The more one studies the stage the more one is surprised by its disregard of principles that govern every-day, ordinary affairs. Perhaps it is because actors are all children, who have clung tenaciously to playing Indian in the hall, and shooting tigers under the parlor sofa long after the rest of us have grown up. It is a good thing for the world that "temperament" is so largely confined to the paste-board walls of the theater; or we might see our grocer sulking over his butter, or railway presidents impetuously ordering off trains because they had taken a sudden distaste to the landscape of some state. Self-interest, that sheet anchor of society, is but a kedge to the theatrical ship, and many plow the main without even that. Caprice often outweighs all money-making considerations; and though we are far from decrying those who sacrifice dollars to art (and there are many), may one not be a little peevish with the others, whose vanity and wilfulness often take such spiteful forms?
It certainly cost Shamus O’Dowd all of twelve thousand dollars, if not double or treble that amount to close the run at the Herald Square Theater and bring it to a peremptory conclusion. From his Rocky Mountain ranch he had watched, with a grinding and increasing anger, the success of the man to whom he had left his rôle. The swelling royalty returns exasperated him; the laudatory notices, sent in such profusion by Kemmel (who was innocent enough to think they would please)--were as tongues of flame leaping up the legs of a captive at the stake (such fat legs as they were, and with such an ample scorching surface), and all the talk of another theater and a second company clogged his eyes with blood, and seared his low, coarse face with the furrows of an intolerable indignation.
Nightly for twenty-five years he had been taking others’ crimes on his brawny shoulders--murder, arson, embezzlement, forgery--he grabbed for them all, never so happy as when misjudged, with only the audience in the secret of his sacrifice; nobody on the stage could do anything wrong without his making a rush to take the blame--and the oaths he kept with an incredible fidelity; the superb impulses that started from him as freely as perspiration; his goodness, chivalry, and almost insensate honor--! Oh, the irony of reality as contrasted with those affecting fictions!