But there are compensations, urges the outsider:  good pay, congenial work, and fame.  If there are hardships what a glittering prize compensates for the suffering!

Let us at once grant the compensations which the few achieve.  The few make world-wide reputations, large salaries, and many devoted friends:  their life is full of interesting and successful work.  But the average individual is in the great majority, and the many spend all and obtain nothing, trying to obtain a bargain which is no bargain:  a bargain in which there is something to sell and no one to buy—­even our average actress has something to sell, something worth buying—­composed of talent, ambition, long study, and application.  There are, of course, many more successful women in the theatre than there used to be, owing to the tremendous opening up of this means of livelihood; but though the successful are more abundant, there is, alas! no doubt a growing number of unsuccessful workers in this very much over-crowded market.  In fact, it is becoming a profession in which it is only possible to survive if the worker has some private means, or a supplementary trade.

I believe that this question of a supplementary trade requires consideration, and am, myself, at present working on the subject, in the hope that a scheme may be evolved to ensure those willing to work an opportunity of gaining a livelihood during the long “resting” periods.  This waiting for work is almost universally the largest part of an actress’s life; and any satisfaction in the magnitude of the wages which may be obtained must always be balanced by the knowledge that an enormous number of weeks must be taken into consideration, when work is quite unattainable.

Here is one of the gravest disabilities of the profession.  Only continuous work can develop the powers of any artist, and this is particularly true of the art of the theatre.  Under the present conditions an artist is, with an entire want of reason, raised to a pinnacle of importance when playing a good part in a successful play; but she may with equal suddenness be dashed into a gulf of failure and non-productiveness, also without reason.

There have been many artists, who at the end of a brilliant run of a successful play, to the success of which they have largely contributed, have found themselves forgotten by the powers that be, and have discovered with bitter disappointment that a successful run may result in being left utterly ignored, without a single offer of work.

The Christmas pantomime and the summer season cut down the actor’s year to forty weeks.  From information which I was able to obtain from the Actor’s Association, the average yearly income of an actor is L70.  From this, L37 may be deducted for travelling and other expenses.  For though the actual railway fare is usually paid, no allowance is made for conveyance of luggage from station to lodgings, and the constant change of quarters naturally makes the weekly expenditure on a higher scale.  On these figures the average weekly earnings of an actor would be 12s. 6d., or 1s. 9d. per day.