Ellen Terry's recollections of her appearance as the infant Mamillius in "The Winter's Tale" are very vivid, as, indeed, they may be. In more ways than one it was a notable first night for the little maid. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and the Princess Royal were present, and the next morning she woke to find herself with her foot on the first step of the steep stairs that lead to fame. No less an authority than the _Times_ declared that she had played her part with a vivacious precocity that proved her a worthy relation of her sister. No doubt there were that day rejoicings in the Terry family, and the sensitive child must have been rewarded for her own passing tribulations. "My young heart swelled with pride--I can recall the sensation now," she has declared, "when I was told what I had to do,"--and then comes the sad confession that she wept bitter and prolonged tears when the audience laughed when she fell over the rather ridiculous toy-cart with which Mamillius was ordered to "go play." She calls it her "first dramatic failure," and felt at the moment that her "career as an actress was ruined for ever." I wonder if that untoward episode of the toy-cart had anything to do with the extreme nervousness that, according to her own confession, the actress always suffers from on "first nights"? Probably not; for I believe all true stage artists are continually nervous--nervous for themselves, nervous for their audiences. She says to this day that she is so "high strung" on a first night that if she realised that there was an audience in front staring at her, she would fly away from the theatre and be far off "in two-twos." Yes, I fear that all of them, or, at all events, the best of them, undergo the enduring agonies of nervousness. Once Sothern and Toole were dining with me in Birmingham. In the evening the one had to play Lord Dundreary at the Theatre Royal, and the other Caleb Plummer at the Prince of Wales Theatre. They had acted these parts for many, many hundreds of times, and I had imagined that their approaching work would be mere pastime to them. But Sothern, speaking to his brother comedian, said, "I don't know how you feel, John, but I'm as nervous to-night as I was on my first appearance on the stage." To my amazement, Toole, who always seemed so at home with his audiences as to become one amongst them, confessed that he had the same feeling; and they agreed in saying that when an aspiring young actor conceitedly set forth as one of his qualifications for the profession the fact that "he did not know what nervousness meant," he was certain to do no good. "If you are not always anxious about your work," said Sothern, "always painfully desirous to be doing your best, you will soon lose whatever hold you may have on the public." And so said every one's friend--the genial John Toole. Surely this applies to other pursuits besides the art of acting?