She always brings her child out with her on these occasions. She

seems to think that it will freshen it up. The child does not
appreciate the snow as much as she does. He says it's cold.

One thing that must irritate the stage heroine very much on these
occasions is the way in which the snow seems to lie in wait for her

and follow her about. It is quite a fine night before she comes on
the scene: the moment she appears it begins to snow. It snows

heavily all the while she remains about, and the instant she goes it
clears up again and keeps dry for the rest of the evening.

The way the snow "goes" for that poor woman is most unfair. It always
snows much heavier in the particular spot where she is sitting than it

does anywhere else in the whole street. Why, we have sometimes seen a
heroine sitting in the midst of a blinding snow-storm while the other

side of the road was as dry as a bone. And it never seemed to occur
to her to cross over.

We have even known a more than unusuallymalignant snow-storm to
follow a heroine three times round the stage and then go off (R.) with

her.
Of course you can't get away from a snow-storm like that! A stage

snow-storm is the kind of snow-storm that would follow you upstairs
and want to come into bed with you.

Another curious thing about these stage snow-storms is that the moon
is always shining brightly through the whole of them. And it shines

only on the heroine, and it follows her about just like the snow does.
Nobody fully understands what a wonderful work of nature the moon is

except people acquainted with the stage. Astronomy teaches you
something about the moon, but you learn a good deal more from a few

visits to a theater. You will find from the latter that the moon only
shines on heroes and heroines, with perhaps an occasional beam on the

comic man: it always goes out when it sees the villain coming.
It is surprising, too, how quickly the moon can go out on the stage.

At one moment it is riding in full radiance in the midst of a
cloudless sky, and the next instant it is gone! Just as though it had

been turned off at a meter. It makes you quite giddy at first until
you get used to it.

The stage heroine is inclined to thoughtfulness rather than gayety.
In her cheerful moments the stage heroine thinks she sees the spirit

of her mother, or the ghost of her father, or she dreams of her dead
baby.

But this is only in her very merry moods. As a rule, she is too much
occupied with weeping to have time for frivolous reflections.

She has a great flow of language and a wonderful gift of metaphor and
simile--more forcible than elegant--and this might be rather trying in

a wife under ordinary circumstances. But as the hero is generally
sentenced to ten years' penal servitude on his wedding-morn, he

escapes for a period from a danger that might well appall a less
fortunate bridegroom.

Sometimes the stage heroine has a brother, and if so he is sure to be
mistaken for her lover. We never came across a brother and sister in

real life who ever gave the most suspicious person any grounds for
mistaking them for lovers; but the stage brother and sister are so

affectionate that the error is excusable.
And when the mistake does occur and the husband comes in suddenly and

finds them kissing and raves she doesn't turn round and say:
"Why, you silly cuckoo, it's only my brother."

That would be simple and sensible, and would not suit the stage
heroine at all. No; she does all in her power to make everybody

believe it is true, so that she can suffer in silence.
She does so love to suffer.

Marriage is undoubtedly a failure in the case of the stage heroine.
If the stage heroine were well advised she would remain single. Her

husband means well. He is decidedlyaffectionate. But he is
unfortunate and inexperienced in worldly affairs. Things come right

for him at the end of the play, it is true; but we would not recommend
the heroine to place too much reliance upon the continuance of this

happy state of affairs. From what we have seen of her husband and his
business capabilities during the five acts preceding, we are inclined

to doubt the possibility of his being anything but unfortunate to the
end of his career.

True, he has at last got his "rights" (which he would never have lost
had he had a head instead of a sentimental bladder on his shoulders),

the Villain is handcuffed, and he and the heroine have settled down
comfortably next door to the comic man.

But this heavenlyexistence will never last. The stage hero was built
for trouble, and he will be in it again in another month, you bet.

They'll get up another mortgage for him on the "estates;" and he won't
know, bless you, whether he really did sign it or whether he didn't,

and out he will go.
And he'll slop his name about to documents without ever looking to see

what he's doing, and be let in for Lord knows what; and another wife
will turn up for him that he had married when a boy and forgotten all

about.
And the next corpse that comes to the village he'll get mixed up

with--sure to--and have it laid to his door, and there'll be all the
old business over again.

No, our advice to the stage heroine is to get rid of the hero as soon
as possible, marry the villain, and go and live abroad somewhere where

the comic man won't come fooling around.
She will be much happier.

THE COMIC MAN.
He follows the hero all over the world. This is rough on the hero.

What makes him so gone on the hero is that when they were boys
together the hero used to knock him down and kick him. The comic man

remembers this with a glow of pride when he is grown up, and it makes
him love the hero and determine to devote his life to him.

He is a man of humble station--the comic man. The village blacksmith
or a peddler. You never see a rich or aristocratic comic man on the

stage. You can have your choice on the stage; you can be funny and of
lowly origin, or you can be well-to-do and without any sense of humor.

Peers and policemen are the people most utterly devoid of humor on the
stage.

The chief duty of the comic man's life is to make love to
servant-girls, and they slap his face; but it does not discourage him;

he seems to be more smitten by them than ever.
The comic man is happy under any fate, and he says funny things at

funerals and when the bailiffs are in the house or the hero is waiting
to be hanged.

This sort of man is rather trying in real life. In real life such a
man would probably be slaughtered to death and buried at an early

period of his career, but on the stage they put up with him.
He is very good, is the comic man. He can't bear villainy. To thwart

villainy is his life's ambition, and in this noble object fortune
backs him up grandly. Bad people come and commit their murders and

thefts right under his nose, so that he can denounce them in the last
act.

They never see him there, standing close beside them, while they are
performing these fearful crimes.

It is marvelous how short-sighted people on the stage are. We always
thought that the young lady in real life was moderately good at not

seeing folks she did not want to when they were standing straight in
front of her, but her affliction in this direction is as nothing

compared with that of her brothers and sisters on the stage.
These unfortunate people come into rooms where there are crowds of

people about--people that it is most important that they should see,
and owing to not seeing whom they get themselves into fearful trouble,

and they never notice any of them. They talk to somebody opposite,
and they can't see a third person that is standing bang between the

two of them.
You might fancy they wore blinkers.