I thank you for your advice. You were right when you told me to go and see Mrs. BERNARD BEERE in _As in a Looking Glass_. Indeed, she does hold the mirror up to "nature,"--which is in this instance what ZOLA calls _la bête humaine_,--and in it is reflected the worn face, so weary of wickedness and so hopeless of the future, of _Lena Despard_. The moral of the story--for moral there is--is never out of date. If we can ever retrace any of our steps in life, which I doubt, there are at all events some false steps that never can be retraced. Our deeds become part and parcel of ourselves, and we can no more rid ourselves of them than we can jump off our shadows. "Our deeds our angels are, or good or ill; Our fatal shadows that walk with us still." And yet _la bête humaine_, has not quite killed the soul of this adventuress, for she is still capable of a real love, and of proving its reality by an awful self-sacrifice. This is not a Christmas spirit, is it? But you see I went before Christmas, and having done with tragedy, I am looking forward to pantomimical stuff and nonsense. I had not read the novel,--_you_ have, but considerately refrained from telling me the plot,--so I enjoyed the performance without my memory compelling me to compare it, for better or worse, with the original story. I have never seen Mrs. BEERE play anything before this, nor have I seen SARAH BERNHARDT, who, as you tell me, was in other pieces this lady's model. A London Cousin of mine, who is a theatre-goer, and knows several of the leading actors and actresses "at home," tells me that in this piece the individuality of the actress is completely merged in the part, and that it is only when she is saying something very cynical, that he was reminded by a mannerism peculiar to this actress how bitter this BEERE could be on occasion. It is a pity her name is BEERE, because when I asked my cousin (do you know him--JOSEPH MILLER?) if, off the stage, this lady was really thin and tall, he replied, "Yes--Mrs. BEERE was never stout, and was never a half-and-half sort of actress." And then, when I pressed him for serious answer, he said, "Well, she's _Lena_ on the stage, as you see." What is one to do with a joker like this, except go with him to a Pantomime, Burlesque, or Circus? Yours, LITTLE PETERKIN. P.S.--The Opéra Comique is not the Theatre for a _tragédienne_. Joe says, "Yes it is--for Mrs. BEERE, because of the 'Op in it." * * * * * "DE DEUX SHOWS, UNE."