“To be loud and spectacular where I wanted to be refined and subtle,” you said, “just to catch some rough audience and fill the house, would be insupportable.  And yet I know actresses ofttimes must do that very thing, to keep a foothold in the profession.”

I am wondering how you will meet what seems to me a more humiliating role, when you are sent out by an editor to gain an entree to some person who does not wish to be interviewed.

Will you, when refused entrance at the front door, go in at the rear and hobnob with the servants? will you spy, and watch and wait on street corners, and hide yourself in hallways, and intercept and surprise, and congratulate yourself when you have trapped your prey?  That is the shameful pathway which nowadays leads to what is called “successful newspaper work.”

You need to realize the facts before you enter the profession.  Were you my daughter, I am certain I should feel much less concern were you to enter the theatrical field.

And yet if you choose to stand by your ideals, and retain your self-respect, you can do so, and succeed in journalism.

If you have, as you say, observation, expression, humour, and ambition, you can create a style of your own:  which will not necessitate the loss of all womanly sense of decency and pride in dealing with your fellow beings.  It might be well for you to cultivate and add to the list of your qualities appreciation of all that is best in human nature and worthiest of respect.  If you understand the law of concentration and demand, you can obtain an entrance to the people you wish to see, through the front hall and a properly engraved card.

If that fails, a polite and frank note, stating your purpose and intimating your self-respecting ideas of your profession, may prove effective.  Once establish your reputation as an interviewer who is not a highwayman in disguise, and you will achieve tenfold the success your less reputable confreres gain in the long run.  Try and remember always that fame, glory, or even crime, do not destroy all human sensibilities, or render the possessor invulnerable to the thrust of a pen.

The greatest warrior who ever conquered armies has still the power to feel hurt when he sees some personal blemish or misfortune described in print.

You would never be guilty of saying to any man’s face, “How hideous your harelip renders you”—­and why should you go from his presence and make such a statement to the whole world concerning him?  One of the most gifted men America ever claimed was driven from his native land by the cruel, bald, and heartless personalities of newspaper critics, who seemed to consider it necessary to comment on his physical infirmities whenever his genius was mentioned.

During the lifetime of one of England’s great literary women, an American correspondent who had been given an interview in her home described her as possessing the “face of a horse.”  Surely this was agreeable reading for a gifted woman whose genius had delighted thousands!