That is why actors and actresses are always such
delightful company: they are not ashamed to talk about themselves.
I remember a dinner-party once: our host was one of the best-known
barristers in London. A famous lady novelist sat on his right, and a
scientist of world-wide reputation had the place of honour next our
hostess, who herself had written a history of the struggle for
nationality in South America that serves as an authority to all the
Foreign Offices in Europe. Among the remaining guests were a bishop,
the editor-in-chief of a London daily newspaper, a man who knew the
interior of China as well as most men know their own club, a Russian
revolutionist just escaped from Siberia, a leading dramatist, a
Cabinet Minister, and a poet whose name is a household word wherever
the English tongue is spoken. And for two hours we sat and listened
to a wicked-looking little woman who from the boards of a Bowery
music-hall had worked her way up to the position of a star in musical
comedy. Education, as she observed herself without regret, had not
been compulsory throughout the waterside district of Chicago in her
young days; and, compelled to earn her own living from the age of
thirteen, opportunity for supplying the original deficiency had been
wanting. But she knew her subject, which was Herself--her
experiences, her reminiscences: and bad sense enough to stick to it.
Until the moment when she took "the liberty of chipping in," to use
her own expression, the amount of twaddle talked had been appalling.
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