"Think of a fact -- double it -- add some fiction to it -- mul-
tiply the sum by surmise, add a sufficient amount of quotation!
Divide the result into chapters -- take away the fact you first
thought of, and a biography remains."

Thus a caustic commentator described the modern tendency
in recording the lives of great men. One would think that such
a process was due merely to the poverty of material. In the
present instance, facts are as plentiful as blackberries -- the diffi-
culty has been only one of selection -- for the subject of these
memoirs has been busy with conflicts and fruitful in opinions.

The story of Julia Marlowe is so much a part of the American
Theatre that I have often pleaded she should relate it herself.
This she has been disinclined to do, so I have ventured to tell
the tale of her unique adventure as she has so often repeated
it to me. To lend vitality to the narrative, I have made her speak
in the first person, in the hope that, to quote the clown in
The Winter's Tale it may prove "a doleful matter merrily set
down" or at least "a very pleasant thing indeed and sung la-
mentably."

E. H.S.

-vii-