The sailor who braves the dangers of the deep is always blindly superstitious. There is something in the vastness of the ocean, in its misty immensity, in its magic mirage, its wonders and its terrors, that puzzles the mind and sets fire to the imagination of poor Jack, and even bewilders his superior officers. The artist who undertakes to sail before the public and to amuse it for a living is quite as much at sea as your genuine Jack Tar. He or she finds himself or herself on a veritable ocean, beset by dangers, surrounded by unknown and fickle conditions of atmosphere and phenomena. All the logic of the dry land is of no avail in such a situation. The relations of cause and effect are broken up. Magic is the only excuse for the arrival of the unexpected. The seemingly impossible in results is always the most possible. Once embarked in the dramatic sea, no one can tell where the voyage may end, or what it may bring forth. A shipwreck on auriferous rocks may prove a success. Triumph may come from ruin; happiness from danger, and the longest voyage and the richest freight are often given the most leaky and shallow craft. There is no knowing which boat will float the longest on the dramatic sea--the best equipped or the most shaky and flimsy. So it is no wonder that actors are all superstitious. They have no compass even to guide them when beset by the varying winds of public opinion. The impossible is always sure to meet them; so they are always on the lookout for magic, and depend in secret quite as much upon their simple necromancy as upon their talent or their study. Every star has, so to speak, a fetich that insures success, or goes through an imaginary formula to invoke prosperity. The public is constantly under the influence of the voudoo arts of actors, and incantations and mystic signs rule the world of Thespis and enslave the public without its knowledge. Some of these fancies and formulæ of intelligent actors are, indeed, more simple and childlike than those that characterize poor Jack of the briny deep.