is equally great, and who has just the
same strength of hope for the future stage existence.

Every city in the country is freely sprinkled with stage-loving, or, as
they are generally termed, "stage-struck" girls. It is more than
probable that at least a half-dozen girls in her own circle secretly
cherish a hope for a glorious career on the stage, while her bosom
friend most likely knows every line of _Pauline_ and has practised the
death scene of _Camille_ hundreds of times. Surely, then, the would-be
actresses can see that their own numbers constitute one of the greatest
obstacles in their path.

But that is by no means all. Figures are always hard things to manage,
and there is another large body of them, between a girl and her chances,
in the number of trained actresses who are out of engagements. There is
probably no profession in the world so overcrowded as is the profession
of acting. "Why, then," the manager asks, "should I engage a girl who
does not even know how to walk across the stage, when there are so many
trained girls and women to choose from?"

"But," says or thinks some girl who reads these words, "you were an
outsider, poor and without friends, yet you got your chance."

Very true; I did. But conditions then were different. The stage did not
hold then the place in public estimation which it now does. Theatrical
people were little known and even less understood. Even the people who
did not think all actors drunkards and all actresses immoral, did think
they were a lot of flighty, silly buffoons, not to be taken seriously
for a moment. The profession, by reason of this feeling, was rather a
close corporation. The recruits were generally young relatives of the
older actors. There was plenty of room, and people began at the bottom
quite cheerfully and worked up. When a "ballet" was wanted, the manager
advertised for extra girls, and sometimes received as many as three
applicants in one day--when twenty were wanted. Such an advertisement
to-day would call out a veritable mob of eager girls and women. _There_
was my chance. To-day I should have no chance at all.

The theatrical ranks were already growing crowded when the "Schools of
Acting" were started, and after that--goodness gracious! actors and
actresses started up as suddenly and numerously as mushrooms in an old
pasture. And they, even _they_ stand in the way of the beginner.

I know, then, of but three powers that can open the stage door to a