"In reality it is so different. We have to work for a living and poverty is our reward. In real life we have to write historical novels for a living. We have to write popular plays and pretty poems and sugarcoated stories. Yes, such is life, and there is poverty and the misery of the masses, and there are social problems and political evils--things unknown in the average novel, and in popular art generally. We must do so much that is irksome in order to have a pleasurable moment. "When Richard Mansfield was delivering those sumptuous stump speeches in Shakespeare's spectacular melodrama of 'Henry V.' and the soldiers were stirred up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, the fair fraulein in front of me constantly kept saying, 'Who wouldn't fight for Harry?' Who wouldn't fight for Harry? A tremendous artist with superb words put into his mouth by Shakespeare, with a beautiful scenic background behind him, with gorgeous costumes and gleaming armor, with glowing electric lights, with an army of well-drilled, well-paid supers, with all the pomp and power of a king on the stage--who wouldn't fight for Harry? But the poor, obscure, unknown Harry of real life, who faithfully fights against poverty, disease, despair, who battles for the right, for his honor and salvation, without scenic effects, without any art, or author's directions, without any light or armor, without any aid or guides, without any one to show the way--this Harry, who will fight for him? Who does not fight against him? What fair damosel will deign to smile on him and shed some sunshine into his life? "This was on a street car, and I overheard a young woman say to her escort, 'Ah, if you would only put your gloves on as Mansfield does in "Beaucaire"!' So this was the great thing in the play--the manner in which 'Beaucaire' donned his gloves. And yet--fool that I was--I had wondered why an actor of Mansfield's surpassing talent should put on the stage such a trivial, trashy affair. And I had gone without gloves all winter in order that I might be able to see Mansfield. Heavens! But see, how the little niceties, the small delicacies and the petty graces on the stage and in books eclipse all our drudging and trudging, moiling and toiling in real life. We are expected to observe them whatever else we do. Failing in these we fail to win affections and are voted dead failures. Beside these we are expected to do things that can only be done in books and on the stage, under the auspices of Alexandre Dumas the elder and Victor Sardou, for instance. We are expected to equal those magic creatures of the imagination, the heroes with their opulent supplies of good looks, words and wealth, and their strange power to do aught on earth.