OH, those first tours! Not only was it exceedingly uncomfortable to travel in the South and West at that time, but it was decidedly risky as well. Highway robberies were numerous and, although I myself never happened to suffer at the hands of any desperadoes, I have often heard first-hand accounts from persons who had been robbed of everything they were carrying. While I was touring in Missouri, Jesse James and his men were operating in the same region and the celebrated highway man himself was once in the train with me. I slipped quietly through to catch a glimpse of him in the smoking-car. Two of his "aides" were with him and, although they were behaving themselves peacefully enough for the time being, I think that most of the passengers were willing to give them a wide berth. During one concert trip of our company I saw something of a situation which might have developed dramatically. There was a "three card monte" gang working on the train. One of their number pretended to be a farmer and entirely innocent, so as to lure victims into the game. I saw this particularly tough-looking individual disappear into the toilet room and come out made up as the farmer. It was like a play. I also saw him finger a pistol that he was carrying in his right hip pocket: and I experienced a somewhat blood-thirsty desire that there might be a genuine excitement in store for us, but the alarm spread and nobody was snared that trip.

As there were frequently no through trains on Sundays, we had sometimes to have special trains. I never quite understood the idea of not having through trains on Sundays, for surely other travellers besides unfortunate singers need occasionally to take journeys on the Sabbath. But so it was. And once our "special" ran plump into a big strike of locomotive engineers at Dayton, Ohio. Our engine driver was held up by the strikers bivouacked in the railroad yards and we were stalled there for hours. At last an engineer from the East was found who consented to take our train through and there was much excitement while he was being armed with a couple of revolvers and plenty of ammunition, for the strikers had threatened to shoot down any "scab" who attempted to break the strike. We were all ordered to get down on the floor of the car to avoid the stones that might be thrown through the windows when we started; and when the train began to move slowly our situation was decidedly trying. We could hear a hail of shots being fired, as the engine gathered speed, but our volunteer engineer knew his business and had been authorised to drive the engine at top speed to get us out of the trouble, so soon the noise of shooting and the general uproar were left behind. The plucky strike-breaker was barely grazed, but I, personally, never cared to come any closer to lawlessness than I was then.

There were some bright spots on these disagreeable journeys. One day as I was coming out of a hall in Duluth where I had been rehearsing for the concert we were giving that evening, I ran into a man I knew, an Englishman whom I had not seen since I was in London.

"There!" he exclaimed, "I knew it was you!"

"Did you see the advertisement?" I asked.

"No," he returned, "I'm just off the yacht that's lying out there in the Lake. I'm out looking into some mining interests, you know. I heard your voice from the boat and I knew it must be you, so I thought I'd take a run on shore and look you up."

But such pleasant experiences were the exception. The South in general was in a particularly blind and dull condition just then. The people could not conceive of any amusement that was not intended literally to "amuse." They felt it incumbent to laugh at everything. My cheval de bataille was the Polonaise from Mignon, at the end of which I had introduced some chromatic trills. It is a wonderful piece and required a great deal of genuine technique to master. A portion of the house would appreciate it, of course, but on one occasion a detestable young couple thought the trills were intended to be humorous. Whenever I sang a trill they would poke each other in the ribs and giggle and, when there was a series of the chromatic trills, they nearly burst. The chromatics introduced by me were never written. They went like this:

Musical notation.

One disapproving unit in an audience can spoil a whole evening for a singer. I recall one concert when I was obsessed by a man in the front row. He would not even look at me. Possibly he considered that I was a spoiled creature and he did not wish to aid and abet the spoiling, or, perhaps, he was really bored and disgusted. At any rate, he kept his eyes fixed on a point high over my head and not with a beatific expression, either. He clearly did not think much of my work. Well—I sang my whole programme to that one man. And I was a failure. Charmed I ever so wisely, I could not really move him. But I did make him uncomfortable! He wriggled and sat sidewise and clearly was uneasy. He must have felt that I was trying to win him over in spite of himself. I sometimes wonder if other singers do the same with obdurate auditors? Surely they must, for it is a sort of fetish of the profession that there is always one person present who is by far the most difficult to charm. In that clever play The Concert the pianist tells the young woman in love with him that he was first interested in her when he saw her in the audience because she did not cry. He played his best in order to moisten her eyes and, when he saw a tear roll down her cheek, he knew that he had triumphed as an artist. Our audiences were frequently inert and indiscriminating. One night an usher brought me a programme from some one in the audience with a suggestion scribbled on the margin:

"Can't you sing something devilish for a change?"

I believe they really wanted a song and dance, or a tight-rope exhibition. We had a baritone who sang well "The Evening Star" from Tannhauser and his performance frequently ended in a chill silence with a bit of half-hearted clapping. He had a sense of humour and he used to come off the stage and say:

"That didn't go very well! Do you think I'd better do my bicycle act next?"

Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen From a photograph
Clara Louise Kellogg as Carmen
From a photograph

Times change and standards with them. The towns where they yearned for bicycle acts and "something devilish" are to-day centres of musical taste and cultivation. I never think of the change of standards without being reminded of an old tale of my father's which is curious in itself, although I cannot vouch for it nor verify it. He said that somewhere in Germany there was a bell in a church tower which, when it was first hung, many years before, was pitched in the key of C and which was found to ring, in the nineteenth century, according to our present pitch, at about our B flat. The musical scientists said that the change was not in the bell but in our own standard of pitch, which had been gradually raised by the manufacturers of pianos who pitched them higher and higher to get a more brilliant tone.

My throat was very sensitive in those days. I took cold easily and used, besides, to be subject to severe nervous headaches. Yet I always managed to sing. Indeed, I have never had much sympathy with capricious prime donne who consider themselves and their own physical feelings before their obligation to the public that has paid to hear them. While, of course, in fairness to herself, a singer must somewhat consider her own interests, I do believe that she cannot be too conscientious in this connection. In Carmen one night I broke my collar bone in the fall in the last act. I was still determined to do my part and went out, after it had been set, and bought material to match my costumes so that the sling the surgeon had ordered should not be noticed. And, for once fortunately, my audiences were either not exacting or not observing, for, apparently, no comment was ever made on the fact that I could not use my right arm. I could not help questioning whether my gestures were usually so wooden that an arm, more or less, was not perceptible! Our experiences in general with physicians on the road were lamentable. As a result my mother carried a regular medicine chest about with her and all of my fellow-artists used to come to her when anything was the matter with them.

Another hardship that we all had to endure was the being on exhibition. It is one of the penalties of fame. Special trains were most unusual, and so were prime donne, and crowds used to gather on the station platforms wherever we stopped, waiting to catch a glimpse of us as we passed through.

And the food! Some of our trials in regard to food—or, rather, the lack of it—were very trying. Voices are very dependent on the digestion; hence the need of, at least, eatable food, however simple it may be. On one trip we really nearly starved to death for, of course, there were no dining-cars and the train did not stop at any station long enough to forage for a square meal. Finally, in desperation, I told one of the men in the company that, if he would get some "crude material" at the next stop and bring it in, I would cook it. So he succeeded in securing a huge bundle of raw chops, a loaf of bread and some butter. There was a big stove at one end of the car and on its coals I broiled the chops, made tea and toast, and we all feasted. Indeed, it seemed a feast after ten hours with nothing at all! Another time I got off our "special" to hunt luncheon and was left behind. I raced wildly to catch the train but could not make it. After a while the company discovered that they had lost me on the way and backed up to get me. Speaking of food, I shall never forget the battle royal I once had with a hotel manager on the road in regard to my coloured maid, Eliza. She was a very nice and entirely presentable girl and he would not let her have even a cup of tea in the dining-room. We had had a long, hard journey, and she was quite as tired as the rest of us. So, when I found her still waiting after I had lunched, I made a few pertinent remarks to the effect that her presence at the table was much to be preferred to the men who had eaten there without table manners, uncouth, feeding themselves with their knives.

"And what else did we have the war for!" I finally cried. How the others laughed at me. But Eliza was fed, and well fed, too.

I had always to carry my own bedclothes on the Western tours. When we first started out, I did not realise the necessity, but later, I became wiser. Cleanliness has always been almost more than godliness to me. Before I would use a dressing-room I nearly always had it thoroughly swept out and sometimes cleaned and scrubbed. This all depended on the part of the country we were in. I came to know that in certain sections of the South-west I should have to have a regular house-cleaning done before I would set foot in their accommodations. I missed my bath desperately, and my piano, and all the other luxuries that have become practical necessities to civilised persons. When I could not have a state-room on a train, my maid would bring a cup of cold water to my berth before I dressed that was a poor apology for a bath, but that saved my life on many a morning after a long, stuffy night in a sleeper.

The lesser hardships perhaps annoyed me most. Bad food, bad air, rough travelling, were worse than the more serious ills of fatigue and indispositions. But the worst of all was the water. One can, at a pinch, get along with poor food or with no food at all to speak of, but bad water is a much more serious matter. Even dirt is tolerable if it can be washed off afterwards. But I have seen many places where the water was less inviting than the dirt. When I first beheld Missouri water I hardly dared wash in it, much less drink it, and was appalled when it was served to me at the table. I gazed with horror at the brown liquid in my tumbler, and then said faintly to the waiter:

"Can't you get me some clear water, please?"

"Oh, yes," said he, "it'll be clearer, ma'am, but it won't be near so rich!"

And all the time I was working, for, no matter what the hardships or distractions that may come an artist's way, he or she must always keep at work. Singing is something that must be worked for just as hard after it is won as during the winning process. Liszt is supposed to have said that when he missed practising one day he knew it; when he missed two days his friends knew it; on the third day the public knew it. I often rehearsed before a mirror, so that I could know whether I looked right as well as sounded right; and, apropos of this, I have been much impressed by the fact that ways of rehearsing are very different and characteristic. Ellen Terry once told me that, when she had a new part to study, she generally got into a closed carriage, with the window open, and was driven about for two or three hours, working on her lines.

"It is the only way I can keep my repose," she said. "I only wish I had some of Henry's repose when studying a part!"

Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicar and Olivia From a photograph by Window & Grove
Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry as the Vicar and Olivia
From a photograph by Window & Grove