Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/19



Most of us fall into our life jobs by chance. We do not become department-store buyers, state policemen, railway mail clerks or candy makers because of any driving urge to these particular vocations, but because the paths of least resistance drifted us that way. We have—worse luck—to make a living, and this or that was the best or the first that offered.

The actor and the actress do not, with rare exceptions, drift on to the stage. They make a dead set for it. Nor do they think of it in terms of meal tickets. They cross the footlights out of an egotistic desire to strut before an admiring world. They hope romantically to win a fortune along with their pictures in the papers, but always they have been willing to starve cheerfully if accompanied by adequate publicity.

I do not sneer at this vanity; rather do I share it. Applause is sweet and most of the