imbibed my early ideas, it was broadly inculcated
that the theatre was a very wicked place, and
that actors and actresses were very wicked
people. When I first went to the theatre, on
the sly, I had some compunction about it; but
not being able to discern any wickedness in
connexion with the performance of a beautiful play,
in which virtue was rewarded, and vice punished,
I dismissed the feeling, and was rather pained to
think that some particular friends of mine had
told me what was not precisely true. It was
not until a much later period of my life that I
made the acquaintance of actors, and found how
much they, too, were belied. I expected to
find them at least very knowing persons; but,
after spending an evening with a party of players,
I came to the conclusion, that I myself, who
had been religiously brought up and warned to
avoid plays and play-actors, was, in the ways of
this wicked world, the most knowing person in
the company.

I am not going to argue that players are by
nature better than other people, but I think
their generally single-minded natures may be
accounted for rationally enough. In the first
place, the ambition to become an actor is an
intellectual one, and it will be readily admitted
that only a trusting and unsophisticated
disposition could hope for a high degree of success
in the profession. Next comes in the exalting
and refining influence of Shakespeare's poetry,
which all actors, whether they be destined to
shine as the kings of tragedy or the valets of
farce, begin by studying. Talk to a low
comedian on the subject, and ten to one if he will not
confess to you that his first aspirations were in
the direction of the tragic. He knew the lofty
poetical speeches of Hamlet by heart—never to
be forgotten—long before he was driven to
lower his attention to the waistcoats of the First
Gravedigger. A knowledge of Shakespeare
redeems a vast amount of ignorance. An actor's
education may be very defective; he may not
be able to spell; he may betray in his hand-
writing and composition a sad want of
familiarity with the use of the pen—but he knows
Shakespeare by heart. He has all the philosophy
of life at the tip of his tongue in Shakespeare's
glowing words. We may be very clever and
very accomplished, but when the actor leans
upon the arm of Shakespeare he is fit company
for the best of us. There is another influence
for good in the player's profession. It is a
precarious one. Nearly all actors begin by meeting
difficulties and knowing poverty. It is
rarely that any one succeeds without a long
struggle. A fellow feeling makes them
wondrous kind. There is scarcely a successful
actor living who has not known what it is to be
penniless, hungry, and, what is sometimes
harder to bear, to be in debt for some miserable
trifle among strangers. Thus it is that the
most successful among them can always understand
and feel for the misfortunes and sorrows
of their struggling brethren. If I had not
found by experience of them that players are in
a remarkable degree kind-hearted, well-disposed
people, these considerations alone might have
guided me to the conclusion.

That actors have faults and foibles I will not
deny. They are men and women, and they
have the faults that all men and women have
in a greater or less degree. But this I will
confidently assert, that actors are not sinners in
a greater degree than other classes of society,
while in many amiable respects they can lay
claim to a larger number of virtues. One of
the reasons why they are so constantly traduced
is obvious. They live more than any other
class under the public eye; there is a strong
curiosity about them, and, consequently, any
dubious story about their mode of life that
prejudice may imagine, and the breath of scandal
whisper, is rapidly spread abroad and eagerly
amplified. How many times have I been told
that So-and-So is a very immoral person, when
there is nothing on earth of which I am so well
assured as that that person is a model of purity
and goodness? If scandal hits upon a truth
now and then, does it never hit upon a similar
truth with regard to other society? Really,
upon my conscience, I do not know what class
is in a position to throw stones at the players.

I had these thoughts one fine day lately,
among the heather near Maybury, on a notable
occasion when the Queen's son performed the
ceremony of opening the Royal Dramatic
College. It was a glorious summer's day, and the
good work in hand gave rise to many agreeable
feelings and pleasant reflections. It was
pleasant, first of all, at the Waterloo station to
notice how completely the clerks were mentally
knocked over by the sight of so many of their
stage favourites crowding round their boxes and
offering to pay for tickets. They didn't seem
to like to take the money; wondered, I dare say,
that such delightful creatures as actors and
actresses should be required to pay for anything.
They were all very nervous, and no wonder.
Fancy Lady Macbeth sweeping up to you and
demanding a first-class return ticket to Woking!
Norma following with a like request! The gentle
Juliet sweetly leaning over your box, as if it
were the balcony and you were Romeo! Box
and Cox meeting in the narrow passage, as if
they were in Mrs. Bouncer's lodgings bringing
in their tea-things! I wonder if the clerks
looked in the till to see if Cox had given away
his lucky sixpence, and Box his tossing shilling,
by mistake.

I don't know what made me think of it on
this occasion, but for the first time in my
life I took an insurance ticket—insured myself
for a thousand pounds for sixpence. (This,
by the way, is the cheapest luxury I am
acquainted with. I am afraid, however, that I
was under the impression that I was in a sweep,
and had a vague feeling of disappointment, when
I was brought back safe and sound, that I had
not won something.) I say I don't know what
prompted me to take an insurance ticket on this
occasion. Entertaining, as I do, a high opinion
of the members of the theatrical profession, I
could not have been troubled with the suspicion