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sad van tabs Vivien Blackburn, the Famous “Fencing Girl,” Tells How Her Beauty Thwarted Ambition and Closed the “Right Doors of Love/’ I READ recently with the keen est interest and sympathy Edna Goodrich’s talk in this newspaper about the disadvan tages of being a great beauty. I have suffered so much more than Miss Goodrich, can tell so much of the unhappiness that beauty brings, the toll it takes, that I felt it my duty to add my experiences to her record. In her article, Miss Goodrich went more into the general aspect of the question. I propose to tell specifically how my beauty thwarted me in my ambition at every turn for ten years, not only closing the only entrance to the stage that. I desired, but closing as well every exit in life through which my heart desired to go. The first happened because it is the tradition that a beautiful woman cannot be intelligent, and the second, because the kind of man who is impelled to propose mar ■iage to a beauty is not the kind i thoughtful girl would choose as mate. A girl who is unfortunate enough io be known as “A Beauty” has had thrust upon her the most dreadful handicap imaginable. If she happens to be a girl on the stage, and particularly a girl in musical comedy, she has no future, unless she has a courage, a deter mination. a bulldog tenacity that laughs at disappointments and after each fresh discouragement arises with a fresh determination not to be a slave of her looks. With the same amount of pluck, of work and of brains, a girl who Is not so handicapped, will progress further in one year than the beauty will in ten! It has been proven that in fash ionable society there are, out of every ten unhappy married women, seven beauties to three of average appearance. The records of the divorce courts show’ that rarely is a plain woman called upon to sever her marital bonds, and still more rarely is she divorced because she has been at fault. In the average circle of life beauty is a constant disturber of he peace, while to be beautiful ir kv m It / p-Sa- ;X 3>' • <v-- 'ax-' ®Jz / Ktf mEET:' JS W WwWffF- / Sr SSSS9S > ' , k X -S 1 Vivien Blackburn as She Is Now. Not So Prettv Ml » Relieved of Her Handicap of Exeeaai.e PflkJritaS" “’ JmII x- vi yjMaff s W|F WHS f>* H * < w sr « • ■ ■>.<» ■< - ' ~~<X .W& ’£• -M 4? > ”i’<B 8 I jh; • g 4,W ■-•■;■ ■ , “I wanted to bi - --'g» a great actress. .. jr* : - x *» All the managers s~.p*s W wanted me to I ‘ d° was to wear t ' I clothes and ,' g smile. This is fe'B M >- ’ WwllWb 4 -1 one my ph°- B. ss jj ”*' I] 111 w tographs at that 8p ws>v sta s e ” id iZJT Wtr*S i tSKjr $ lif IIP*' - - Vwn f IIW 'S-T nss fe ,*- *4/-'»j|®.'T-' sal >■ U - w w>ll!iw BIW I i I .>< 1 V 4 Wt' ? «< I 1 "'X/? | t Vw* S' ■'* « i‘ |fer -1 1 I K3r> ' ; x ' 'sM-mM -: ■ ’3k is- '• 1 ' ( - s' ~ * c"^^ — z V ‘ ' ' ' ' —r©lO’X. . ..... * , •' By VIVIEN BLACKBURN The Famous “Fencing Girl.” the lower circles is dreadful in deed for the woman. What is the reason for all this? When I was only a little girl, just turning ten, I had a forerunner of the bitter experiences that were to befall me in later life. I had been one of a close group of school girls. One day one of them gave a party- and I was the only one not invited. I was heartbroken I cried my eyes out. I didn’t go to school for a week. When 1 did I asked one of the little girls why I had not been invited to the party , becau9e you’re too pretty, Vivien, she said. "Maudie was jealous of you, and she told me that she was tired of hearing every one say: ‘My, what a pretty eirl Vivien Blackburn is.’” / / // Wf W / / ' // \ \ /vi \ \ / / l&frv \ \ / / ■? Wh ■ Wshs.' \ \ »y - I © W* \\ In that little incident you get a clear cut example of what goes on all through life for the beauty. The little girls turn to big ones; the little party becomes a very dazzling one perhaps, but here and there, all the time, the beauty is being “panned” by her girl friends, be cause they are "tired” of hearing her called a beauty and because they are a bit afraid of her too. Time went on, and I grew, they said, prettier I liked being called pretty. It made me feel different from the other girls. I looked down on them a bit. I liked to have the boys dangling about me. The girls weren t as confiding to me as they were to others. But I didn’t care. Jealous things, I said, they’re lust envious! '1 hen I began to notice that the r<\.e boys that hutig around nlain^n 1 t° ff p° ne by one and married plain sort of girls who couldn't hold a candle to my looks. nn A th'^ Bt f l made UP ffiy mind t 0 K° on the stage. I didn’t want to be a show girl. I wanted to be'a great actress, and I thought I had intelli gence enough to be one. I was v ry t ha A P ? y when 1 wen ‘ to New After I bad tried to get into , a real play for a month and couldn’t ' tril/Th S ° • h r appy ‘ At laßt 1 tried the musical comedies, and I didn t have the least trouble getting on It wa u all new, and for a time 1 for ßOt my ambitions. I said to myself that this was only a little picnic, before I began the real serious business of being a great actress. ,T he ?u, one day the most unfortu nate thing that ever happened to me came about. I awoke to find myself christened “the most beauti ful chorus girl in New York!” I thought It fine then. I didn’t realize the serious sadness of it I sent clippings to all my friends and 1° ™ y f ? mily ' Next a rival man ager met me and offered to raise my salary from S2O to S3O a week I thought that fine too. Very Roon another offered me S4O, then S S S and then S6O. e But wait! I went to the manager and asked him to give me a speak ing part. He laughed at me. i, "Why people don’t w’ant to hear, you,” he said. “They just want to look at you. Anyway, a pretty woman hasn’t any- brains!” I argued. He was inflexible. I had to live, so I kept on —letting people just look at me. Then I went into Anna Held's “Little Duchess.” I was one of the fencing girls. A photograph of me In black silk stockings, short skirt and a fencer’s pad on my waist attracted the attention of the general man ager of the Chicago & Alton Rail road. He used it as a trade mark and had thousands upon thousands of my photographs distributed as a souvenir of the railroad. After that I was doomed! 1 was a Broadway Beauty, and I couldn’t shake off that handicap, no matter how I tried. You see. there I was, just a beauty, and nothing else. Famous because I had a good figure, a pleasing face, a complexion, nice eyes. All of them perishable, too! Everything for which people thought me worth while was just on the surface. I had no reserve to call upon—and I knew that I had brains as well as beauty. But nobody else would believe it. I grew desperate. I went to manager after manager for whom 1 had worked, and begged them al most on my knees to take me away from being a show girl and give me some lines. ‘Just let me try one rehearsal ” I would beseech “I know I can play parts. I don’t want a big one, just a few- lines. Just give me a One and all they laughed at me “Oh, you’re too pretty to waste yourself on a little part, Vivien,” they would say. "I’ve got some stunning new costumes for ' you and I’m going to put you again in the front row and pay you more money than any two show’ girls in that?’ ,ay ' Why nOt be Batisfled with I wasn’t. To prove that I was Npy--;,- ■ .». ■: t e-- Vivien Blackburn’s Famous Picture M' as rslbgW . th e f 4 * e ncinp W Girl.” U ahnZ«f2 est 1 weut o£f lhe 6lage aw«v ? er for tw ° years aud went SDealHi? BtUdy and t 0 P !an for that around part ’ After tha ‘ 1 went mnro to tbe o ®ces again. Once me lny old managers laughed at tO ..£ ome l>ack ' ar e you?" show ahu’.f Wel1 ’ there ’ 8 been no Place. gi si^ nc ! b^ ho could take your “"0 -et fittea ~.re ° *Kt ra and g 0 firl costumes 1 the best show “I won’t,” I said. At last Henry W. Savage agreed to give me a chance in his farce, “Excuse Me.” I’m playing the second most important feminine role in it now, and after Christ mas, Mr. Savage Is going to give me a better and bigger part in a new Broadway production. I have won out in my fight against my looks. But see the waste. It’s taken me ten years to do ft. If I had been plainer I could have done it in one. I’ve spoken about the “exits to the heart” being closed too. I can’t imagine anything more dangerous for true love than being a stage beauty. I’ve had proposals, lots of them. But 1 wouldn’t marry the kind cf men who did the proposing. If I’d found one who wanted to marry- me for something besides my beauty it would have been differ ent. But it’s g. very shallow love that is aroused by mere appear ance Lock at the girls who have mar ried on the stage because men have become infatuated with their looks. How many have turned out happily? I can count you twenty girls to-day who are either back on the stage or leading miserable lives I I Ins/v I HOywH iff irT MW - ‘ J4a|Hk 'TW ijAi KXumHb # urn wTylgwTO: ds BB ■ ■ I >■ v - WaKggM sHIF >■ t' ' 5 £ * ■■ ■ ''■’ wWwWwnMM “ JF .. : t- ' ' I l /1 ■ ' _./ '/ ' ■ -I ?|F' ’ j 'sWM .** < .■ - . iff jr Ml - ,ik fv ■ '* •: .' xJI ? Ifc . /: I:s ■• i •■ • ■W- / JMW i'-WS /i TfiililHßiS' xmw\ fH ;K' t- WWMf t ’ Wnw Jb-’Wb I El s i S tEm /*Pi s id I / 7 a i 1 «*•. ■ I 1 -/ x". iII a *1 was f c K ere d to my A) / I/) J IP mirror. I had brains in I *W my head, but al! they I \ were given to do was to / \3r \ ||||l make my eyes roll lan- / I T j |S|a guishingly,” says Miss //L_. J] ~ Al Blackburn. This picture I I °f h er shows her eyes at ' / their “languishingest.” <3/ \\ j\ I I te they married men who were attracted by their beauty. There’s something unnatural about a woman being beautiful any way. In nature —in the lower ani mals and the birds —-the female isn’t beautiful. It’s the male that is the better looker. The female is usually a demure, plain little thing who isn’t readily noticed. The male struts around in colors and might and comeliness. There's a good reason for this. The persistence of the race depends upon the female. She has to be unobtrusive, so she won’t attract dangerous attention. She has to look out for the young. The male can be more easily re- When a woman Is beautiful, un- Weird Human Things Done bv Plante By.. PROF. G. KENSLOW. A DISTINGUISHED gardener was dozing in a chair in his drawing-room one sultry Summer afternoon, and a bottle stood on the table by his side. Suddenly the bottle began to move stealthily across the table. The sleeper woke up; the bottle had disappeared. In astonishment, which might have been agitation, had the bottle contained anything but a bunch of blossoms, he set out to investigate. In the midst of his meditations the thief fortunately gave audible warn ing of his proximity. Glancing out of his window the horticulturist saw an astonishing sight. The tinkle-tinkle he had heard was a Virginia creeper rattling the bottle against the window-pane! The adhesive pads on its tendrils are irritated by anything they touch, and stick to it like a leech. Really it may be quite feasible to train a plant to pick pockets. The fashionable sweet-pea. if touched on one of its tendrils with a stick, or rubbed gently for half an hour, will begin to twist round the stick. If teased further it will usually baautlf,,. nature, and la’ BUe getß ° u tsida dangers of tb„ ’Ubject to all the Stlnctlvely re^ bn . Ormal - Man in ' therefore the „ B > n Zes thls - and fights shy of thl« f r , egular ma n that are attract female; the kin d that do big th?n are ( u nOt ,he klnd world's progress g th»» hat help tbe warks of the ran t^a^n? re tbe bu *' frltterers the nhHs^ 67 are the more or le BB h u e ßpl S landerers ’ ‘he betuy thing qh» h 8 l he sa ddest admired fi y her' R She isV’ J B notbin « left of Better ?or hfl JUB * a u sbadow - a husk. 1 r hei L t 0 be dead. "re the most reckless of grapple with its tormentor. Be sides the twisting motion it has af°“how- Which has been described Nation Th a^° UUd ’’ or c|rcum-mu ation. This is an endeavor to fas ed v^. 60 ' nethllls - R was undoubt edly its success in "bowing around” th- c* rcum -inutatlon, that enabled the creeper to carry off the bottle. > t hough we have yet to find plants that can hear or smell, many of our common growths are sensitive to , c ,! si s ht and thirst. Chlor ophyll, which is the green coloring matter of leaves, not only stores up the energy of the sun in plants, but enables the plant to select the light ray that is most beneficial to it In millions of little green granules under the epidermis of the leaf, it is, in fact, the eyes of the plant. It can detect every color and rays the human eye cannot see. The projected giant sun-concen trator which may make the Sudan the powerhouse of the world was long ago anticipated by Nature In the schlzostigma. This apparently terrible creature is nothing more formidable than a type of moss. Nature has endowed it with lenses tn the form of globular granules which concentrate and condense women? The most beautiful why? Because they know thai they have nothing but that, and lime is ever threatening to fore close. They have to make the best of the thin sheaf of bills Fortune has given them. The bills are beautifully engraved, it is true, but soon spent. And so they try to get ail they can out of them. Iv e often wondered whether the P : a ?° ck „ wouldn’t have had a ?efn h destln y If he hadn’t b r ® n „ f ? ced for centuries into be wouki 8 h n ° W V rd ' , 1 won der what he rhirvt bG u n? As useful a- 8 cnicken prooably. „3 d ’?* hei be a chicken than a leacock. But if i were a peacock no one would ever believe it! light and so feed the plant In the shade. Too much light, however, turns leaves yellow, and plants can be made to turn their coats by the action of light upon them. Plants, in fact, are just as sensi ve as we are. Insectivorous plants can undoubtedly taste what is given them and refuse it as cer tainly a s the gourmet would an in ferior dish at the dinner of a City company. They only like nitrog enous substances; sugar, starch oil and such fattening carbohy drates they have no use for. The craving of plants and trees for water has sometimes led them to terrible extremes. A poplar has been known to burrow beneath a wall, under a road, and down a well—all in search of water, and a pertinacious turnip which got the tip of its root into the crack in a field drain went on and on until it was six feet long in the drain. So sensitive is the tip of the root- on the water question that Darwin de clared it must have a brain in it. If ever a book is written on "veg etable mechanics,” one will find that plants have made levers, screws, columns wedges- everything, la fact, s hat engineeers have.