hard life of disappointments, self-sacrifices, and
many partings, where strong, sweet friendships are formed only to be
broken by travelling orders, will all be forgotten when, the glamour of
the footlights upon you, saturated with light, thrilling to music,
intoxicated with applause, you find the audience is an instrument for
you to play upon at will. And such a moment of conscious, almost divine
power is the reward that comes to those who sacrifice many things that
they may act.

So if you really are one of these, I can only say, "Act, act!" and
Heaven have you in its holy keeping.

But, dear gifted woman, pause before you put your hand to the plough
that will turn your future into such strange furrows; remember, the life
of the theatre is a hard life, a homeless life; that it is a wandering
up and down the earth; a life filled full with partings, with sweet,
lost friendships; that its triumphs are brilliant but brief. If you do
truly love acting, simply and solely for the sake of acting, then all
will be well with you, and you will be content; but verily you will be a
marvel.

For the poor girl or woman who, because she has to earn her own living,
longs to become an actress, my heart aches.

You will say good-by to mother's petting; you will live in your trunk.
The time will come when that poor hotel trunk (so called to distinguish
it from the trunk that goes to the theatre, when you are travelling or
en route), with its dents and scars, will be the only friendly object to
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 g