, of a picture by Apelles, of the MS. of an unknown opera by
Beethoven, of a method of making accumulators out of _papier-mache_, or
a mode of manufacturing radium at a cost of twopence a pound. There have
been thousands of columns printed concerning the marriages of
(so-called) actresses to young gentlemen of family.

A digression about these marriages is permissible. Each has led to many
articles on alliances between the aristocracy and the stage, and lists
of the ladies who in our times have honoured (or dishonoured) the
nobility with their hands have been given. Yet there has been little
comment upon the fact that, with two or three exceptions, the so-called
actresses have had no position of importance in the legitimate ranks of
the profession. A woman may perform in a theatre, and even draw a big
salary, without being an actress, and she may have brains, beauty and
popularity, and nevertheless enjoy little chance of marrying anybody
with a "handle to his name," if she confines her work to the non-musical
stage.

A distinction suggests itself--it might be that in music and the love of
it by the nobly born lies the explanation of the phenomenon; it might be
that the blue-blooded youths captured these charmers of the
musico-dramatic department in order to enjoy a selfish monopoly of
lovely voices, but such is not the case. Two or three of the ladies who
have won their way to the "hupper succles" possess talent; one of them
has a beautiful voice and great gifts as an actress, and one was a
brilliant dancer and became an excellent comedienne. The ruck and run of
them, however, have triumphed owing to advertisement in subtle and also
in crude forms.

Really the actresses of legitimate drama, whom one should call the
_actresses_, have a grievance not merely in the fact that the peerage
does not woo them (since in a good many instances the bride has paid
dearly for her elevation), nor merely because women of the oldest
profession open to the sex miscall themselves actresses when in
trouble--the term actress being like the word "charity"--but because
their title includes many persons of notoriety who, if forced to rely
solely upon their talent, could hardly earn a pound a week in true
drama. "True drama," for the common term "musico-dramatic" points to the
fact that the fortunate nymphs belong to the lighter (and sometimes
degraded) forms of musical work and not of the legitimate drama. Some
wag, no doubt, has called the