learn them by precept and rule
has for a result, usually, that woodenness and jerkiness which one
cannot help noticing in the 'youthful prodigies' of the stage. To be
an actress one has to learn other things than merely how to act, and
that is why nobody ever succeeded in the profession who tried to enter
it at the top. * * *

"The early bent of her studies and reading should be precisely the
same as that of any other woman aspiring to be liberally educated. She
should, if possible, speak French, at all events read it. She should
be familiar with English literature. She should cultivate an
acquaintance, through books and otherwise, with the highest as well as
the lowest forms of human society. Refinement and general information
ought to be the characteristics of every actress. * * *

"It would be bold for me to pretend to descry the chances of success
for the actress of the future. It is a lottery, this profession of
ours, in which even the prizes are, after all, not very considerable.
My own days, spent most of them far from my children and the comforts
and delights of my home, are full of exhausting labor. Rehearsals
and other business occupy me from early morning to the hour of
performance, with brief intervals for rest and food and a little
sleep. In the best hotels my time is so invaded that I can scarcely
live comfortably, much less luxuriously. At the worst, existence
becomes a torment and a burden. I am the eager, yet weary, slave of
my profession, and the best it can do for me--who am fortunate enough
to be included among its successful members--is to barely palliate
the suffering of a forty-weeks' exile from my own house and my family.

"For those of our calling who have to make this weary round, year
after year, with disappointed ambitions and defeated hopes as their
inseparable company, I can feel from the bottom of my heart. Each
season makes the life harder and drearier; each year robs it of one
more prospect, one more chance, one more opportunity to try and catch
the fleeting bubble in another field."

Madame Modjeska writes:

"* * * It would be a great mistake to choose the profession with the
idea that money comes easier and work is less hard in this than in any
other. There is little hope for the advancement of such aspirants.

"There is no greater mistake than to suppose that mere professional
training is the only necessary education. The general cultivation of
the mind, the development of all