There is a legend about each; she is either an angel of purity and light, or a beautiful monster of iniquity; she has turned the heads of kings--'kings' in a vaguely royal plural--completely round on their shoulders, or she has built out of her earnings a hospital for crippled children; the watery-sentimental eye of the flash crowd in its cups sees in her a Phryne, a Mrs.Fry, or a Saint Cecilia.

Goethe said that every man must be either the hammer or the anvil; the billiard-room public is sure that every primadonna is a siren or a martyred wife, or else a public benefactress, unless she is all three by turns, which is even more interesting.
In any case, the reporters are sure that every one wants to know just what she thinks about everything.

In the United States, for instance, her opinion on political matters is often asked, and is advertised with 'scare-heads' that would stop a funeral or arrest the attention of a man on his way to the gallows.
Then, too, she has her 'following' of 'girls,' thousands of whom have her photograph, or her autograph, or both, and believe in her, and are ready to scratch out the eyes of any older person who suggests that she is not perfection in every way, or that to be a primadonna like her ought not to be every girl's highest ambition.

They not only worship her, but many of them make real sacrifices to hear her sing; for most of them are anything but well off, and to hear an opera means living without little luxuries, and sometimes without necessaries, for days together.

Their devotion to their idol is touching and true; and she knows it and is good-natured in the matter of autographs for them, and talks about 'my matinee girls' to the reporters, as if those eleven thousand virgins and more were all her younger sisters and nieces.