in the extreme if they yield and go with the tide as it is flowing now; bitter, ripe with disappointments, with blighted hopes if high ideals of early teaching hold them to the shores of conventionality.

So I say to you now in the shadow of Miriam's grave, if you know a girl or woman with ambition's bee in her bonnet and an earnest conscientious soul, take this from me, coming as it does out of twenty years of experience in these conditions:

"IF SHE WISHES TO START A LITTLE HELL ON HER OWN HOOK," JUST LET HER GO ON THE STAGE.

EPILOGUE.

How bitterly cruel that all this is true, I have said to myself again and again. No more beautiful art exists than that of characterization and story "embracing" as Charlote Cushman has ably said: “In its exposition all other arts combined, music, dancing, color, and even sculpture in its poses and form." Yet to-day it stands upon the very last foundation it should ever, by any stretch of the imagination, occupy-Commercialism.

Will play or an actor draw? That is the only consideration. Never, is the play a literary achievement, a beautiful story, or an ethical study? Nor is the actor a man of experience, of natural talent who can be relied upon to bring out all that is best of the author's thoughts. Is it a money maker? Is he a good card? These are the things that count in the estimation of the men who rule things theatrical.

"What kind of a house did you have?" one actor asks another. Seldom indeed, "What kind of performance did you give?"

This condition has largely been the outcome of the gradual elaborating of productions until now it

is quite impossible to put on a play without the outlay of many thousands of dollars and it is one of the greatest gambles as to whether it will succeed. A modest production with good acting alone as its sustaining power has come almost to spell financial suicide. People have become accustomed to having their eyes dazzled by the production, their excitement well tickled by absurd stories, built and planned solely to amuse and keep them quiet without any effort on their parts, such as thinking or reasoning, so that acting is now quite a secondary consideration, although if you suggest this to the average playgoer he is apt to have a small opinion of you and your ideas of him. Nevertheless, the constant demand of stars and managers for new plays proves this only too substantially. As soon as the theatregoer has heard the story of the play, his interest in the company is over; whereas our actors of a few decades ago played one piece many years, the public going again and again to see the same thing, enjoying and appreciating the actor's work and the development of characters.

The public of to-day is not to blame for its attitude for it sees according to its highest light. The great army of theatregoers in this country, at least, has been slowly, by such moderate degrees educated away from acting to personality that to-day they are quite as well satisfied with a chromo as in former times our forebears were with real paintings. This change has come about since the decline of the actor—

manager, or directing-manager; or to be more explicit the manager who directed the plays and actors which he presented to the public, and who himself was a judge of real art and in whose curriculum the pseudo could not possibly have had a part, since it would have been quite as distasteful to him as to the connoisseur he invited to inspect his goods.

It is undoubtedly very commendable in the peanut boy, bill poster, usher, or treasurer of a theatre to wish to rise in the world and finally branch out as a theatrical manager. The only trouble is that this kind of man wishes to do it in a hurry, and since he thinks only of the financial side, his first step is towards procuring the necessary funds with which to make the start; making no effort whatever towards qualifying himself as judge or critic of what is art and what is not. He has probably seldom watched a performance through from the front of the house, let alone studying its technique from the side hehind the footlights. Possibly he reasons that a competent stage manager may be engaged to do the technical work for him, so he concerns himself with getting his "backing," and he usually accomplishes this by using a beautiful, ambitious woman for bait.

But now he finds his duty is to select the plays and engage the people to act them. He then must trust to chance and plunge; smearing his lack of knowledge with the brush of the scenic artist, the veneer of much advertising and boom. If this "hit or miss" policy happens to miss, he loudly acclaims

that his only wish is to "give the public what it wants," and he immediately plunges deeper than ever into the paint pot and gets more yards of canvas, changes the names of the "dramatis persona" and the personality of the author.

"Here is a new play, a new cast with a gor-g-e-o-u-s production for your inspection, ladies and gentlemen, step right up and see if you will buy."

The ladies' and gentlemen's eyes are becoming a bit dazzled by the paint brush and the yards of canvas and especially the big type in the advertising, and after two or three attempts this speculating theatrical man succeeds in making a “hit." Gradually the public begins to have confidence in him and to look upon him as really a factor in its quest for amusement. He has told the people so often and pointedly, through his press agent, and on the bill boards, that his one end and aim in life is to please them that the precious public after a time begins to feel he really is their slave.

He has a favorite bit of humanity who is tugging at his coat crying: "Please star me." She isn't much to brag of, perhaps, but she "looks good to him," and so he noisily envelops her in canvas, slings the paint brush and printer's ink with reckless prodigality and says, as he draws back the curtain with a profound conviction in his every manner that brooks no dissenting voice: