Note 186 — JULIA MARLOWE

Besides other things, Colonel Ingersoll said: “To retain the freshness that is her greatest charm she will have to ... pay no attention to the critics. Her talent needs no guide save that afforded by her experience and her own mentality.” One Alfred Ayres, writing to the editor of the New York Dramatic Mirror, voiced the protest that was felt in many quarters against Colonel Ingersoll’s kindly meant over-enthusiasm: “What nonsense clever men do sometimes talk, when they talk about things they know little or nothing about!... There is not a novice in America more in need of guidance than is Miss Julia Marlowe. To let her go her own way would be to let her go to ruin. She is already on the high-road to becoming merely coy, coddling, and goody-goody.” Colonel Ingersoll became Miss Marlowe’s personal friend. At least one summer she spent with his family.