service,--and on these confidences I have founded my belief that every
woman who works for her living must eat with her bread the bitter salt
of insult. Not even the plain girl escapes paying this penalty put upon
her unprotected state.

Still, insult does not mean temptation, by any means. But careful
inquiry has shown me that temptation assails working-women in any walk
of life, and that the profession of acting has nothing weird or novel to
offer in the line of danger; to be quite frank, all the possibilities of
resisting or yielding lie with the young woman herself. What will tempt
one beyond her powers of resistance, will be no temptation at all to
another.

However, parents wishing to frighten their daughters away from the stage
have naturally enough set up several great bugaboos collectively known
as "temptations"--individually known as the "manager," the "public,"
etc.

There seems to be a general belief that a manager is a sort of dramatic
"Moloch," upon whose altar is sacrificed all ambitious femininity. In
declaring that to be a mistaken idea, I do not for a moment imply that
managers are angels; for such a suggestion would beyond a doubt secure
me a quiet summer at some strictly private sanitarium; but I do mean to
say that, like the gentleman whom we all know by hearsay, but not by
sight, they are not so black as they are painted.

Indeed, the manager is more often the pursued than the pursuer. Women
there are, attractive, well-looking, well-dressed, some of whom, alas!
in their determination to succeed, cast morality overboard, as an
aeronaut casts over ballast, that they may rise more quickly. Now while