What a story of endeavor those eighteen years had told. I have given many pages to it, but among the “Vanya” notices I find this unidentified bit which reflects the spirit of it all: Lillian Gish, who has ever held high the torch of beauty during her entire career as stage and screen star, and with undeviating purpose has been representative of the finest and best traditions of the theater, adds another triumph to her list of admirable achievements. As the ethereal and wistful Helena she is all the author could have hoped for. Something more intangible she gives to the rôle than her delicate loveliness, her undeniable charm and the richness of her experience as a sincere and gifted actress. VI RELIVING THE YEARS It became our custom to work two afternoons a week—Tuesdays and Fridays, and on the hour I found her always ready. Whatever engagement she made, she would keep it; whatever promise, even a partial one. I think she was born with that conscience, and the years of rigid picture appointments had kept it in repair. Griffith had said to her: “You, as the star, must never fail to be there. The others will take their cue from you. _You_ must be on time.” And she always had been on time, and ahead of time. Once, by a lapse of memory on my part, I missed an appointment when we were to see one of the old pictures together. If she had scalded me with censure, I should have felt better—if she had even shown a little irritation, instead of anxiously helping me to find excuses, I could better have borne it. Five minutes later, it had passed from her memory, but it refuses to pass from mine. We saw a number of the old pictures, that winter, as has appeared in earlier chapters: Lillian, in “Broken Blossoms,” the picture that had made her the “world’s darling” and is still today recognized as the highest point touched by the pictures, for beauty and artistic perfection. I insisted on seeing this picture twice, for it seemed to me her masterpiece. From the moment she enters the picture, her whole attitude, her face, her hands, her feet, her bowed shoulders and bent back—every part and feature of her, tell her crushed, stunted, trampled life. Of course, her wistful beauty added to the pathos of it all, but Lillian without beauty—if one can conceive that possibility—would have achieved a triumph. When she crosses the street, stoops to pick up the tin foil which she gathers to sell, looks into the shop window, touches the flower she wants, one’s heart turns fairly sick for the broken child. She had not wished to play the part, because it was of a child of twelve. “I wanted Griffith to get a girl of that age.” “But a girl of twelve could never have done it.” She did not answer, only mentioned that she had been ill at the time. “Do you consider it your best picture?” She hesitated. “If not, what would be your choice?” Again she hesitated, then: