called “Justyn Bloodygood” or “Samkin Steelheart.” Indeed, it is amazing how closely these villains resemble one another; they are all fancy dressers, they are all thin, they all talk in a nastily grammatical manner, and they are all cowards at heart. My life has not brought me into close association with many important criminals, but I have known a few very unpleasant types who were fat, sloppy, illiterate and braver than the average Good Citizen. But then, art is always superior to truth.
• O F H IS L INK WITH THE Q UEEN M OTHER •
T HE PAPERS tell me that Queen Mary will be eighty next Monday. There is an interesting link between myself and the Queen Mother which I do not think Her Majesty would see any reason to suppress, and of which I am very proud. In the days when I earned my living in the disreputable but amusing profession of an actor I once played the role of Snout the Tinker in a production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
at the Old Vic in London; Her Majesty brought her granddaughters to a matinee, and in one of the intervals summoned the stars of the play (I was not one of them) to her box. “You know, I once played in
The Dream
when I was a girl,” she said; “I played Snout.” When this news was told to me, I immediately prepared myself for a summons to the Royal Box, being sure that the Queen would wish to discuss the fine points of the role with me; after all it is not every day that a couple of veteran Snouts get together. But, alas, the summons never came. An oversight, no doubt, or some jealousy of me in Court circles.
•O F P ERFORMING A NIMALS •
I WENT TO A CIRCUS last night and the first thing on the programme was a girl who exhibited some trained goats. My mind immediately flew to Hugo’s
Notre Dame de Paris
, in which the heroine, Esmeralda, had a trained goat which could spell out the name of her lover, Phoebus de Chateaupers, which is no small feat, when you think about it. There are plenty of stenographers who couldn’t do as well. But the circus goats were not nearly so accomplished, and the act retired in disgrace after the star goat fell off a bar on which it was walking, and almost hanged itself in its halter.… There are people who object strongly to performances given by animals. Indeed, I believe that there is an organization called The Jack London Society, the members of which are pledged to rise and leave any place in which a performing animal appears—even if it be only on a movie screen. I think that is carrying humanitarianism to extremes. When I see a dog like Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin in the films, I realize that it is the pampered darling of the studio, and has more money in the bank than I have, and probably rides to its job in a Dusenberg with special body work.
• O F I DLENESS •
Y ES , INDEED it was a beautiful day—the first this summer—and I could do nothing but admire the weather. I strove to write, as usual, but, in Spenser’s lines:
… words came halting forth, wanting invention’s stay;
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet seemed still but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write …
I looked in my heart, but found nothing there save a great longing to be idle.
• O F E NNOBLED M UMMERS •
T HE KING HAS MADE Laurence Olivier a knight “in spite of the fact,” says one paper, “that Mr. Olivier was divorced in 1939.” I wonder if this is the first time that a divorced actor has been given such an honour? Usually theatrical knighthoods are distributed for good conduct more than for ability, and I have even heard wicked actors refer to such a knighthood, sneeringly, as The Order of Chastity. The first actor to be knighted was Henry Irving, about whom Queen Victoria had never heard anything bad, and who had in the highest degree the Victorian ability
• O F H IS L INK WITH THE Q UEEN M OTHER •
T HE PAPERS tell me that Queen Mary will be eighty next Monday. There is an interesting link between myself and the Queen Mother which I do not think Her Majesty would see any reason to suppress, and of which I am very proud. In the days when I earned my living in the disreputable but amusing profession of an actor I once played the role of Snout the Tinker in a production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
at the Old Vic in London; Her Majesty brought her granddaughters to a matinee, and in one of the intervals summoned the stars of the play (I was not one of them) to her box. “You know, I once played in
The Dream
when I was a girl,” she said; “I played Snout.” When this news was told to me, I immediately prepared myself for a summons to the Royal Box, being sure that the Queen would wish to discuss the fine points of the role with me; after all it is not every day that a couple of veteran Snouts get together. But, alas, the summons never came. An oversight, no doubt, or some jealousy of me in Court circles.
•O F P ERFORMING A NIMALS •
I WENT TO A CIRCUS last night and the first thing on the programme was a girl who exhibited some trained goats. My mind immediately flew to Hugo’s
Notre Dame de Paris
, in which the heroine, Esmeralda, had a trained goat which could spell out the name of her lover, Phoebus de Chateaupers, which is no small feat, when you think about it. There are plenty of stenographers who couldn’t do as well. But the circus goats were not nearly so accomplished, and the act retired in disgrace after the star goat fell off a bar on which it was walking, and almost hanged itself in its halter.… There are people who object strongly to performances given by animals. Indeed, I believe that there is an organization called The Jack London Society, the members of which are pledged to rise and leave any place in which a performing animal appears—even if it be only on a movie screen. I think that is carrying humanitarianism to extremes. When I see a dog like Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin in the films, I realize that it is the pampered darling of the studio, and has more money in the bank than I have, and probably rides to its job in a Dusenberg with special body work.
• O F I DLENESS •
Y ES , INDEED it was a beautiful day—the first this summer—and I could do nothing but admire the weather. I strove to write, as usual, but, in Spenser’s lines:
… words came halting forth, wanting invention’s stay;
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet seemed still but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write …
I looked in my heart, but found nothing there save a great longing to be idle.
• O F E NNOBLED M UMMERS •
T HE KING HAS MADE Laurence Olivier a knight “in spite of the fact,” says one paper, “that Mr. Olivier was divorced in 1939.” I wonder if this is the first time that a divorced actor has been given such an honour? Usually theatrical knighthoods are distributed for good conduct more than for ability, and I have even heard wicked actors refer to such a knighthood, sneeringly, as The Order of Chastity. The first actor to be knighted was Henry Irving, about whom Queen Victoria had never heard anything bad, and who had in the highest degree the Victorian ability
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