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    her exertions , ' That woman would even say her prayers if they were in her part , and she was paid for it !' That the dramatic profession has also its demoralizing tendencies , we have no doubt ; although we do doubt whether they can be worse than those of many avocations which are in better odour ; and doubt much more whether they are the real cause of the feeling which it excites .

    The great evil of the actor ' s life is analogous to that which is so extensively produced by the subdivision of labour . He only does one thing , and that incessantly ; and it only exercises one class of his faculties , a confined portion of his being . His sole work is to cast his own powers of expression in moulds prepared for them by the intellect of others . These moulds may be so large that he cannot fill them , so small that he overflows them ,

    so unadapted that they gall him ; but still , on he must go , day after day , fusing his feeling and presenting it in the prescribed form . Very-dimcult indeed , in such a course of life , must be that expansion of mind and heart without which man is not a progressive , that is to say , not a moral being . Hence so many actors have little knowledge beyond their authors and their art , no decided opinions or principles , no independence or individuality , —in short , no character , save that which is professional . But it is for other reasons that they are , both men and women , generally disesteemed ; and those reasons mainly are , that the former are often known to be improvident , and the latter are sometimes supposed to be unchaste . Improvidence is only pardonable under privilege of Parliament , and finds no shelter beyond the folds of that mantle which hides so much better than even all-covering charity . And as to the other offence , it is the loss of woman ' s virtue ; she has but that , and surely ought to keep it , as it exonerates from the practice of all the rest , and alone constitutes the

    gulf between good and bad in her sex . She may be full of ' envy , hatred , malice , and all uncharitableness ; ' as ignorant as an ass , as obstinate as a mule , as blind as a beetle , as poisonous as an asp , and as savage as a hyaena , and yet be a virtuous woman . She may , from sheer vanity , excite affection which she means to disappoint ; she may marry without a spark of love ,

    and procure clothes , board , lodging and money , by the legal barter of her person ; she may vend the heartless form , if it wear well enough , again and again , and renew the disgusting bargain and perform its conditions to the end of her days , and yet be a virtuous woman . She may , by her wasteful expenditure , scatter

    to the winds the hard earnings of her husband ; she may withhold all sympathy from the honourable but not profitable exertions in which he needs it , and ever influence towards sycophancy and selfishness ; she may abandon her children to hirelings , or only teach them lessons better unlearnt , training them to leave ana

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    M& CnmpbttV * ti / e of Mr * . SiddonM .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1834, page 536, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2636/page/6/