“So you represent SUCCESS,” he exclaimed. “Well, I am pleased to have you call. Success pays few calls, you know. Ordinarily, we have to pursue it and make great efforts to keep it from eluding us.” Mr. Mansfield made this remark with a quizzical, yet half-tired smile, as if he had himself found the chase exhausting. HOW TO FIND SUCCESS. “Yes,” he went on, “success is a most fleet-footed—almost a phantom—goddess. You pursue her eagerly and seem to grasp her, and then you see her speeding on in front again. This is, of course, because one is rarely satisfied with present success. There is always something yet to be attained. To speak personally, I never worked harder in my life than I am working now. If I should relax, I fear that the structure which I have built up would come tumbling about my ears. It is my desire to advance my standard every year,—to plant it higher up on the hill, and to never yield a foot of ground. This requires constant effort. I find my reward, not in financial returns, for these are hardly commensurate with the outlay of labor; nor in the applause of others, for this is not always discriminative or judicious; but in the practice of my art. This suggests what, it seems to me, is the true secret of success. “Love your work; then you will do it well. It is its own reward, though it brings others. If a young man would rather be an actor than anything else, and he knows what he is about, let him, by all means, be an actor. He will probably become a good one. It is the same, of course, in many occupations. If you like your work, hold on to it, and eventually you are likely to win. If you don’t like it, you can’t be too quick in getting into something that suits you better.” HE BEGAN AS A DRY GOODS CLERK. “I began as a dry goods clerk in Boston, and was a very mediocre clerk. Afterward I became a painter in London, and was starving at that. Finally, like water, I found my level in dramatic art.” The thing about Mr. Mansfield which most inspires those who come in contact with him is his wonderful store of nervous energy. It communicates itself to others and makes them keen for work. “I cannot talk with him five minutes,” said his business representative, “before I want to grab my hat and ‘hustle’ out and do about three days’ work without stopping. For persons who have not, or cannot absorb, some of his own electric spirit, he has little use. He is a living embodiment of contagious energy.” His performances before audiences constitute a comparatively small portion of his work. It is in his elaborate and painstaking preparation that the labor is involved, and it is to this—to the minute preliminary care that he gives to every detail of a production,—that his fine effects and achievements before the footlights are, in considerable measure, due. HE GIVES INFINITE ATTENTION TO DETAIL.