willing to join Miss Filippi's enterprise in support of the cause she advocates, which is, in effect, a devotion to art for art's sake, and the still more praiseworthy desire to obtain for the art of acting some public recognition of what constitutes the standard of excellence? Such a combination of forces, under artistic control, would have far-reaching results. And, after all, it should be possible for those actors who claim to take their art seriously to agree upon a certain standard of qualification which should be considered indispensable to everyone wishing to become an actor. The late Sir Henry Irving in a speech once said: "I think there is but one way to act, and that is by impersonation. We hear the expression 'character-acting.' I maintain that all acting is character-acting--at any rate, it ought to be." But we live in an age when personality is valued by the public at 50 per cent. more than is the talent of impersonation. As a consequence, it becomes more and more the practice among managers and dramatic authors to select actors for parts for which they are naturally fitted by age, face, voice, and temperament, with the result that the character is played by one who succeeds tolerably well, and even may excel in certain scenes, in the only part in which he is ever likely to excel. Yet such a one is not an actor at all in the legitimate sense of the word, and if he is without vocal or physical flexibility, he is limited to the business of impersonating his own personality. Then if he happens to appear in a play which becomes a success, he may hope to continue acting his own personality throughout the English-speaking towns of the two hemispheres for a run of four, or even seven, years, after which he will have the pleasure of "resting" until another part can be found for him as much like himself as was the last one. And while this method of casting plays has the advantage of distributing more equally the chances of an engagement in a profession which has always a larger supply of actors than is required, it has the distinct disadvantage of depriving the character actor of the opportunity of learning his art.