But, oh! the sameness, the deadly monotony, of repeating the same words
to the same person at the same moment every night, sick or well, sad or
happy--the same, same words!

A "one-play" company offers the worst possible chance to the beginner.
The more plays there are, the more you learn from observation, as well
as from personal effort, to make the parts you play seem as unlike one
another as possible. A day like this admits of no drives, no calls, no
"teas"; you see, then, a theatrical life is not one long picnic.

If there is one among my readers to whom the dim and dingy half-light of
the theatre is dearer than the God-given radiance of the sunlight; if
the burnt-out air with its indescribable odour, seemingly composed of
several parts of cellar mould, a great many parts of dry rot or unsunned
dust, the whole veined through and through with small streaks of escaped
illuminating gas--if this heavy, lifeless air is more welcome to your
nostrils than could be the clover-sweetened breath of the greenest
pasture; if that great black gulf, yawning beyond the extinguished
footlights, makes your heart leap up at your throat; if without noting
the quality or length of your part the just plain, bald fact of "acting
something" thrills you with nameless joy; if the rattle-to-bang of the
ill-treated old overture dances through your blood, and the rolling up
of the curtain on the audience at night is to you as the magic
blossoming of a mighty flower--if these are the things that you feel,
your fate is sealed: Nature is imperious; and through brain, heart, and
nerve she cries to you, ACT, ACT, ACT! and act you must! Yes, I know
what I have said of the difficulties in your way, but I have faith to
believe that, if God has given you a peculiar talent, God will aid you
to find a way properly to exercise that talent. You may receive many
rebuffs, but you must keep on trying to get into a stock company if