before this. I think my part in "Pizarro" saw the last of it. I was a
Worshiper of the Sun, and in a pink feather, pink swathings of muslin,
and black arms, I was again struck by my own beauty. I grew quite
attached to the looking-glass which reflected that feather! Then
suddenly there came a change. _I began to see the whole thing._ My
attentive watching of other people began to bear fruit, and the labor
and perseverance, care and intelligence which had gone to make these
enormous productions dawned on my young mind. _One must see things for
oneself._ Up to this time I had loved acting because it was great fun,
but I had not loved the grind. After I began to rehearse Prince Arthur
in "King John," a part in which my sister Kate had already made a great
success six years earlier, I understood that if I did not work, I could
not act. And I wanted to work. I used to get up in the middle of the
night and watch my gestures in the glass. I used to try my voice and
bring it down and up in the right places. And all vanity fell away from
me. At the first rehearsals of "King John" I could not do anything
right. Mrs. Kean stormed at me, slapped me. I broke down and cried, and
then, with all the mortification and grief in my voice, managed to
express what Mrs. Kean wanted and what she could not teach me by doing
it herself.

"That's right, that's right!" she cried excitedly, "you've got it! Now
remember what you did with your voice, reproduce it, remember
everything, and do it!"

When the rehearsal was over, she gave me a vigorous kiss. "You've done
very well," she said. "That's what I want. You're a very tired little
girl. Now run home to bed." I shall never forget the relief of those
kind words after so much misery, and the little incident often comes
back to me now when I hear a young actress say, "I can't do it!" If only