greet you in your desolate boarding-house, with its one wizened,
unwilling gas-burner, and its outlook upon back yards and cats, or roofs
and sparrows, its sullen, hard-featured bed, its despairing carpet; for
you see, you will not have the money that might take you to the front of
the house and four burners. Rain or shine, you will have to make your
lonely, often frightened way to and from the theatre. At rehearsals you
will have to stand about, wearily waiting hours while others rehearse
over and over again their more important scenes; yet you may not leave
for a walk or a chat, for you do not know at what moment your scene may
be called. You will not be made much of. You will receive a "Good
morning" or "Good evening" from the company, probably nothing more. If
you are travelling, you will literally _live_ in your hat and cloak. You
will breakfast in them many and many a time, you will dine in them
regularly, that you may rise at once and go to the theatre or car. You
will see no one, go nowhere.

If you are in earnest, you will simply endure the first year,--endure
and study,--and all for what? That, after dressing in the corner
farthest from the looking-glass, in a dismal room you would scarcely use
for your housemaid's brooms and dusters at home, you may stand for a few
moments in the background of some scene, and watch the leading lady
making the hit in the foreground. Will these few, well-dressed,
well-lighted, music-thrilled moments repay you for the loss of home
love, home comfort, home stardom?

To that bright, energetic girl, just home from school, overeducated,
perhaps, with nothing to do, restless,--forgive me,--vain, who wants to
go upon the stage, let me say: "Pause a moment, my dear, in your
comfortable home, and think of the unemployed actresses who are
suffering from actual want. Is there one among you, who, if you had the