ere's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."

And heaven knows I "rough-hewed" the "Camille" proposition to the best of
my power. I came hurrying back to New York, specially to act at the
mighty benefit, given for the starving poor of the city. Every theatre
was to give a performance on the same day, and a ticket purchased was
good at any one of them. I had selected "Love's Sacrifice," an old
legitimate play, for that occasion and Mr. Palmer had cast it, when an
actress suddenly presented herself at his office declaring she had made
that play _her_ property, by her own exceptional work in it in former
years, at another theatre. Threatening hysterics often prove valuable
weapons in a manager's office, where, strangely enough, "a scene" is
hated above all things.

I was informed of this lady's claim to a play that was anybody's
property, and at once withdrew in the interest of peace. But what then
was to be done for the benefit? Every play proposed had some drawback.
Mr. Palmer suggested "Camille," and all my objections crowding to my lips
at once, I fairly stammered and spluttered over the expression of them: I
hated! hated! hated! the play! The people who had preceded me in it were
too great! I should be the merest pigmy beside them. I did not think
_Camille_ as vulgar and coarse as one great woman had made her--nor so
chill and nun-like as another had conceived her to be. And the critics
would fall upon me and joyously tear me limb from limb. They would justly
cry "Presumption," and--and--I had no clothes! no, not one stitch had I
to wear (of course you will make the usual allowance for an excited woman
and not take that literally!) and then, oh, dear! I'm dreadfully ashamed
of myself, but to tell the exact truth, I wept--for the first and only
time in my life--I wept from anger!

We all fumed--we, meaning Mr. Palmer, Mr. Cazauran, that ferret-faced,
mysterious little man, whose clever brain and dramatic instincts made him
so valuable about a theatre; and the big, silently observant Mr. Shook,
and I. Cazauran said he knew all the business of the play and could tell
me it, and began with certain things Miss Heron (the greatest _Camille_
America had had) had done, and I indignantly declared I would leave a
theatre before I would do as much. I argued it was unnecessary. _Camille_
was not brutal--she had associated with gentlemen, members of the
nobility, men who were acquainted with court ci