OR HUGO ON WOMAN.

=You gaze at a star for two motives: because it is luminous
and because it is beyond your reach and comprehension. You
have by your side a sweeter radiance and greater
mystery--woman.=

_Les Miserables._

The Beginnings of Stage Careers.

By MATTHEW WHITE, Jr.

A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued From Month to Month
and Include All Players of Note.

How did he start? How did she manage to get the chance to show what she
could do? Was it "pull," persistence, or the fact of being born in the
profession?

These are the things playgoers--and who is not a playgoer these
days?--want to know about the players who have "arrived." There is a good
deal of variety in the answers herewith set down. In some cases it is
rather difficult to state just when the real start was made; in others,
baby-day debuts can scarcely be considered to "count."

But of one thing the reader may be certain: in no instance has permanent
success been won without work, be the actor a recruit from the business
world, the society drawing-room, or the ranks of the Thespians themselves.

MANSFIELD'S OPPORTUNITY.

He Failed to Earn a Livelihood as a
Painter, and Was Graduated from
Comic Opera to the Drama.

Although Richard Mansfield's mother was Mme. Rudersdorf, the prima donna,
he was in no sense cradled in the theater. His infant eyes first looked on
the light in Heligoland, an island in the North Sea that then belonged to
England. This was in the year 1857, and he was brought up with the idea
that one day he should become a painter. It was while he was a schoolboy
at Derby, England, that he received the first lift toward the career which
has placed him at the head of his fellows on the American boards.

The boys arranged to act "The Merchant of Venice" on a certain grand
occasion known as "Speech Day," and young Mansfield was cast for
_Shylock_. So well did he acquit himself then that no less exalted a
personage than a bishop shook him by the hand with the words that must
still ring in the now mighty Richard's ears: "Heaven forbid that I should
encourage you to become an actor; but should you, if I mistake not, you
will be a great one."

Preparatory schooling over, his art studies at South Kensington were
broken in upon by failing family fortunes, and the necessity of earning
money in the present rather than waiting to gather in perhaps greater
amounts in the future. So, thr