholastic methods, but on the other hand he knew many things that are unknown to formal scholars. He made his success in life on one half of one lung. In his earlier years, before the public found him, his physical condition was such that his mind brooded intensely upon those questions of death and of what comes after that puzzled Job and have plagued the innumerable generations ever since. When it became clear that he was not going to die, the cloud lifted, and left him with a clear vision of spiritual things. He had passed middle life and fame had come to him and brought him ease before his attention was drawn to the phenomena upon which rests that which is known as spir- itualism. He became an industrious investigator, and seemed through those investigations to have found out that spiritualism was not at all the thing it was thought to be by those who believed in it. Yet by his own ac- knowledgment it had shown him enough to satisfy him that death is only an incident in life; that individual ex- istence is continuous; that as some one has put it,

"Were there no night, there'd be no day;

Were there no death, no life."

In other words, and by assiduous research continued up to his passing away, he proved for himself a line of phil- osophy very like that ancient body of philosophy and fact that appears in the Sanscrit writings, and constitutes today the heart of the thought and belief that prevails in Hindustan and the farther orient, under the much

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misunderstood name of Buddhism. He partook of Hamlet's view that we are endowed with "capabilities and godlike reason, looking before and after." Once he said, "If you find it possible to imagine a stick having only one end, will you please tell me which end?" His notion of individual continuity seemed to include neces- sarily a past as well as a future existence, emerging from and disappearing in regions beyond our power to chart. It is anomalous that a man perfected as he was in the art so engrossing as the one in which he had towered to the highest, should have found the time or had the bent to study and to reason in domains so esoteric, so far re- moved, so little explored. I think the anomaly may be explained by his highly spiritualized nature, his clarity in perceiving spiritual possibilities, his passion for inquir- ing after truth and his utter lack of prejudice.

While I am on the subject I may as well say that Edwin Booth was strongly tinged with beliefs similar to those held by Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Booth was profoundly studious. I am aware this statement will be received with surprise, possibly with incredulity by most people. The answer is that only to his intimates did he show himself as he really was. My own acquaintance with him was limited, but it so happens that some of these intimates were in the circle of my friendship, and through them I have this picture of him "in his habit as he lived," not in the pose in which he stood behind the footlights and before the people.

Something along parallel lines may be said of Richard Mansfield as I knew him in his personal as well as his professional life. Like Mr. Booth he posed to the pub- lic. Also like Mr. Booth, he was a pure joy to his friends. I doubt if the American stage has known a greater melodramatic actor. His Baron Chevreal had a verisimilitude that was simply astonishing. In "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" he 2mployed adroitly several

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tricks that were very shuddery, but purely theatric — using that term in its mechanical sense. When he attempted higher things, he made the judicious grieve. It was in his hours of relaxation that he really came out strong. He was a brilliant musician, with a fine voice, well trained. He had a streak of fun in him that was simply entrancing. He would play, he would sing, he would dance, he would tell stories that would waken the dead, they were so funny. There were no limits to his gifts. He was one of the most interesting talkers on more sub- jects than any one else I ever have known. And he had friends in every town, to whom he gave of all these gifts most lavishly. Some of those evenings at which I was present are among the brighest of my memories. He never came to my Studios but that he brought sun- shine. All of us were fond of him; all of us mourned him, — none of us more sincerely than myself. He was supposed to be unapproachable — and so he was. To strangers his manner was forbidding, sometimes harsh, sometimes positively discourteous. It was when he chose to be the approacher that he disclosed the real Mansfield.

Mr. David Warfield's visits to my Studios were little events in themselves. He took an intelligent interest in the work that was being done there, and my pupils were always glad to see him.

On one occasion, after listening to several scenes and plays, he engaged one of my pupils to take a place sud- denly vacated in his company. The young woman made food and remained with him several seasons. Mr. War- eld is one of the best exponents of the art of expres- sion that ever graced the stage. His versatility in dialect has delighted thousands everywhere. For a long time I thought it was a gift, but I was only half right. The gift back of it was a peculiarly keen sense of melody. If he heard a dialect spoken, he would catch and repro-

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duce it, exactly as people catch and sing a song. This is equivalent to saying he had a perfect melodic memory. It is easier for him to remember than to forget a song or a dialect. I think in this respect he has only one equal on the stage, and that is Nat Goodwin, who at one time in London played a Cockney part, and was both amused and amazed when the critics wanted to know where that Cockney had been all the years they had never heard of him, and how any Cockney ever broke into so good a company in a high class theatre. It took a lot of trouble to convince them that he was an American, distinguished in his own country and profession. Their somewhat indignant curiosity is easily understood when it is con- sidered that no one save here and there an English actor has been able to speak as the Cockney speaks. The dia- lect comes near to being a separate language, and its inflections do not lend themselves to imitations, they are so queer. The Cockney tongue is spoken only in that part'of London which is known as the Land of Cockaigne, an urban district bounded on the east by the Minories, on the south by the Thames, on the west by the old Temple Bar, and on the north by Holborn. About the middle of this district stands the church of St. Mary le Bow (locally known as Simmerylabo) . In the tower of this church is a chime of most sweet bells. The Cockney language is not supposed to be spoken by any one who lives beyond the sound of Bow Bells.

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Chapter Eleven

T will always be a pleasant memory that Ben King came to my Studios in response to my invitation. The visit was a delightful one to my pupils and myself, and if evidences mean anything, he also enjoyed it. With this began an acquaintanceship that was all too suddenly terminated by his death within a year.

It was at Bowling Green, Kentucky, that his call came. He was doing platform work that season in conjunction with Opie Read, and for the first time in his life had found prosperity in a new field for which his talents eminently fitted him.

It is probable that out of the many poems he wrote the best remembered is "If I Should Die To-Night," a whimsical travesty on a serious poem bearing the same title. One verse of it floats to this day through the minds of many millions, most of whom never heard of the man himself. I mean

"If I should die to-night,

And you should come to my cold corpse and say, Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay —

If I should die tonight,

And you should come in deepest grief and woe — And say 'Here's that ten dollars that I owe,'

I might arise in my large white cravat

And say 'What's that?'

If I should die to-night,

And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel, Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,

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If I should die to-night,

And you should come to me and there and then Just even hint 'bout paying me that ten,

I might arise the while, But I'd drop dead again."

After the entertainment that night, the live boys of Bowling Green flocked with Opie and Ben to the hotel seeking more of the same stuff they had been listening to at the hall. Mr. Read very early excused himself and went to his room. Ben King was teased into about a half hour of fun and would have been up all night if he had done all they wanted of him. After some time they compromised and agreed to let him go if he would recite "If I Should Die To-night." He did, and went to bed — and died that night. A call for six o'clock had been left. When the bellboy reported to Mr. Read that Mr. King did not answer, he went himself and found Ben cold. It broke up the season's engagements and came very near breaking up Mr. Read himself. A very strong attachment had grown up between them through daily and nightly association in The Chicago Press Club. That rather unemotional group of disillusioned men was stunned when the news came.

The Press Club took charge of the obsequies and laid their friend away in a beautiful place near the city of St. Joseph, Michigan, which had been his home for some time. As Opie Read said at the time, "the people of the United States have at last found out there is a place in Michigan called St. Joe." Ben King's monument is a large and beautiful granite boulder bearing this chiseled inscription:

1857 — BEN KING — 1894

Opie Read is now the President of that same Press Club. I think he was the man who suggested the absorp- tion of another club, probably the most amazing that

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ever was formed in this or any other country — The Whitechapel Club. At any rate, he was a member of both organizations and the two had common origin among newspaper men and artists living in Chicago.

The Press Club was organized in 1879, and had grown into a large membership and a fairly substantial condition.

The Whitechapel Club was organized in 1888 and had grown into a glorious reputation and a condition of perfect penury. The elder took compassion upon the younger, enfolded it and paid its debts, so that as an entity it ceased, but as a nursery or preparatory school of genius it will be remembered for a long, long time. The membership included Brand Whitlock, afterward Mayor |of Toledo, and still later United States Minister to Bel- |gium, whose story of the invasion and desolation of that [sweet country is one of the most earnest and profoundly jtouching records thus far made of any episode in the (great war. George Ade; Wallace Rice; W. W. Dens- low, the artist who died but recently at Buffalo; Finley Peter Dunn, the philosophy of whose Mr. Dooley has held the attention and delighted the hearts of all the English speaking peoples these many years; Charlie Holloway, now admittedly the foremost mural painter in the United States; Alfred Henry Lewis, who after- ward wrote the only stories of western life (particularly of the cattle era) that had absolute validity; Alfred's brother, William E. Lewis, now editor and proprietor of the New York Morning Telegraph, a great and ag- gressive newspaper; Herbert A. Hallet, now the adver- tising manager of the New York Morning Telegraph; Tom E. Powers and Horace Taylor, cartoonists, both of them working now in New York and syndicated throughout the land; Hon. Wm. E. Mason, afterwards United States Senator and then Congressman at large from Illinois; Dr. G. Frank Lydston, whose work both

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professional and literary is as well known in Europe as at home; Hermann the Great (wizard) ; Dr. Frank W. Reilly, later managing editor of The Chicago Daily News, and his son Leigh Reilly, managing editor of the Chicago Herald up to the time The Herald was ab- sorbed by The Examiner. He has recently become the most important man in the news field in the United States having been called to Washington where he was made United States News Bureau head; John C. Eastman editor and proprietor of The Chicago Evening Journal; Opie Read, Ben King, and a few others who achieved fame and success locally, but who probably were not so well known outside of Chicago.

The Whitechapel Club spent the larger part of its interesting life in one room opening on the alley back of The Daily News office. It had no janitor, no key. The center table was a gigantic coffin. The wall decorations were relics of murder and other sports. These were such things as pieces of rope with which ladies or gen- tlemen had been hanged; knives, pistols, and a fine line of assorted tools having lethal purposes. The club had a collection of skulls that had been made by Doctor Spray, a widely known alienist, who for several years had charge of the Elgin Asylum for the Insane. Chap- lain Thompson, imbued with the spirit of his flock, had the crowns sawed off these skulls and the eyeholes en- larged, then with the assistance of Charlie Holloway he mounted in each of the eyeholes a prism of colored glass — red glass, green glass, blue, and so on. Being thus provided with a ventilating hole on top, and eye pieces, they were mounted on the gas jets. After dark the only light in the place was chromatic if not exhil- arating— it was a wonderful stained-glass effect. The irreverend chaplain was given much credit for this artistic triumph.

The principal and most delicately-cherished mortuary

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relic in the whole place was an especially distinguished skull that usually occupied the center of the stage — that is, the middle of the coffin lid. Previous to her abrupt departure from a too respectable world, it had been part of a lady who was best known to the police of our fair city as Waterford Jack, the Queen of the Sands. Her Majesty's domain had included an area bounded by the lake, Chicago avenue, State street, and an indefinite line to the north running somewhere through what is now known as the Astor street neighborhood. It had Sir Walter Scott's Alsatia faded to the pallor of Puritanism. It was invaded and searched every time a burglary or murder turned up in the social annals, no matter where committed, but after each invasion it closed up as water does when you poke your finger in and take it out again. When Long John Wentworth became mayor he lost such scanty patience as he had, called out the fire depart- ment, and with the lake for a reservoir wiped the whole kingdom out in one desolating flood. The subsequent history of Her Majesty is unknown; but her skull was fully authenticated before it was given the honor of cen- tral interest I have just described.

A good many artists of international reputation from time to time contributed wonderful drawings commem- orating occurrences in the Whitechapel Club, and having in general a tendency to celebrate or to cynically dis- close the toxic virtues of alcohol, most of the sketches having been made at hours anywhere between three A. M. and twelve noon, when those present were in a state to enlist the lively interest of the Keeley Institute.

Somehow in the transfer of membership to the Press Club these pictures, some of them priceless and bearing great signatures, disappeared. So did the visitors' book, which abounded in autographs worth all kinds of money.

The Whitechapel Club had no regular meetings. It had regular officers, one of whom was a treasurer of

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whom no bond was required because the treasury in his keeping was minus of even the character usually and sardonically described as red ink. The doings invari- ably were indecorous. It is a pity no record of them was kept, though if one had been, a good deal of it never would have passed the censor, because it was too funny, too brainy, and too squarely in opposition to all things dogmatic or conventional.

I will venture to record one episode because it mirrors the name of a man whose memory will outlast the mem- ory of most other Chicago men by reason of his having shown distinct talent, sometimes approaching genius, as a writer of fiction. Two guesses? Yes, you got it the first time — Hobart Chatfield Chatfield-Taylor. Mr. Taylor was a member of the Whitechapel and was not by the others worshipped from afar. The treasurer was no less a man than Frederick Upham Adams, since distinguished as a novelist, but then commonly known to his friends as Grizzly Adams. The Club was in arrears in the matter of rent, to say nothing of liabilities to some of the principal liquor houses. The treasury was about eight hundred worse off than nothing. On the monetary side of its character the Club was somewhat callous, but the creditors were eager, sometimes insolent, and something had to be done. A municipal election was about to come off. The popular but unrespected chaplain of the Club, the very irreverend Tombstone Thompson (real name Tomo) had an inspiration. He proposed that the Club become a political body, declare a platform, nominate candidates for city offices on a ticket of its own, and extract from outsiders the largest possible campaign fund. This carried. The platform was "No gas, no water, no police," a sturdy statement of manly independence. Grizzly Adams and Tombstone Thompson were appointed a nominating committee. As by one impulse these two great minds pounced upon

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Hobart Chatfield Chatfield-Taylor for the mayoralty, and forthwith they proceeded to call upon that estimable gentleman and ask that he permit the use of his name in that lofty connection, or, if he objected to the use of it in full, that he permit the use of any part of it. Mr. Taylor in a burst of unexampled generosity told them they might use the whole of it and go as far as they liked. They did. They nominated an entire ticket with his shining name at the head, and having the inside of the newspaper offices, got as much publicity as the regu- lar tickets.

The ground being thus prepared, the entire member- ship resolved itself into a finance committee (they called it "touching" committee) and went after the public without mercy.

The ticket polled nearly one thousand jocular votes, and the touching committee raised nearly nine hundred dollars cash. Thus and by these means the creditors, to their amazement, were paid in full, new credit was established, and the life of the Club prolonged.

Chatfield-Taylor was not elected Mayor on this ticket, but did continue his work as a writer, producing among other works "The Crimson Wing," probably his best novel, and biographies of Moliere and Goldoni, for which he was decorated by France and Italy. His latest contribution to literature is a handsome volume illus- trated by Lester G. Hornby, called "Chicago."

The Whitechapel was distinctively and exclusively a man's club. If any woman ever entered its door or doors I do not know, nor have I ever heard of her. In order that a woman might know a good deal about the institu- tion it would be necessary merely that she have some of the Club members on the list of her acquaintances. That was my case. But I dare say most of the things that happened would fall inclusively in that realm of wonders

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vaguely hinted by the lady in Tennyson's "Princess" in the impersonal query,

"What kind of tales do men tell men When they are by themselves?"

In answer I will quote "Bunthorne," the dear old thing, in his sage conclusion concerning certain meanings in the decrees of Nature: "I cannot tell." Of course not.

The Whitechapel Club was so closely interrelated with the Press Club that a large membership was common to both ; and while the Whitechapel could show a creditable list of men who have since become famous, the Press Club shows a larger.

The Press Club itself originated in an earlier organ- ization called the Owl Club, which had been formed in 1876 by James H. McVicker, Will Eaton, and Will E. Chapman. Its membership at first was restricted to newspaper men, actors, musicians and painters, but within three years the qualifications for membership were broken down, and pretty much all the men in La- Salle Street and the Board of Trade came in so that the original members, feeling themselves at a monetary dis- advantage, broke away and started afresh under the dis- tinctive Press Club name in November, 1879.

The Press Club was a success from the beginning, the members profiting by their recent experience as Owls. As a professional club, it ranks to-day with its famous prototype, the Savage Club of London, and outranks all other organizations of the same nature on this side of the Atlantic.

In its earlier years, while it was cabined and confined to a limited space on the top floor of a building at the corner of Madison and Clark streets, it practiced "a gen- erous although a homely hospitality. It was in the way of honoring distinguished writers, actors, singers, and other artists whose occasions brought them to Chicago.

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So many of my own friends were members of the Club that I used to go frequently, and these visits brought me into contact with many people who otherwise would have been strangers and who were interested in the same things that interested me. Friendships formed then continue now — save those few that were terminated by death. Of some of these old friends I would like to say a few things that will be new to my readers.

The first name that occurs to me is that of William D. Eaton (handsome Will Eaton as he was always called). At the time I met him he was one of the then famous Chicago dramatic critics. Will was on the Times, the others were Teddy McPhelim on the Tribune and Elwyn A. Barren on the Inter Ocean. To me and many others at that time these men seemed more impor- tant than the Czar of all the Russias. While critic of the Times Will wrote "All the Rage," the first farce to fill an entire evening and which had a run of six years. Shortly after this in, (I think) 1881, Will left the Times and founded the Chicago Herald, making that paper a big success in eight months. In addition to his pro- nounced success as a newspaper man he has many times proven himself a born promoter in the more lucrative field of commercial exploitation, his energetic endeavors taking him to England, where he passed several success- ful years, becoming a member of the celebrated Savage Club of London. Walter Hurt in a recent biographical sketch of Mr. Eaton said, "To more than touch a few of the high places in the remarkable life-road travelled by William D. Eaton would necessitate writing a book. In Mr. Eaton character and personality affinitively com- bine to an admirable and a satisfying harmony. Men- tally and temperamentally endowed with those special qualities that make for a fine fellowship, with a mind both informed and informative, he is the most charming of companions, delightful in discourse and sympa-

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thetically receptive. He is a public speaker of fluency and grace, and a writer of admirably varied accomplish- ments, surpassingly gifted with the power of satire. Speaking of him to me, Edmund Vance Cook, the poet, once said, "He is the most interesting talker I ever met." Congenitally and by culture he is essentially a gentleman. Courtly, dignified, genial, one instinctively associates him with the stately halls and spacious gardens of an old manor house of England, rather than with the rough- neck atmosphere of a husky young American metropolis, where humanity, still in the stage of commercial hoodlumism, retains all its raw edges."

It would be assuming a task too large and possibly too out of proportion in comparison with others to give to John McGovern all that might be deservedly given him. He was a peculiar influence in the life of Chicago and in some degree of the country for almost forty years; and his posthumous influence may prove larger than that of his own life time. I can do no better than repeat here the memorial resolution of the Press club passed when he died late in nineteen hundred and seventeen. It says : "For almost forty years, since the earliest days of this Club John McGovern had been so much of it, and the Club so much to him, that his passing created a strange and sudden blank. The term of his membership in- cluded various changes not only in the Club's condition, but in its roster; so that men came and went, and were forgotten, and others who knew nothing of its beginnings took their places; and these mutations were continuous. Yet through all of them he remained, a figure so con- spicuous that a sense of permanence attached to him in the memory of every man who at any time had been one of us.

"And this was referable to his personality not only, though that of itself was peculiarly compelling, but to the remarkable bent of his genius, the depth of his

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humor, the greater depth of his scholarship, his stark democracy in all things, his inflexible honesty, the sin- cerity of his friendships. No other man among us held higher ideals; none was more perfect in the artistry of words, none had clearer perceptions of poetic beauty, none ever expressed perceptions of that kind in more perfect poetic forms. In literature he was a craftsman greater than most men knew. Later time may give him higher praise and truer estimate than came to him here.

"His biography and the record of his work will ap- pear in other documents. This one is a heart-felt tribute by brothers to a brother who is gone, whose going smote our elder ones with the pang of a great loss, a pang that will not soon abate. His own philosophy of life and death would have forbidden our mourning him. He would have us take counsel with that Maeterlinck he so admired, and reflect that it is foolish to complain where there is so little distance between one who is dead and those who mourn him — considering that all mankind, destined to one and the same end, is divided only by little intervals, even when they appear very great. Since we must all travel the same road, is it not unworthy of a wise man to weep for one who has set out earlier than ourselves? He who is born into the world must also leave it. His stay may be longer, but the end is always alike. If you consider the ills of life, it is long even for a child; if you regard the duration, it is short even for an old man. If you have lost a friend, you ought to bring yourself to this frame of mind: that you are more pleased at having had him, than grieved that you have him no longer.

"And even so, we think of John."

Next stands the stately figure of Stanley Waterloo, a great man, whose true value is not yet really understood. He wrote many books, some of which were evanescent because their writing was crammed into the intervals

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of newspaper work — for a working newspaper man he remained down to the time of his sudden demise in 1913. But one of them, "The Story of Ab," is in my opinion and in the opinion of many others whom I believe to be competent, the only serious book written by a Chicago author that will live and go on living. It is a story of the stone age, the era of the cave man. As a story merely, it is intensely interesting; but it is also a scien- tifically accurate account of human life as it was and was carried on past the turning point where man dis- covered the possibility of opposing the thumb of either hand to the finger tips, and so found out the way to make and use a tool. The first of these tools was a weapon, a stone bludgeon. This was followed by an axe of stone. Other implements, some of them for war, some for domestic use, followed in due course. I am not writing either an account or a criticism of the book, but I think it worth while to say it was and is scientifically sound in its paleolithics and its paleontology.

Stanley told me that he put twelve years of patient research into the subject before he wrote a line. Its scientific accuracy is evidenced by its use in the supple- mentary reading courses in the public schools of about a dozen states, and of its similar or related uses abroad. It has had several reissues in England and has been translated into all the languages of continental Europe. It is recognized that Stanley knew more about the cave man and knew all of it with more certainty than any of the scholars who had specialized in the same line. As an instance: While he was trying to clear up to his own satisfaction the question whether the sabre-toothed tiger antedated the stone age or coexisted with the cave man, he called on the Curator^of the Museum in the Smith- sonian Institute at Washington and asked the privilege of examining the skull of a sabre-toothed tiger that had recently been acquired. When he explained to the Cura-

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tor the reason why he wanted to see the skull, the curator smiled and assured him he need go no farther, because it was established that the tiger had disappeared before the beginning of the stone age. Stanley was not inclined to dispute the point; he simply said he would like to see the skull anyway. The curator personally conducted him to the place of exhibit, and there, to the profound surprise of the curator, they found embedded in the skull the blade of a stone axe — the axe that had killed the tiger.

On that day there occurred a chronological introversion of history in the case of tigers and men. Instead of being merely an extinct creature the sabre-toothed tiger was promoted to association with the human race, which promotion undoubtedly accelerated real extinction at a date considerably postponed.

Stanley's last book appeared very shortly after his death. The closing chapters had been left in skeleton, but were rounded out and finished by his intimate friend and Press Club fellow member, Harry Irving Greene, with whom he had been in consultation over it and who knew Stanley's style so well that he was enabled to pre- serve complete continuity in Stanley's own vein down to the end. Stanley may be said to have set a style among fiction writers whose plots include things scientific or ac- credited facts in history. This last book of his bears the title "A Son of the Ages." An episode essential to the thread of the narrative necessitated a description of Noah's flood. In his own way and in a direction, the possibilities of which never had suggested themselves to the Biblical archaeologists, he established the fact of that flood in the region and approximately at the time dealt with in the book of Genesis. Geological research and studies of ancient land and water distribution dis- closed a seismic disturbance then and thereabout, in which there was a deep depression of a large land area con-

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tiguous to a sea of which the present Mediterranean is a vestigial remainder. All living things in that area were drowned, and the assumption of unusual meteorological phenomena may be granted, or at least needs no argu- ment. He established, further, a subsequent upheaval of the area submerged, by which the waters were thrown back and a higher land surface established. This per- fectly unconcerned way of accounting for a long dis- puted event rather overtopped the performance of Professor Heilprecht of the University of Pennsylvania who went to the site of the pre-Assyrian city of Nipur, there to dig for records that would confirm the Bible story. Professor Heilprecht found records that might be construed as offering such a confirmation, which was not at all surprising, because there are records or fairly uniform traditions of similar floods all over the world; but being on the job and being fired with professional zeal, he went on digging until he had uncovered the ruins of other buried cities under Nipur, of an easily determined age of twelve thousand years, and showing a develop- ment that could not have been reached in a term less than twelve thousand preceding years. By this double discovery Professor Heilprecht at one stroke confirmed the flood and destroyed the Mosaic chronology. The University of Pennsylvania published all this in full as conclusive proof of Bible truth, somehow overlooking the effect upon that same truth of what their Professor had done to the other Bible truths, as affecting the Mosaic chronology. Stanley Waterloo had rather the best of the University, but Stanley was not a Presby- terian and Professor Heilprecht was.

Whenever I think of Stanley there appears beside him the figure of Opie Read. For a large part of their lives these two were inseparable. Stanley wrote maybe a dozen books. Opie has written I don't know how many. He came to public notice first while he was on the Little

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Rock Gazette, and rose to national reputation as editor of the Arkansaw Traveller. Since then he has been on the New York World, the Cleveland Leader, and several Chicago newspapers. Of late he has been doing Chau- tauqua work, being at the same time under contract for special stories with The Chicago Evening Journal. His first big selling books embodied his knowledge of Arkansas and Arkansas characters. His stories are purely human, sometimes dramatic, sometimes episodic, but always interesting. One of his books, "The Juck- lins," published about thirty years ago, has up to this time had a sale of around two million copies. He has been translated into all the languages of continental Europe excepting the Russian, but including the Scandi- navian. The Scandinavian translation was made by a man who knew English on the Scandinavian plan. It was a pretty good translation even at that, but the trans- lator succeeded in correcting an error in the author's name. Now, Opie's name is Opie; but the translator could find no such word in his valuable handbook, nor his English dictionary, therefore to him it was clear that the English printer had blundered. He knew there was such a word as Open. Evidently that was the right name. So on the title page the author's name appears as Open Read. !"

As an individual Mr. Read enjoys and deserves wide popularity. A formal dinner was spread in his honor in the Press Club, May 2, 1902. Wallace Bruce Ams- bury, whose book, "Ballads of the Bourbonnais" cele- brates the habitant population of the Kankakee region, much as Doctor Drummond's celebrated the habitant of Quebec, came forward at that dinner with the toast which faithfully though humorously describes the man. I could not do better than quote it here:

Dis language Anglaise dat dey spe'k, On State of Illinois,

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Is hard for Frenchmen heem to learn,

It give me moch annoy. Las' w'ek ma frien', McGover^w^

He com' to me an' say, You mak' a toas' on Opie Read

Wen dey geeve gran' banquay.

I mak' a toas'? Not on your life,

Dat' man's wan frien' of me; Wat for I warm heem op lak' toas' —

De reason I can't see. An' den John laugh on hees eye

Wen he is to me say: "To mak' a toas' is not a roas'

It's just de odder way."

Dat's how I learn dat toas' an roas'

Is call by different name, Dough bot' are warm in dere own way,

Dere far from mean de same. An' so my frien', in lof I clasp

Your gread beeg brawny han', An' share vit you in fellowship

An' pay you on deman'.

You're built opon a ver' large plan,

Overe seex feet you rise; You need it all to shelter in

Your heart dat's double size. You are too broad for narrow t'ings,

Too gr'ad for any creed; I'll eat de roas' but drink de toas'

To my friend, Opie Read.

It may be insidious to say with too much assurance that Waterford Jack was the first lady before Cynthea

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Leonard to impress her personality, her principles and her methods upon the public life of this city, but between Jack and the dawn of Cynthea were many years unmarked by feminine influence upon public affairs.

Mrs. Leonard swooped down and fluttered the dove- cotes of our Corioli before the embers of the great fire had ceased to smoulder. While it cannot be denied that all of her ideas were fantastic, it must be admitted that she strove for their realization with untiring activity. Mrs. Leonard was out for woman suffrage with both hands and the whole of her volubility, which was reverber- ant and unceasing. As a new phenomenon she excited the interest and exalted the joy of living of the news- paper men, who gave her a noble liberality of newspaper space. The term of her prominence was comparatively brief. That sort of thing never does last very long. Her one contribution to the world at large was her daughter Lillian, whom we know as Lillian Russell.

During the declension of her mother Lillian emerged, a girl of sixteen or thereabout, at first a tiny star in theatrical skies, and mounted swiftly in augmented lustre to that place in the zenith which she still holds. Tony Pastor discovered her and gave her a first appearance at his theatre in Fourteenth street, New York. She was and is a singer well worth hearing, but she was with- held from becoming an actress by a singular limitation. Her beauty and a certain subtle emanation that could not be resisted any more than it could be defined, put her across the footlights into great and enduring popularity; but an inborn reserve somewhat like the restraint of a great lady stood between her and any adequate expres- sion of theatric art.

Another interregnum: and who is this we see? Tall, square shouldered, well set up, vivacious, black eyed, and as Franc Wilkie described her, purple haired; distin- guished by an ability to write things that never were dis-

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creet, and sometimes were astonishing. What was it Charlotte Perkins advocated? I have forgotten. But she held the stage, down center, during the latter half of the eighteen eighties. Then for a time she was obscured, to emerge again somewhat subdued, rather dignified, and otherwise improved. She is Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gil- man now, and is lecturing and writing, creditably.

Chapter Twelve

OR some time I had become much interested in Reinhart's productions of The Miracle and Shakespearean plays in Berlin and in May, 1914, I sailed for Paris enroute to Germany, actuated largely by my desire to see some of his work. After a month spent in Paris I started in company with my friends the Ralph Clarksons on a leisurely trip to Berlin. On reaching Heidelberg I received a telegram from George Hamlin, who had learned of my plans in Paris telling me that I must go to Berlin at once in order to see the two last performances to be given by Reinhart that season. I gave up a visit to Leipsic, to which I had looked forward with interest because among other things there I should see the original of Bocklein's "The Isle of Death" which for years I had greatly longed to see, and took the first train for Berlin. Upon my arrival I went to a pension Krause where I secured a charming apartment and sallied forth in search of a seat for the play which on that night was The Miracle.

The demand for seats was so great, altho this spectacular play was given in what formerly had been a skating rink transformed into a theatre for this produc- tion and seating between five and six thousand persons,

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for a time I was in a state of mind bordering on despair because the finding of even a single seat seemed hopeless. Just as I was about to give up the hunt, I chanced to meet an old Chicago newspaper friend who in some mys- terious way produced not only a seat for that' night's performance but also one for the production of Twelfth Night which was given at the celebrated Deutches Theatre the next night.

It surely was a novel experience and a somewhat ex- citing one to be driven alone through the streets of Berlin the route to the theatre taking me through the Thier- garten, and by many of the enumerable statues which line the streets in every direction. Then to find myself seated in the midst of the great audience in which I did not find a single face that I had ever seen before, but as soon as the curtain went up on the opening scene I was completely absorbed in the wonders of the production which surpassed anything I had seen with its two thousand people and two hundred horses besides mules, dogs, etc., in the cast. Frau Krause had provided me with a card on which was printed her name and address — a neces- sary precaution as my knowledge of German was too limited to insure my safe return to the Pension.

On the following night I attended the performance of Twelfth Night which closed the Reinhart season. The performance was one of extreme interest to me. In fact it is difficult for me to express all that I got out of it. I had considered myself well acquainted with the play in all its details, having taught it for many years, and having seen notable productions of it in America, but as the curtain rose and the setting of the stage for the opening scene was revealed I was convinced that I was to see something very different from any production of the play I had ever seen before. The setting was a shal- low one showing a sanded beach shore in the extreme foreground, with just the hull of the ship in view show-

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ing the captain, some sailors and Viola whose entire figure including her head and most of her face was con- cealed by a dark hooded cape, as she stepped on shore asking, What country's this? The illusion was so start- lingly real, that it was difficult to believe it was not true. I recalled a presentation of that scene given years ago at the Grand Opera House when the stage was so over- loaded with scenery that it looked like a store house and Miss Viola Allen dressed in the most gorgeous be- spangled costume ascended a flight of steps from a full fledged vessel and with broad and sweeping voice and pantomime inquired What — country's — this ? I had seen sufficient to know that the fame which Reinhart had achieved was deserved. The whole play was remarkable in its reality and truth.

The character of the Lady Olivia played in America by a socalled first lead to the star and a very negative one at that, on this occasion by a sterling actress possessed of beauty and charm. The lady was permitted to move about as though she actually lived in her own house, a privilege which I had never seen accorded her before, Maria was a revelation. Instead of a pert saucy com- monplace miss, in this case she was represented as a girl who had been born and reared in the household accus- tomed to the vulgar improprieties of Sir Toby and An- drew Aguecheek but entirely unaffected by their familiar- ity, joining somewhat in their ribaldry and laughter yet holding herself aloof from too much presumption on their part, I was greatly impressed with her pictorially. I had always seen Maria on the stage as a saucy brunette of a cheap type. This girl was fair with her blonde hair parted in the middle and falling to her waist in two braids. Her costume was dull greys and blues and altogether she was a distinct and pleasing feature of the play.

Malvolio too was represented as having the distinc-

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tive qualities which the text calls for quite distinct from the extreme finicky and impossible character depicted by Sir Henry Irving and others.

The Clarksons reached Berlin before my departure and joined me at the Pension. Miss Katherine Winterbotham of Chicago, now Mrs. Thompson Buchanan of New York, was spending the year there pursuing her musical studies with Frank King Clark, who previously had been a successful singer and teacher in Chicago. One evening Mr. Clark gave a soiree in his Studio which we all at- tended, and where we met Mr. and Mrs. Howard Wells, George Hamlin, his wife and daughter, Miss Walton and so many other artists and friends that it seemed almost like a home reception. Alas ! the breaking out of the war closed the beautiful studio and within a year poor Frank died, and all the coterie that was assembled there that evening had returned to Chicago.

From Berlin I went to Carlsbad and stopped enroute to visit the then celebrated Dalcroze School just outside Dresden. The school building resembling a Greek temple stood on a high eminence and had with its equipment cost a million dollars which had been subscribed by dev- otees of Dalcroze who had known him and his work in Geneva and Paris. The interior which had been de- signed with special reference to the accommodation of large classes in physical culture and dancing and which included a small theatre, was uniformly decorated in sand color, with here and there curtains and draperies of flame color of soft and simple fabric the whole thing produc- ing a modern and artistic effect which quite delighted me. I had had considerable difficulty in gaining permission to visit the school as visitors were being scrutinized closely, many having carried away the distinctive features of the classes and introducing them wherever they lived without giving credit to Dalcroze. Alas ! the war brought

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this enterprise to a speedy close and I believe the build- ings have since been used as a hospital.

From Dresden I went to Carlsbad for a month's stay and while there a brother of Fredrick Charles, Arch Duke of Austria while playing on the golf links received news of the shooting of his brother which proved to be the touching of the button which set the German war forces in motion. Nothing alarming happened for a few days, altho rumors of war filled the air. It was only when Mrs. Baxter of Evanston and I reached Zurich on our way to Lucerne that matters begun to assume a more threatening aspect. There the streets were filled with soldiers and indications seemed ominous. However we travelled the length of lovely Lake Constance after our visit to Zurich and enjoyed in tranquillity the battle- ments and towers "Which have stood above Lake Con- stance, a thousand years and more." When we reached the Hotel Nazionale at Lucerne matters begun to look grave. Groups of people were huddled together and talking in low tones, gravely shaking their heads, as the necessity for getting to England safely seemed imminent, Mrs. Baxter had occasion to return to Germany and wished me to accompany her but I decided to yield to the importunities of the Clarksons to join them at Lake Como. I left Lucerne at 9 A. M. on the morning of August first. When the train reached Lugano a man in military attire came on board and took a seat near me. He told me that war between Germany and France had been declared and that he had just taken leave of his family and was off to war. When I reached Tremezzo Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson were on the wharf as the steamer landed. Mr. Clarkson had just received a paper which contained alarming dispatches. In twenty-four hours we found ourselves to be comparative prisoners, that is we could not get to either France or England. Our only hope of escape to America was from Genoa or Naples.

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Anxious days followed as continued news of war became more and more threatening. We could neither cable home nor receive cable messages for a time. We had very little money and could get none. We were so panic stricken that we refused to spend money enough to get a little alcohol with which to make afternoon tea or to buy a round trip ticket to Belaggio which cost only thirteen cents. On the first day of my arrival I had been reck- less and spent a quarter to see the interior of Car- lotta the finest villa on Lake Como. It nearly ad- joined the hotel and its present owner allowed visitors to see the grounds and entrance hall which contained some mural decorations by Thorwaldsen and the original statue of Cupid and Psyche, the money received being given to charity.

Our anxieties increased day by day. Finally Mr. Clarkson and I together with others decided to go to Milan and try to get some money on our letters of credit or the Chicago First National bank checks which I car- ried. We could get none as nothing but Cooke's checks were being cashed anywhere. We however secured the promise of obtaining some money a little later. Mr. Clarkson had been in constant communication with the steamship offices in Milan, Naples and Genoa, hoping to get passage for himself, Mrs. Clarkson and me as day by day the possibility of getting home looked more and more dubious, together with the fact that Italy might at any moment be drawn into the war making our escape more difficult and more hazardous. He finally received word that a small Italian steamer which had been reno- vated and fitted up for the purpose of carrying Ameri- cans to New York was about to sail from Naples and there were three berths to be had in the steerage. This opportunity Mr. Clarkson saw fit to decline, largely on account of the inferiority of the vessel and that it would mean being separated from Mrs. Clarkson during the

My Chicago in

voyage. I, however, was impressed with the advisability of taking advantage of the opportunity as the chances for getting home were becoming less and less each day. Tickets could not be reserved by telegraph, so I was obliged to go to Genoa to secure my passage. I stopped at Milan enroute and there held a conference with George Hamlin and Norman Mason, son of my friends the A. O. Masons of Highland Park who were then looking for sailing accommodations for themselves and families. George told me he hated to see me start off alone in such an undesirable boat but I made up my mind that under any conditions my mind would be more tranquil if I were journeying toward home, so I continued on my way.

When I reached Genoa to my great joy I encountered a piece of good luck. A South American steamer had been chartered by some wealthy Americans and was sail- ing the next morning and I could get passage on it. It seemed almost too good to be true. It was a memorable trip. We were holding our breath until we passed Gibraltar as there were reports of the danger of being turned back if Italy were to declare war which seemed probable at any moment. However we passed the great rock in safety and settled down to recover from the weeks of anxiety and to enjoy the trip.

The Rev. Freeman of Minneapolis was a passenger and conducted services in the large salon on each of the two Sundays we were on shipboard. On each occasion we attempted to sing America but our voices were choked by emotion, the first time because we had fears of never seeing our beloved land again, the second time because we were so overjoyed at the sight of it. I was guilty of throwing kisses to a huge sign of Kirk's American Family Soap which was the first familiar sight which my eyes rested on as we sailed into New York Harbor early on the morning of the last day of August. It looked good to me for more reasons than one.

ii2 My Chicago

I expected when I reached Chicago to find the members of my family in an emaciated condition on account of having worried about my ever getting home. To my disappointment and somewhat to my disgust they told me they had not worried at all, they knew I would man- age to get home somehow.

The Clarksons followed in another boat two weeks later.

Chapter Thirteen

R. CLARKSON had gone abroad largely in the interests of the Art Institute, and his work had not been half done when the war stopped it. For a number of years he had been and still is active in committee work of various kinds, and has not only contributed to the gallery many of his own artistic canvases, but has helped in securing some of the most valuable contributions that have been made by other artists. He is continuing those activities, and undoubtedly will continue them to the end of his days.

Practically all the more distinguished painters who lived in Chicago during the last forty years or more were members of the Art Institute. G. P. A. Healy, who rose to be a celebrity was one of these. So also was Leonard W. Volk, the sculptor, L. E. Earl, and E. F. Bigelow. Henry F. Spread, Charles A. Corwin, Oliver Dennett Grover, John F. Vanderpool, Charles Francis Browne, Frederick Freer, Lorado Taft, Ralph Clarkson, Fred Richardson, Ralph Fletcher Seymour and Mrs. Herman Hall, are among the most important instructors the school has been fortunate enough to get. Prominent artists from other cities have been brought here to aid

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in its work. Charles Francis Browne, Pauline Palmer, Louis Betts, Harriet Blackstone, and Cecil Clark Davis are familiar names in its history.

The success which the Art Institute has always met with is due first to its central location, and second to the co- operation of the large number of prominent citizens of Chicago who are annual members. The membership and that of the school exceeds that of any museum in the country and the attendance also exceeds that of any museum in the United States.

I am not going to write a categorical account of the Art Institute and its various stages of progress, but I have been in close contact with it through most of its life ; and it means so much to me, even as it must mean to many others, that I would like to give a little side light upon its earlier days, and particularly upon the beginnings of its really fine gallery of paintings.

James H. Dole, of the firm of Armour-Dole and Com- pany, was one of the most influential men in the group that originated the old exposition enterprise, and built the Exposition Hall on the lake front site now occupied by the Art Institute Building. Mr. Dole was an unusual man in many ways.

He had been highly successful in his commercial occu- p^ations, but these occupations were by no means his prin- cipal interest in life. He had a native perception in the graphic arts, and was ready at all times with his in- fluence and his money to advance the development of art locally. It was through his effort that an art exhibit was added to the others in the old exposition, and to this exhibit he gave great and sympathetic care.

From year to year he continued to get together meri- torious paintings, until the exposition gallery became a recognized feature. That collection became the nucleus of the Art Institute gallery we know today. I am not far out of the way, if at all, in crediting Mr. Dole with

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the more potent share in that work which took up the old Art School and Academy of Design that had begun in 1867 and was snuffed out temporarily when the Crosby Opera House was destroyed in the fire of 1871. Mr. Dole helped bring it back when the city was rebuilt; and in that process the Art School, the Academy of De- sign, and the Exposition gallery were naturally brought together as a permanent institution.

He was a reticent man, ceaseless in doing good and never so much annoyed as when publicity was thrust upon him. He became a first rate judge of paintings, though his education began with minus. He was entirely candid about this — so candid that he disclosed it in his own private collection.

He had a beautiful home in Dearborn avenue, close by Oak street. In this house he had built a large and beau- tifully lighted long room for an art gallery of his own. The first picture to the left as you entered the room was the first picture he ever bought. The last picture on your left, as you passed out again, was his latest purchase. The gradual rise in quality disclosed by the purchases between the first and the last was astonishing, but while the earlier pictures were crude some of them dauby, all of them and all the others down to the latest had in them a living touch. He never bought a picture, of any degree, that had not in it something that would stir an emotion or set in movement a train of thought sufficient to carry you away from the grosser things of life for the moment at least.

I am inclined to think that in the power to do this lies the real definition of art, in any of its various forms. The technical skill employed in a painting counts for much in its own way, but by itself never made any picture great; whereas not even slovenly execution can obscure the virtue of a painting that has a fundamental element of truth.

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I do not know what became of Mr. Dole's gallery. I think some of the pictures, especially a Fortuny, are in the Art Institute gallery, but the rest have been scattered by the scattering of his family. He died but a few years back. In all his useful life he carefully, sensitively, avoided impressing himself or the things he did upon the public mind, so that I am not sure he is remembered outside a circle whose diameter slowly decreases as the old men die who were his contemporaries. But I am sure his memory is tenderly cherished by many artists now prominent both here and abroad, to whose early efforts he gave sympathetic encouragement.

Of the artists I have named above, the one who was nearest Mr. Dole was L. C. Earl. Earl at that time had climbed so high in public notice that New York had begun to call him. Along about the middle eighties he went there. He was the first American painter sought, with good results, by the Prang concern of Boston. The Prangs had for some time been reproducing works of Art by the mechanical process known as chromo-lithog- raphy. Earl had painted a picture showing a city sports- man with a most elaborate and expansive equipment but no birds, in negotiation with a one-gallus, barefoot country boy who carried a sawed-off, single barrel, muzzle loading shotgun, and had a string of about fifty ducks. The ground was marshy, the skies were grey and the daylight fading. The city sportsman's hand was in his pocket. The story told itself.

I don't know what they paid Earl for the right to reproduce it; but whatever it may have been it was noth- ing compared with what it brought them. They sold over two million copies of the reproduction.

Among the artists grouped about the Art Institute, Lorado Taft is probably the most widely known out- side Chicago. This is no derogation of the others, but a fact referable to Mr. Taft's peculiarly adroit method

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of evoking criticism and controversy in matters where he knows he is going to come out on top. Mr. Taft has more than once had New York about his ears and profited by the assault. New York being an art storm center, whatever goes a-howling there is heard all over the continent. It is not to be denied that for this reason, and aside from his undeniable merit, Mr. Taft's reputa- tion is national.

The achievement by which perhaps he is best known is the towering, almost sentient figure of Chief Black Hawk that stands upon an eminence near the town of Oregon. Aside from its size and its prominence in the landscape it is a significant and worthy art work. From its completion only a few years ago, it has had a wide- spread post card celebrity. It has the peculiar distinc- tion of standing close by the home of Frank O. Lowden, who at the time of this writing is Governor of Illinois, and who for the part of his life thus far lived and the part as yet unlived stands and will stand as one of the great men of the west.

Associated with the Art Institute are the names of Charles L. Hutchinson, W. M. R. French, and N. H. Carpenter. Mr. French gave the best that was in him to the Institute and its operations through many years, up to his death in 1914.

Charles L. Hutchinson has been president of the asso- ciation since 1882, and before that time had been a director and a most ardent promoter of its best interests. It is a fortunate and infrequent thing when a man is found who combines genius in finance with a love of art and who is willing to put his combined powers back of an estab- lishment like this. We all know what the Art Institute has become, how much it means in this community and the western states, but we do not know how much of its standing and influence it owes to Mr. Hutchinson. This much is clear: that without his devoted and unselfish

Charles L. Hutchinson.

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

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interest and activity it would be far short of what it actually is.

Something of the same nature can be said of Mr. N. H. Carpenter, who was with the Institute since its or- ganization as Secretary, Director and Business Manager — the latter office, held for forty years. A record any man might be proud of. Mr. Carpenter died May 27, 1918.

Mr. Frederic Clay Bartlett and Mr. Howard Van Doren Shaw have been prominent among the workers on the board of the Art Institute and are men of artistic sense and achievement, Mr. Shaw's "civic center" recently built in Lake Forest being important in its effect.

Other prominent men associated with the Institute in various capacities are Martin L. Ryerson, William O. Goodman, Frank G. Logan, and Dr. Frank W. Gun- saulus.

Chapter Fourteen

MONG the distinguished foreign painters to visit Chicago and the Art Institute in 1904 was Blommers, the great Dutch painter who shares honors with Israel and Maude. I met Blommers and his wife in Ralph Clark- son's studio, and found we had much