THE DRAMATIC IMPULSE
At five I was sent to school. Among my teachers in the Grove Street
School, Melrose, was Miss Alice Swett, who remains a dear, good friend
to this day. She was ever kind and sympathetic to me, and I always loved
her, although I was often rebellious and unmanageable. My own reckless
nature, impatient at restraint, could never endure the order and
confinement of the classroom.
The dynamic energy, which has suffered little curb in the passing of
years, was even then a characteristic to be reckoned with; displays of
lively temper were not infrequent, but the method of punishment at an
isolated desk in view of the entire class was far too enjoyable to serve
as a correction for my ebullient spirits and was abruptly discontinued.
Miss Swett was my teacher for several years. While her affection and
trust never wavered, I doubt if she ever quite understood the
harum-scarum girl in her charge.
[Illustration: MISS FARRAR AND MRS. LONG, HER FIRST SINGING TEACHER]
Only the other day, visiting me in my New York home and commenting
upon some unconventional act of mine, she sighed and said: "Geraldine,
where are you going to end?"
"Well, I may brush the gallows in the wild flight of my career," I
replied laughingly, "but I'll never be really hanged."
Those years at the Grove Street School, when I was developing from
childhood into young girlhood, were full of excitement, romance, and
expectations. But I looked upon them as a trying period which had to be
endured before I could devote myself entirely to my ambition. I was full
of both temper and temperament, and an unlimited supply of high spirits
which manifested themselves in various unusual ways--singing and acting,
idealizing myself as many of the heroines whose gracious images
intoxicated my imagination. At times I walked on air, and always my head
was filled with dreams and hopes of this marvelous career.
It was at this time that I wrote a play, "Rapunzel of the Golden Hair,"
based upon an old fairy story. As usual I wished always to be the
heroine, yet Fate had not bestowed the necessary golden locks upon me.
My dark hair was worn short, and I must have looked much like an impish
boy. Then, my dramatic vision had soulful eyes and an angelic
expression. But instead of looking like an angel I was more like a gypsy
at the distressing gosling stage, too undeveloped; yet I dreamed of the
times when I would appear before immense audiences as the beautiful
heroine of my dreams and hold them fascinated by my song and
personality. I always had the utmost faith in a certain power of
magnetism; it seemed as though from my youngest days I felt that I could
influence others, and often I experimented just to see what effects I
could produce.
The impulse to dramatize everything found an opportunity, when I was
about ten years old, in the arrival in town of the brother of a girl
friend. This boy, slightly older than I, had been educated in England
and had brought back exquisite manners and an English accent that
greatly impressed the young ladies of my class. I need hardly mention
the fact that these attributes were looked upon with contempt by the
masculine element, who had no small measure of derision for the youthful
Chesterfield. I had cared little for and never encouraged boy
sweethearts, but this youngster's exclusive admiration did arouse my
interest. I felt flattered for a short time. But alas! he was unmusical
to a degree, and companionship suddenly terminated, on my side, when I
found that he was to be neither subjugated by my singing nor thrilled
by my acting.
One day I rebuffed him when he tried to walk home with me after school,
offering to carry my books. Puzzled, he made a formal call on my mother,
doubtless with a view to a reconciliation, and asked permission to
accompany me as usual.
My mother laughed and told him to ask me.
"I have asked Miss Geraldine," he said sadly; "but she does not seem to
care for my attentions."
A few days later he went skating, the ice broke, and he was drowned.
Instantly I became a widow. Drama--real drama--had come into my life,
and with all the feeling of an instinctive actress I played my role. I
dressed in black; abandoned all gayeties; went to and from school
mopping my eyes with a black-bordered handkerchief; and the other boys
and girls stood aside in silence as I passed, leaving me alone with my
grief.
For six weeks I played the tragedy; and then in the twinkling of an eye
the mood, in which I had been genuinely serious, passed away. In life
this young boy had meant absolutely nothing to me; in death he became a
dramatic possibility which I utilized unconsciously as an outlet for my
emotion. I was not pretending; I was terribly in earnest. I actually
believed in my grief. Who can say that it was "only acting"?
A temper, which I regret to confess time has not very much chastened,
came to the front in my school days, to the dismay of my mother. In
1892, when I was ten years old, the city of Melrose held a carnival and
celebration to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of America. Floats were planned to represent the thirteen
original States. The selection of the school girl to impersonate
Massachusetts fell to my class in the Grove Street School, and I was
anxious for this honor, not only because of the personal glory and
prominence, but because I really believed that I could impersonate
Massachusetts better than any other girl in the class!
Well, I did appear as Massachusetts, and, with the other "twelve
States," was driven through the streets of Melrose, mounted on the
float, bearing the flag of the nation. But two girls in the school, who
had voted against me in the election, watched me from afar with swollen
and blackened eyes; I had struck them in a moment of quick anger because
their choice had been against me.
[Illustration: A YOUNG GIRL WITH A PHENOMENAL SOPRANO VOICE]
The following winter, while many of the boys and girls were skating,
a boy of twelve or thirteen, named Clarence, annoyed me exceedingly by
trying to trip me with his hockey stick. I warned him three times that
he "had better let me alone," but he persisted in his persecution. After
the third time, I skated to shore, picked up my umbrella, carefully tore
three of the steel ribs from it and, with these as a whip, I thrashed
Clarence. Clarence "sat" with discomfort for some days, and I believe
his mother seriously contemplated making a police charge against me for
beating him.
This temper--or temperament--often found expression at home in moods,
when for hours, sometimes days, I wouldn't break silence. If any one
interfered with or spoke to me during these moments I felt just as
though some one were combing my nerves the wrong way with a fine,
grating comb. My mother was wise enough to leave me alone in my intense
irritability and depression. She appreciated the extremes of my nature,
which were somewhat like the well-known little girl of our childhood
rhymes:
"When she was good she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid."
I fear, at times, I was very, very horrid. But I planned a danger
signal! One day I came home with a pair of most distinctive
black-and-white checked stockings, the most hideous things one can
imagine.
"Mother," I said, "when I wear these stockings I want to be let alone."
Thus it was an understood thing that no one should speak to me or notice
me in the least while these horrors adorned me. Perhaps after a few
hours, or a day, I would go up the back stairs, change my stockings--and
the sun would shine again.
It was at this time that I was the victim of an accident which resulted
in a neat bit of surgery. My mother and I were spending a summer in the
little village of Sandwich, New Hampshire. I was crazy to carve a small
horse out of wood, and went down to the woodshed in the rear of the
country house where we were staying, armed with a hatchet and followed
by an admiring youngster from the village. The hatchet was very sharp.
My experience in carving wooden horses was limited. Suddenly the hatchet
came down and clipped a tiny bit off the extreme ends of my left thumb
and forefinger.
I screamed with agony and cried in amazement as the poor little bleeding
tips of my fingers fell to the floor, but the country boy, with
wonderful presence of mind, picked them up, and keeping them warm in his
closed hand, ran with me at full speed to the nearest doctor.
Fortunately, he happened to be at home. When the village boy showed him
the wounded hand and the tiny bleeding bits of finger, he clamped them
instantly on the fingers where they belonged, put on ointments, and
bound them tight with bandages. This marvelous surgery, without a stitch
being taken, actually was successful; the fingers healed, and now only a
slight scar remains.
I regret to say that this physician, whose presence of mind thus saved
my fingers from being permanently mutilated, is entirely unknown to me
now. Some few years ago, in Boston, I told this story in an interview,
and a physician wrote me from some other city that he was the man who
had saved my fingers for me. I wrote and thanked him for his kindness
toward a little girl; but his letter was mislaid and destroyed, so that
even now I do not know his name. Wherever he is, however, he will always
have my thanks and warmest admiration.
Finally, the time came for me to enter the Melrose High School. I
objected seriously to the further routine of public schooling, as I
wished to study only music. But both my father and mother insisted; so I
began the study of languages. I was intensely interested in mythology,
history, and literature, but I hated mathematics. I always preferred to
count on my fingers rather than to use my brain for such merely
mechanical feats as adding or multiplying figures. In the study of
languages I soon found that my teachers were excellent grammarians, but
I pleaded that I wanted to learn to talk and not merely to conjugate.
I took a supplementary course in literature, and well remember the most
important incident when I competed for the prize. I was quite sure my
essay would win. In fancy I had already rehearsed the pretty speech in
which I should thank the committee for the honor conferred on me. But
the prize went to some one else. My anger was sudden and hot. Then and
there I made up my mind that if ever I could not be first in what I
attempted, I would drop it at once. I believed my material was best and
deserved the prize, and I was hurt at not conquering before an admiring
and enthusiastic audience!
[Illustration: GROWING UP]
Thus I early learned that maybe I could not always win, could not always
be first; that perseverance must aid natural talents; and that it is
cowardly to drop a thing when at first you don't succeed. The sting of
adverse criticism may often prove the best of tonics! I have since found
it so.