| | 1 | Author: | Phillips, David Graham, 1867-1911 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise, Volume II  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | SUSAN'S impulse was toward the stage. It had become a
definite ambition with her, the stronger because Spenser's
jealousy and suspicion had forced her to keep it a secret, to
pretend to herself that she had no thought but going on
indefinitely as his obedient and devoted mistress. The
hardiest and best growths are the growths inward—where they
have sun and air from without. She had been at the theater
several times every week, and had studied the performances at
a point of view very different from that of the audience. It
was there to be amused; she was there to learn. Spenser and
such of his friends as he would let meet her talked plays and
acting most of the time. He had forbidden her to have women
friends. "Men don't demoralize women; women demoralize each
other," was one of his axioms. But such women as she had a
bowing acquaintance with were all on the stage—in comic
operas or musical farces. She was much alone; that meant many
hours every day which could not but be spent by a mind like
hers in reading and in thinking. Only those who have observed
the difference aloneness makes in mental development, where
there is a good mind, can appreciate how rapidly, how broadly,
Susan expanded. She read plays more than any other kind of
literature. She did not read them casually but was always
thinking how they would act. She was soon making in
imagination stage scenes out of dramatic chapters in novels as
she read. More and more clearly the characters of play and
novel took shape and substance before the eyes of her fancy.
But the stage was clearly out of the question. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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