of lovely heroine which lies open to the
actress. When one hears discussion concerning the casting of plays there
is often talk about the difficulty of finding an actress for a Fanny
Brough part, which, of course, is quite distinct from what may be
considered specifically a _soubrette_ character. Complaints are uttered
about the difficulty of finding a player to represent the comic
mother-in-law; indeed, playwrights are sometimes affected in their work
by the fear that if they write broad comedy for feminine parts the
difficulty of casting them will be insurmountable.

Handsome salaries are paid to the few ladies who have a well-deserved
reputation as actresses in the class of character thus indicated, and
there is a demand for them--a demand generally supplied by superannuated
leading ladies and aged _soubrettes_. It may be offensive to a girl's
vanity deliberately to choose a path in which her personal charms, or
those which she believes herself to possess, must be of little service.
On the English stage it may be doubted if such a policy will ever be
adopted, though on French there are instances which might be cited of
actresses who have played dowager characters during the whole of a
profitable, long and respected career.

No doubt there is another side of the matter. Many, most actresses, join
the stage with other ideas than of merely gaining a reasonably
comfortable living wage. Pure ambition in some cases, vanity in others,
are the motive-force, to say nothing of the numbers who may be regarded
simply as stagestruck; and to such as these nothing seems worth striving
for save to represent the triumphant heroine, the fascinating
_soubrette_, or Lady Macbeth.

Upon all, these prudent counsels will be wasted--indeed, those who know
a little of what passes behind the scenes are well aware that young
actresses, almost starving, refuse to accept character parts that would
help them out of poverty because they are afraid of jeopardising their
chance--their one-to-a-hundred chance--of obtaining the perilous
position of leading lady.

There is, of course, another class. Some, perhaps many, become actresses
simply from a pure love of what they deem a beautiful, noble art, and
for them it is only natural to think that nothing is worth representing
save the greater characters; it is difficult to gratify such a love by
representing a middle-aged comic spinster, or one of the elderly
duchesses, without whom a modern comedy