[In 1874 Miss Cushman bade farewell to New York at Booth's Theatre,
after a performance as Lady Macbeth. William Cullen Bryant presented
an ode in her honour. In the course of her response Miss Cushman
said:]
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you.
Gentlemen, the heart has no speech; its only language is a tear or a
pressure of the hand, and words very feebly convey or interpret its
emotions. Yet I would beg you to believe that in the three little
words I now speak, 'I thank you,' there are heart depths which I
should fail to express better, though I should use a thousand other
words. I thank you, gentlemen, for the great honour you have offered
me. I thank you, not only for myself, but for my whole profession, to
which, through and by me, you have paid this very grateful compliment.
If the few words I am about to say savour of egotism or vainglory, you
will, I am sure, pardon me, inasmuch as I am here only to speak of
myself. You would seem to compliment me upon an honourable life. As
I look back upon that life, it seems to me that it would have been
impossible for me to have led any other. In this I have, perhaps,
been mercifully helped more than are many of my more beautiful sisters
in art. I was, by a press of circumstances, thrown at an early age
into a profession for which I had received no special education or
training; but I had already, though so young, been brought face to
face with necessity. I found life sadly real and intensely earnest,
and in my ignorance of other ways of study, I resolved to take
therefrom my text and my watchword. To be thoroughly in earnest,
intensely in earnest in all my thoughts and in all my actions, whether
in my profession or out of it, became my one single idea. And I
honestly believe herein lies the secret of my success in life. I do
not believe that any great success in any art can he achieved without
it....