Mrses

Mde Le Mise de Brehan est infiniment touchée des attentions aimables qu’elle a eprouvées de votre part et de celle de Mesdames Washington, Elle me charge de vous faire parvenir tous ses remercimens et de vous prier, Monsieur, de leur faire agréer ses sinceres complimens; permettez que j’aie l’honneur d’y joindre mes respectueux homages.

Only women already existing in the social margins became actresses.²⁶ For example, celebrated tragedienne Elizabeth Barry was an orphan, Nell Gwynn a barmaid raised in a brothel, Moll Davis the illegitimate daughter of a Colonel. Other actresses were the wives and daughters of male actors, as for example Mary Saunderson (Mrs Betterton) and (in a later period) Mrses Kean, Kemble and Siddons.

In Rome, in Syracuse, in Athens, in Thebes, more than two or three thousand years ago, there was the bobbed-haired, painted, perfumed Miss and Mrs of today, and she inspired almost exactly the feelings that our painted and perfumed Misses and Mrses inspire, in the men.