imported garments of soft fine cloth and rare
lining. I have had and have seen others have, in the old days, really
gorgeous brocades made by cutting out great bunches of flowers from
chintz and applying them to a cheaper background, and then picking out
the high lights with embroidery silk, the effect being not only
beautiful, but rich. All these make-believes were necessary then, on a
$30 or $35 a week salary, for a leading lady drew no more.

[Illustration: _Clara Morris as "Jane Eyre"_]

But times are changed, stage lighting is better, stronger. The opera
glass is almost universally used, deceptions would be more easily
discovered; and more, oh, so much more is expected from the actress of
to-day. Formerly she was required, first of all, to sink her own
individuality in that of the woman she pretended to be; and next, if
it was a dramatized novel she was acting in, she was to make herself
look as nearly like the described heroine as possible; otherwise she had
simply to make herself as pretty as she knew how in her own way, that
was all. But now the actresses of a great city are supposed to set the
fashion for the coming season. They almost literally dress in the style
of to-morrow: thus the cult of clothes becomes harmful to the actress.
Precious time that should be given to the minute study, the final
polishing of a difficult character, is used instead in deciding the
pitch of a skirt, the width of a collar, or open sleeve-strap, or no
sleeve at all.

Some ladies of my acquaintance who had been to the theatre three times,
avowedly to study as models the costumes, when questioned as to the
play, looked at one another and then answered vaguely: "The performance?
Oh, nothing remarkable! It was fair enough; but the dresses! They are
really beyond anything in town, and must have cost a mint of money!"

So we have got around to the opposite of the old-time aim, when the
answer might possibly have been: "The acting was beyond anything in
town. The dresses? Nothing remarkable! Oh, well, fair enough!"

I have often been told by famous women of the past that the beautiful
Mrs. Russell, then of Wallack's Theatre, was the originator in this
country of richly elegant realism in stage costuming. When it was known
that the mere linings of her gowns cost more than the outside of other
dresses; that all her velvet was silk velvet; all her lace to the last
inch was real lace; that no wired nor spliced feathers curled about her