Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1884 — Beauty and Genius. [ARTICLE]

Beauty and Genius.

“Then you rate beauty as a valuable stage quality,” said the reporter. Here Miss Morris looked serious and said: “I once told a little English actress, a friend of mine, who was to make her first appearance in America in an unimportant part, how I had suffered on account of attacks on my personal appearance. As she expressed a disbelief in the possibility of such a thing, I said: ‘I will prophesy just what will be said of you on your first appearance. There will be a few lines commenting on your personal appearance, and, at the very end, the critic will say a word of your art, but your body will come first.’ It was just as I said. “Beauty carries a long way on the stage as elsewhere; we have shining examples of it daily, and the homely women must suffer everything in the way of jeers. No matter what the art, the critic first looks at the ‘presence.’ It is difficult for a conscientious student to accept this, but a few years of constant repetition forces it forward.”— Interview with Clara Morris.