Scan 4
Musical Courier 1896-07-01: Vol 33 Iss 852, 1896
121 lines. Read by computer on 20 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER.
38 RUE CLÉMENT-MAROT, CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES.
4PARIS, June 16, 1896.
6NOTICE.—Single copies of The Musical Courier to be had, or ordered, at Brentano's, 37 Ave. de l'Opéra; Galignani's, 224 Rue Rivoi; The Celtic, 37 Rue Marbeuf, and 8 Clément-Marot, Paris.
8AMERICAN GIRLS AND MUSICAL CAREERS.
10The crowd of the theatre never enters into bonds of fealty to one woman. No public pet has staying power.—Nvm Crinkle.
12ALTHOUGH head and table are full of interesting French musical novelties for discussion, my heart does not seem to be able to get away from this disastrous and pathetic subject of American girls and musical careers.
14It is not the career side of the subject that broods on my spirit and holds my thought. It is not desire for career for women. It is not anxiety even that women launched in career should succeed; it is not ambition for wider life, broader field and more ambitious sphere for my sex.
16Not a bit of it! If I had my way I would have laws passed prohibiting women from entering public careers of all kinds, and even from earning money. I consider it in a sense a humiliation, an error, a misfortune—a great, great misfortune—when a woman is forced by circumstances into public life, and one of the plainest signs of the abnormality of herself or her times when for any reason assigned she walks into it of her own free will.
18I do not mind it so much for older women or for mussy, restless wives. They have little to lose comparatively, anyway, and are generally only wabbling around in search of fun, change, money, &c.
20Where my heart gets caught is with these young, sweet, lovely, fresh, dear girls who have so much to lose and so little to gain by this unnatural, vulgar, wasteful, bloom-destroying, character-deforming, head-turning, heart-hardening, wretched and altogether abominable fight for the footlights.
22I am drawn and held to the subject as day by day I realize more and more the supreme value of the home over the stage, of the appreciation of one worth-while lover over the brutal selfishness of a public, of Love over Art, of the creation of human beings over the creation of rôles, of a beautiful womanhood over any grade of artistic excellence, of death in the arms of regard rather than in the gutters of talent prostitution, and of a future in the propagation of future rather than in the oblivion of one more unfortunate who builds on self, and sinks in the sands of worthless vanity before a third of her life is spent.
24I do not refer to absolute genius, to the incontestable genius who comes by divine call and acts by divine will, who is robbed of her birthright for the sake of the race. That sort of woman appears once in a generation and is cared for by Fate. We have nothing to do with her case.
26I can speak of the rank and file of American girls who, like flies around fly paper, swarm here in these Paris studios year after year in search of an imaginary happiness; girls gentle, tender, lovely, lovable, created to be wives, mothers, helpers of men and teachers of children; who have no more fitness of talent, personality, characteristics, means or instincts to become great artists than they have to be Greek scholars, inventors of mathematical systems or discoverers of the North Pole; girls who, instead of being encouraged, ought to be shoveled home out of these false-hope fens, these hopeless and hapless bournes whence few, if any, ever return.
28I speak of the great mass of feminine mediocrity which at home, and taught by home, could amuse, entertain, help art, be artistic, listen, sing, play, adorn, enrich their own place, but who are lost, hopelessly lost, on the sea of greater achievement.
30I mean girls who mistake vanity for ambition, talent for genius, restlessness for instinct, stupid flattery for discriminating appreciation, and who have neither earnestness of purpose, patience, art, love nor study sincerity sufficient to create a position for which they were never born. By which I mean the average girl studying abroad.
32To arrive at the best public place even with talent and instinct means suicide of youth and age; youth in pursuit, age in useless melancholy or palsied effort. All for a thin middle slice of life of some five or ten years of admiration which is "curiously uncertain, insanely unreasonable, unspeakably heartless," and liable to die in a day because wholly based on the most perishable qualities.
34It is the disaster of this suicidal mania upon the youth quarter of life—the love age, the nest-building, bird-making time, when the veins are on fire, the muscles like twisted steel, and the nerves quivering to the touch—that keeps my mind chained to this subject and will not let me free.
36It is an outrage to posterity that so much lovely womanhood should be cooped up in dingy studios, wasted in dingier agencies, occupied with selfish or indifferent money-making agents, and with their heads and thoughts all set on that one parched, ungrateful, tawdry strip of life called "career," at such a beautiful and important stage of their existence.
38It is not as with the school life, when a graceful course of instruction marches side by side with the feminine nature, enriching, ennobling and in no way harming it. There is something in this prima donna preparation, in the hollow, selfish artificiality of it, the concentration on self, the thin art veneer, and the cattle-trader dealings to which the mediocre are liable, which distorts the youthful feminine nature.
40The forced abandon of manner which so many of our sweet girls come to assume in order to seem stagey and theatrical, so as to curry favor with managers and create an impression of being dramatic and undomestic, is grotesque and stupid. They would make excellent subjects of caricature. The scornful expression of these soft, sweet-looking girls against all ideas of love, lovers, of wifehood, motherhood, homekeeping and general womanly souldom, is to me a horror, as though I should find their beautiful bodies maimed or twisted.
42It is by no means either the pretty coquetry of girls in their teens who, while assuming an indifference, tremble at the sight of a letter or the sound of a voice; it is the natural outcome of environment, of a hardening, toughening, unrefining tendency while in the pursuit of a wholly selfish object.
44For I speak of the girls who know absolutely nothing of art instinct, less of perfection, and still less of the demands of an artist life, but who are blindly, deadly set on "a public career." And by this I mean the average girl studying abroad.
46AN UNDERLYING CAUSE.
48One of your recent New York funny papers has a clever picture of a winged Love, forlorn and neglected, standing between two new women, one in judge's gown and wig, the other (might have been) worshipping at a stage footlight, a music score in her hand.
50The legend reads: "Who's going to care for this boy in days to come?"
52Well, Love is always pictured as he was born—adorable, assiduous, gallant, thoughtful, charming and devoted—altogether worth the life, body, soul, even death, of his owner.
54He was created for this special rôle, and remained so for a long time, till he got spoiled. Had he remained so this essay need never have been written, this subject need never be discussed; women would never have dreamed of anything else.
56For there is not one woman in a thousand who would if she could, or could if she would, even think of anything on earth outside of a well-loved life by a worth-while lover. It would have been an impossibility as for a disturbance in the immutable laws of gravitation. Unfortunately the pole got twisted, hence all the resulting dislocations.
58Were there only the ideal home life to point to, the task of direction would be easy, and few, if any, would combat it.
60But you see Love is not always the adorable child he was created. He is often as ugly, disagreeable, ungrateful, thoughtless, kicking a little brat as it is possible to imagine.
62Love stays out nights and gets the hiccoughs and only laughs next day. Love feeds your heart on starvation rations, and expects it to be fat if he happens to want it. Love walks right over your tender Gordon-setter feelings and expects you to be gay, smiling and beautiful. Love praises in your hearing women who are wholly different from you, and expects you to be happy and triumphant over it. Love neglects letters till by your harassed imagination you are brought to the verge of lunacy or the grave, and then turns up with a joke, expecting you to be radiant and jolly. Love goes off on trips with other people's property, and expects your open and affectionate arms on return, if he wants them, or that you "don't mind a bit" if he does not.
64Love shows you plainly that you are nowhere before a nice poker party. Love is thoughtless and inconsiderate (which means selfish), and then calls it being "sensible" and you "foolish" to care. Love laughs at your economy, and scolds when the money is gone and your gloves are worn. Love scolds when children are there if he does not happen to want them, and chides if they are not there when he happens to wish it so. Love brings home expensive knick-knacks, forgetting that you must need a maid and wondering why your fingers are rough and your cheeks pale. Love pets the actress and prima donna, and tells you be content with his respect. Love puts scalding tears in your eyes and asks you what the devil you are crying about. Love tears you from your pedestal (if he can) and kicks you when you are down. Love breaks your heart and tells you to brace up and look pleasant. When you die for him he calls you a fool.
66Love outrages your honor, your love, your hearth, your pride, your happiness and your soul, and tosses it off with a "We're born so, madame; you keep still and take it!"
68Up to a certain point rubbing a diamond polishes it; beyond that point it wears and the precious stone falls away in dust. Nature has its limits and the worm its turning point.
70Small wonder if bicycle wheels come to pass over Love's toes, if bloomers are phoenixes of burnt idols, and if pétrole footlights are made to replace the lights in Love's eyes!
72Small wonder if a new woman creature rises up crying out:
74"We'll see, sir, whether it's birth or custom that makes you so!"
76And forthwith proceeds to see, and to show, and to be released from the unnecessary troubles of her so-called "condition."
78On the voyage of discovery she puts to sea for Public Career, with the sails of vanity and the steam of worldly excitement. Who knows what may be proved of power and possibility on the voyage of independence? The poor little fellow, once a god, may be quite killed indeed to get him altogether out of the way, and in a measure, you see, he will have deserved it. He imposed on his superb authority and revolution was inevitable.
80That woman herself trained him to this does not alter the conditions. It is true, nevertheless.
82The mother, except when neglected herself, slyly vaunts his "prowess" elsewhere; his sister glories in it as a pride so long as she is respected; his sweetheart winks discreetly until it turns on herself; the man friend encourages it until his own home is hurt. Selfishness all of it, and what's sown must be reaped!
84Anyway, here 's where we are and there 's the situation, and that 's the why of the stampede into the market place by our women, and that is why our pretty girls are flocking and flying blindly and insanely to the arms of a more brutal and ungrateful taskmaster—The Public Musical Career. They may not yet have felt the cause themselves, but the mania is upon the land, and they move in blind obedience to the movement.
86WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.
88The next best thing to do is to meet the girls on the route, aid them, steer them, direct them, and save them from shipwreck in the new search. For bad as the life loss is in turning back on home, a worse one comes as the result of failure in the untried way, which leaves but rags of will, spirit, courage, hope, bank account, years, perhaps of womanhood itself.
90Well, are you all ready now for your public career?
92Yes, been ready for two years—two years and a half now. Spent two fortunes and three years getting ready—repertory, language, acting, diction—
94Why, are you not engaged?
96You tell.
98What of your teacher? I thought she promised—
100Yes, she promised, that's why I went to her, and stayed with her, and laid down all my money on her; she said sure she could get me an engagement when I was ready. She had so much influence. Come to find out she had no more influence than I have. She knows the managers, of course, and can introduce me, but anyone can do that. I can go to any manager myself without an introduction, and if he needs me and I suit him he engages me; that's all there is to it. Influence—fiddlesticks!
102Why don't you do that?
104Dogged 'em for two years and a half.
106What do they say?
108You sing well, you say well, you look well, but you see—
110YOU'RE A DÉBUTANTE!
112We're not here to start you, or teach you, or pet you; we're here to make money out of you, just as cattle dealers do off their purchasers. We've got to spend money to experiment with you. We're betting on horses that have got records. You ain't got any. Go off and get famous and come back and we'll see.
114How are you going to become famous without a début?
116That's what I ask them, but they only hump their shoulders five ways with one shrug and that's all.
118And the remains of your money meanwhile?
120Huh! That's it, you know.
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