My unexpected candor proved rather confusing, for for a moment he
"Er-er-erd," and finally said: "I meant as a feature of acting, they are
good acting eyes, aren't they? Well, you don't find _them_ made up, do
you? Now listen to me, child, always be guided as far as possible by
nature. When you make up your face, you get powder on your eyelashes,
nature made them dark, so you are free to touch the lashes themselves
with ink or pomade, but you should not paint a great band about your eye,
with a long line added at the corner to rob it of every bit of
expression. And now as to the beauty this lining is supposed to bring,
some night when you have time I want you to try a little experiment. Make
up your face carefully, darken your brows and the lashes of one eye; as
to the other eye, you must load the lashes with black pomade, then draw a
black line beneath the eye, and a broad line on its upper lid, and a
final line out from the corner. The result will be an added lustre to the
made-up eye, a seeming gain in brilliancy; but now, watching your
reflection all the time, move slowly backward from the glass, and an odd
thing will happen, that made-up eye will gradually grow smaller and
smaller, until, at a distance much less than that of the auditorium, it
will really look more like a round black hole than anything else, and
will be absolutely without expression. You have an admirable stage
eye--an actor's eye, sensitive, expressive, well opened, it's a pity to
spoil it with a load of blacking."
And I said, gratefully: "I'll never do it again, sir," and I never have,
first from respect to a great actor's opinion, and gratitude for his
kindly interest, later having tried his experiment, from the conviction
that he was right, and finally because my tears would have sent inky
rivulets down my cheeks had I indulged in black-banded eyes. So in all
these years of work, just once, in playing a tricky, treacherous,
plotting female, that I felt should be a close-eyed, thin-lipped
creature, I have painted and elongated my eyes, otherwise I have kept my
promise "not to do it again."
I met Mr. Jefferson in Paris at that dreadful time when he was threatened
with blindness, and I never shall forget his gentle patience, his
marvelous courage. That was a day of real rejoicing to me, when the news
came that his sight was saved. Blindness coming upon any man is a horror,
but to a man who can see nature as Joseph Jefferson sees her it would
have been an almost incredible cruelty.