It is through the dissatisfaction of a man like Charles Reade that an
actress _learns_--that is, if she is not conceited. Conceit is an
insuperable obstacle to all progress. On the other hand, it is of little
use to take criticism in a slavish spirit and to act on it without
understanding it. Charles Reade constantly wrote and said things to me
which were not absolutely just criticism; but they directed my attention
to the true cause of the faults which he found in my performance, and
put me on the way to mending them.

A letter which he wrote me during the run of "The Wandering Heir" was
such a wonderful lesson to me that I am going to quote it almost in
full, in the hope that it may be a lesson to other actresses--"happy in
this, they are not yet so old but they can learn"; unhappy in this, that
they have never had a Charles Reade to give them a trouncing!

Well, the letter begins with sheer eulogy. Eulogy is nice, but one does
not learn anything from it. Had dear Charles Reade stopped after writing
"womanly grace, subtlety, delicacy, the variety yet invariable
truthfulness of the facial expression, compared with which the faces
beside yours are wooden, uniform dolls," he would have done nothing to
advance me in my art; but this was only the jam in which I was to take
the powder!

Here followed more jam--with the first taste of the powder:

"I prefer you for my Philippa to any other actress, and shall do so
still, even if you will not, or cannot, throw more vigor into the
lines that need it. I do not pretend to be as good a writer of
plays as you are an actress [_how naughty of him!_], but I do
pretend to be a great judge of acting in general. [_He wasn't,