I wonder what would have been the effect if the consoling words of George William Curtis (one of the most beautiful of American writers) had been wafted to him across the Atlantic? "Success," says Curtis, "is a delusion. It is an attainment--but who attains? It is the horizon, always bounding our path and therefore never gained. The Pope, triple-crowned, and borne with flabella through St. Peter's, is not successful--for he might be canonised into a saint. Pygmalion, before his perfect statue, is not successful,--for it might live. Raphael, finishing the Sistine Madonna, is not successful,--for her beauty has revealed to him a finer and an unattainable beauty." To the true artist such truths as these strike home, and I fear they often throw their cloud over the apparently ever sunny-minded Ellen Terry. It is a fact that she often feels she has failed where enthusiastic audiences, and even the most captious critics, testify to the fact that she has triumphed. But she knows that any seeming victory in human life is not final achievement, but a spur (often a cruel one) to endless endeavour. The artistic temperament must be more or less self-tormenting, and those who desire mere personal comfort should never attempt to cultivate it. Devoid of it they can smugly criticise, and with intense self-satisfaction condemn, the life work of those who well nigh exhaust their energies in order to provide them with entertainment. At the conclusion of the Princess's engagement Mr. Ben Terry seems to have been inspired by a happy thought. Probably he knew that in 1859 there were thousands of goody-goody people who did not like to be seen in a real theatre, but who would flock to see theatricals under the guise of "A Drawing-Room Entertainment." Possibly he was aware that the congregations of goody-goodies, who still had an idea that Mawworm was right when he declared that the playhouse was the devil's hot-bed, took an eager interest in reading anything that appeared concerning the stage. The youthful fame of Kate and Ellen Terry was well established. Their stars were in the ascendant, everybody (including the useful army of goody-goodies) wanted to see them;--why not let them appear in a "Drawing-Room Entertainment"? Perhaps I am wrong in hinting at such things as these in connection with the business arrangements of Mr. Ben Terry. Anyway, a "Drawing-Room Entertainment" was devised for the attractive sisters, and it became exceedingly popular. It was first brought out at the Royal Colosseum, Regent's Park, in those days a favourite place for amusements of this description. It proved so attractive that it ran for thirty consecutive nights, during which more than thirty thousand people paid for admission, and expressed their delight in the entertainment. Thus encouraged, it was taken on tour to the leading as well as the smaller provincial towns.