s perhaps the keenest epigram he ever made.
He was talking about people of the stage who constantly air themselves
and their views to secure personal publicity. It moved him to this
remark:

"Some people prefer mediocrity in the lime-light to greatness in the
dark."

Herein he summed up the reason why Miss Adams has been an elusive and
almost mysterious figure. By tremendous reading, solitary thinking, and
extraordinary personal application she rose to her great eminence. With
her it has always been a creed of career first. Like Charles Frohman,
she has hidden behind her activities, and they form a worthy rampart.

The history of the stage records no more interesting parallel than the
one afforded by these two people--each a recluse, yet each known to the
multitudes.

IX

THE BIRTH OF THE SYNDICATE

Charles Frohman's talents and energies were very much like those of E.
H. Harriman in that they found their largest and best expression when
dedicated to a multitude of enterprises. Like Harriman, too, he did
things in a wholesale way, for he had a contempt for small sums and
small ventures.

Going back a little in point of time from the close of the preceding
chapter, the final years of the last century found Frohman geared up to
a myriad of activities. He had already assumed the role of Star-Maker,
for Drew and Gillette were on his roster, and Maude Adams was about to
be launched; the Empire Stock Company was an accredited institution with
a national influence; he had started a chain of theaters; his booking
interests in the West had assumed the proportions of an immense
business; he had begun to make his presence felt in London. Yet no event
of these middle 'nineties was more momentous in its relation to the
future of the whole American theater than one which was about to
transpire--one in which Charles Frohman had an important hand.

Despite the efforts made by the booking offices conducted by Charles
Frohman and Klaw & Erlanger, the making of routes for theatrical
attractions in the United States was in a most disorganized and
economically unsound condition. The local manager was still more or less
at the mercy of the booking free-lance in New York. The booking agent
himself only represented a comparatively few theaters and could not book
a complete season for a traveling attraction.

In New York the manager was an autocrat who frequently dictated
unbelievable terms to the traveling companies. Immens