It is through the dissatisfaction of a man like Charles Reade that an actress _learns_--that is, if she is not conceited. Conceit is an insuperable obstacle to all progress. On the other hand, it is of little use to take criticism in a slavish spirit and to act on it without understanding it. Charles Reade constantly wrote and said things to me which were not absolutely just criticism; but they directed my attention to the true cause of the faults which he found in my performance, and put me on the way to mending them. A letter which he wrote me during the run of "The Wandering Heir" was such a wonderful lesson to me that I am going to quote it almost in full, in the hope that it may be a lesson to other actresses--"happy in this, they are not yet so old but they can learn"; unhappy in this, that they have never had a Charles Reade to give them a trouncing! Well, the letter begins with sheer eulogy. Eulogy is nice, but one does not learn anything from it. Had dear Charles Reade stopped after writing "womanly grace, subtlety, delicacy, the variety yet invariable truthfulness of the facial expression, compared with which the faces beside yours are wooden, uniform dolls," he would have done nothing to advance me in my art; but this was only the jam in which I was to take the powder! Here followed more jam--with the first taste of the powder: "I prefer you for my Philippa to any other actress, and shall do so still, even if you will not, or cannot, throw more vigor into the lines that need it. I do not pretend to be as good a writer of plays as you are an actress [_how naughty of him!_], but I do pretend to be a great judge of acting in general. [_He wasn't, although in particular details he was a brilliant critic and adviser._] And I know how my own lines and business ought to be rendered infinitely better than any one else, except the Omniscient. It is only on this narrow ground I presume to teach a woman of your gifts. If I teach you Philippa, you will teach me Juliet; for I am very sure that when I have seen you act her, I shall know a vast deal more about her than I do at present. "No great quality of an actress is absent from your performance. Very often you have _vigor_. But in other places where it is as much required, or even more, you turn _limp_. You have limp lines, limp business, and in Act III. limp exits instead of ardent exits."