I can’t express in words the remarkable appearance made by some of our seagoing chorus girls when they attempt to assume the light and airy graces of the real article.  Some of the men have so deeply entered into their parts that they have attained absolute self-forgetfulness, with the result that they leap and preen about in a manner quite startling to the dispassionate spectator.  My career so far has not been a personal triumph.  In the middle of a number, the other night, the dancing master clapped his hands violently together, a signal he uses when he wants all motion to cease.

“Take ’em down to the end of the room, boys,” he said.  “I can tell three minutes ahead of time when things are going to go wrong.  That man on the end didn’t have a thought in his head.  He would have smeared the entire number.”  I was the man on the end.

May 23d. This has not been a particularly agreeable day, although to a woman no doubt it would have been laden with moments of exquisite ecstasy.  Feminine apparel for me has lost for ever the charm of mystery that formerly touched it with enchantment.  There is nothing I do not know now.  Its innermost secret has been revealed and its revelation has brought with it its full burden of woe.  All knowledge is pain and vice versa.  I have always admired women; whether so profoundly as they have admired me I know not; however that may be, I have always admired them collectively and individually in the past, but after today’s experience my admiration is tinged with pity.  The source of these reflections lies in no less an article than a corset.  As a Show Girl, it has been my lot to be provided with one of these fiendish devices of medieval days.  It is too much.  The corset must go.  No woman could have experienced the pain and discomfort I have been subjected to this day without feeling entitled to the vote.  Yet I dare say there are women who would gladly be poured into a new corset every day of their lives.  They can have mine for the asking.  Life at its best presents a narrow enough outlook without resorting to cunningly wrought devices such as corsets in order further to confine one’s point of view or abdomen, which amounts to the same thing.  The whale is a noble animal, it was a very good idea, the whale, and I love every bone in its body, so long as it keeps them there.  So tightly was my body clutched in the embrace of this vicious contraption that I found it impossible to inhale my much needed cigarette.  The smoke would descend no further than my throat.  The rest of me was a closed port, a roadway blocked to traffic.  I have suffered.

But there were also other devices, other soft, seductive under strappings.  I know them all to their last most intimate detail.  I feel that now I could join a woman’s sewing circle and talk with as much authority and wisdom as the most veteraned corset wearer present.  My views would be radical perhaps but at least they would have the virtue of being refreshing.