Even then I used to appear upon the stage in parts suitable to my
age. I was a precocious little thing in many ways. My mother's death
caused me a grief far more acute than most children, even a good deal
older than I was then, are capable of feeling. How well I remember being
punished because I refused to act the part of one of Medea's children,
the day after she died. But my grief was not very long-lived--I was but
a child after all, and the actors and actresses of the troupe were so
good to me, always petting me, and devising all sorts of ways to please
and divert me--theatrical people are proverbially kind to comrades in
distress, you know. The pedant, who belonged to our company, and looked
just as old and wrinkled then as he does now, took the greatest interest
in me, constituted himself my master, and taught me thoroughly and
indefatigably all the secrets of the histrionic art--taking unwearied
pains with me. I could not have had a better teacher; perhaps you do not
know that he has a great reputation, even in Paris. You will wonder that
a man of his fame and attainments should be found in a strolling company
of players like this, but his unfortunate habits of intemperance have
been the cause of all his troubles. He was professor of elocution in one
of the celebrated colleges, holding an enviable and lucrative position,
but lost it because of his inveterate irregularities.
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