The Ways of Men................................................................................................................................................1

Eliot Gregory...........................................................................................................................................1

Chapter 1 "UNCLE SAM"...................................................................................................................1

Chapter 2 Domestic Despots................................................................................................................3

Chapter 3 Cyrano, Rostand, Coquelin..................................................................................................5

Chapter 4 Machinemade Men............................................................................................................9

Chapter 5 Parnassus ............................................................................................................................12

Chapter 6 Modern Architecture ..........................................................................................................14

Chapter 7 Worldly ColorBlindness..................................................................................................18

Chapter 8 Idling in MidOcean ..........................................................................................................20

Chapter 9 "Climbers" in England.......................................................................................................22

Chapter 10 CALVE at Cabrieres........................................................................................................25

Chapter 11 A Cry For Fresh Air .........................................................................................................27

Chapter 12 The Paris of our Grandparents.........................................................................................30

Chapter 13 Some American Husbands ...............................................................................................32

Chapter 14 "CAROLUS" ....................................................................................................................35

Chapter 15 The Grand Opera Fad .......................................................................................................37

Chapter 16 The Poetic CABARETS of Paris.....................................................................................41

Chapter 17 Etiquette At Home and Abroad ........................................................................................46

Chapter 18 What is "Art"? ..................................................................................................................48

Chapter 19 The Genealogical Craze ...................................................................................................50

Chapter 20 As the Twig is Bent ..........................................................................................................52

Chapter 21 Seven Small Duchesses ....................................................................................................55

Chapter 22 Growing Old Ungracefully..............................................................................................58

Chapter 23 Around a Spring ...............................................................................................................60

Chapter 24 The Better Part.................................................................................................................63

Chapter 25 La Comedie Francaise a Orange......................................................................................65

Chapter 26 Prepalatial Newport.......................................................................................................68

Chapter 27 SARDOU at MarlyleRoy............................................................................................70

Chapter 28 Inconsistencies.................................................................................................................74

Chapter 29 Modern "Cadets de Gascogne"........................................................................................77

Chapter 30 The Dinner and the Drama ...............................................................................................81

Chapter 31 The Modern ASPASIA....................................................................................................84

Chapter 32 A Nation in a Hurry.........................................................................................................86

Chapter 33 The Spirit of History........................................................................................................90

THE gentleman who graced the gubernatorial armchair of our state when this century was born happened to

It is owing to his weakness in bestowing pompous cognomens on our embryo towns and villages that today

names like Utica, Syracuse, and Ithaca, instead of evoking visions of historic pomp and circumstance, raise in

the minds of most Americans the picture of cocky little cities, rich only in trolleycars and Methodist

When, however, this cultured governor, in his ardor, christened one of the cities Troy, and the hill in its

vicinity Mount Ida, he little dreamed that a youth was living on its slopes whose name was destined to

become a household word the world over, as the synonym for the proudest and wealthiest republic yet known

to history, a sobriquet that would be familiar in the mouths of races to whose continents even the titles of

A little before this century began, two boys with packs bound on their stalwart shoulders walked from New

York and established a brickyard in the neighborhood of what is now Perry Street, Troy. Ebenezer and

Samuel Wilson soon became esteemed citizens of the infant city, their kindliness and benevolence winning

The younger brother, Samuel, was an especial favorite with the children of the place, whose explorations into

his deep pockets were generally rewarded by the discovery of some simple "sweet" or homemade toy. The

slender youth with the "nutcracker" face proving to be the merriest of playfellows, in their love his little band

of admirers gave him the pet name of "Uncle Sam," by which he quickly became known, to the exclusion of

his real name. This is the kindly and humble origin of a title the mere speaking of which today quickens the

pulse and moistens the eyes of millions of Americans with the same thrill that the dear old flag arouses when

With increasing wealth the brickyard of the Wilson brothers was replaced by an extensive slaughtering

business, in which more than a hundred men were soon employed a vast establishment for that day, killing

weekly some thousand head of cattle. During the military operations of 1812 the brothers signed a contract to

furnish the troops at Greenbush with meat, "packed in full bound barrels of white oak"; soon after, Samuel

It is a curious coincidence that England also should have taken an exarmycontractor as her patron saint, for

if we are to believe tradition, St. George of Cappadocia filled that position unsatisfactorily before he passed

True prototype of the nation that was later to adopt him as its godfather, the shrewd and honest patriot,

"Uncle Sam," not only lived loyally up to his contracts, giving full measure and of his best, but proved

himself incorruptible, making it his business to see that others too fulfilled their engagements both in the

letter and the spirit; so that the "U.S." (abbreviation of United States) which he pencilled on all provisions

that had passed his inspection became in the eyes of officers and soldiers a guarantee of excellence. Samuel's

old friends, the boys of Troy (now enlisted in the army), naively imagining that the mystic initials were an

allusion to the pet name they had given him years before, would accept no meats but "Uncle Sam's,"

murmuring if other viands were offered them. Their comrades without inquiry followed this example; until so

strong did the prejudice for food marked "U.S." become, that other contractors, in order that their provisions

To the greater part of the troops, ignorant (as are most Americans today) of the real origin of this

pseudonym, "Uncle Sam's" beef and bread meant merely government provisions, and the step from national

belongings to an impersonation of our country by an ideal "Uncle Sam" was but a logical sequence.

In his vigorous old age, Samuel Wilson again lived on Mount Ida, near the estates of the Warren family,

where as children we were taken to visit his house and hear anecdotes of the aged patriot's hospitality and

humor. The honor in which he was held by the countryside, the influence for good he exerted, and the

informal tribunal he held, to which his neighbors came to get their differences straightened out by his

common sense, are still talked of by the older inhabitants. One story in particular used to charm our boyish

ears. It was about a dispute over land between the Livingstons and the Van Rensselaers, which was brought

to an end by "Uncle Sam's" producing a barrel of old papers (confided to him by both families during the war,

for safe keeping) and extracting from this original "strong box" title deeds to the property in litigation.

Now, in these troubled times of ours, when rumors of war are again in the air, one's thoughts revert with

pleasure to the halfmythical figure on the threshold of the century, and to legends of the cleareyed giant,

with the quizzical smile and the tender, loyal heart, whose life's work makes him a more lovable model and a

nobler example to hold up before the youth of today than all the mythological deities that ever disported

There is a singular fitness in this choice of "Uncle Sam" as our patron saint, for to be honest and loyal and

modest, to love little children, to do one's duty quietly in the heyday of life, and become a mediator in old

age, is to fulfil about the whole duty of man; and every patriotic heart must wish the analogy may be long

maintained, that our loved country, like its prototype, may continue the protector of the feeble and a

THOSE who walk through the welltodo quarters of our city, and glance, perhaps a little enviously as they

pass, toward the cheerful firesides, do not reflect that in almost every one of these apparently happy homes a

pitiless tyrant reigns, a misshapen monster without bowels of compassion or thought beyond its own greedy

appetites, who sits like Sinbad's awful burden on the necks of tender women and distracted men. Sometimes

this incubus takes the form of a pug, sometimes of a poodle, or simply a bastard cur admitted to the family

bosom in a moment of unreflecting pity; size and pedigree are of no importance; the result is always the

same. Once Caliban is installed in his stronghold, peace and independence desert that roof.

We read daily of fathers tyrannizing over trembling families, of stepmothers and unnatural children turning

what might be happy homes into amateur Infernos, and sigh, as we think of martyrdoms endured by

It is cheering to know that societies have been formed for the protection of dumb brutes and helpless children.

Will no attempt be made to alleviate this other form of suffering, which has apparently escaped the eye of the

The animal kingdom is divided like all Gaul into three divisions: wild beasts, that are obliged to hustle

for themselves; laboring and producing animals, for which man provides because they are useful to him and

dogs! Of all created things on our globe the canine race have the softest "snap." The more one thinks about

this curious exception in their favor the more unaccountable it appears. We neglect such wild things as we do

not slaughter, and exact toil from domesticated animals in return for their keep. Dogs alone, shirking all cares

When that painful family jar broke up the little garden party in Eden and forced our first parents to work or

hunt for a living, the original Dog (equally disgusted with either alternative) hit on the luminous idea of

posing as the champion of the disgraced couple, and attached himself to Adam and Eve; not that he approved

of their conduct, but simply because he foresaw that if he made himself companionable and cosy he would be

From that day to the present, with the exception of occasionally watching sheep and houses a lazy

occupation at the best and a little light carting in Belgium (dogs were given up as turnspits centuries ago,

because they performed that duty badly), no canine has raised a paw to do an honest day's work, neither has

How then one asks one's self in a wonder did the myth originate that Dog was the friend of Man? Like a

multitude of other fallacies taught to innocent children, this folly must be unlearned later. Friend of man,

indeed! Why, the "Little Brothers of the Rich" are guileless philanthropists in comparison with most canines,

and unworthy to be named in the same breath with them. Dogs discovered centuries ago that to live in luxury,

it was only necessary to assume an exaggerated affection for some wealthy mortal, and have since proved

themselves past masters in a difficult art in which few men succeed. The number of human beings who

manage to live on their friends is small, whereas the veriest mongrel cur contrives to enjoy food and lodging

Facts such as these, however, have not overthrown the great dog myth. One can hardly open a child's book

without coming across some tale of canine intelligence and devotion. My tender youth was saddened by the

story of one disinterested dog that refused to leave his master's grave and was found frozen at his post on a

bleak winter's morning. With the experience of years in pet dogs I now suspect that, instead of acting in this

theatrical fashion, that pup trotted home from the funeral with the most prosperous and simpleminded

couple in the neighborhood, and after a substantial meal went to sleep by the fire. He must have been a clever

dog to get so much free advertisement, so probably strolled out to his master's grave the next noon, when

I have written "the richest and most simple minded couple," because centuries of selfseeking have

developed in these beasts an especial aptitude for spotting possible victims at a glance. You will rarely find

dogs coquetting with the strong minded or wasting blandishments where there is not the probability of

immediate profit; but once let even a puppy get a tenderhearted girl or aged couple under his influence, no

There is a house not a square away from Mr. Gerry's philanthropic headquarters, where a state of things exists

calculated to extract tears from a customhouse official. Two elderly virgins are there held in bondage by a

Minotaur no bigger than your two fists. These good dames have a taste for travelling, but change of climate

disagrees with their tyrant. They dislike housekeeping and, like good Americans, would prefer hotel life,

nevertheless they keep up an establishment in a cheerless side street, with a retinue of servants, because,

forsooth, their satrap exacts a back yard where he can walk of a morning. These spinsters, although loving

sisters, no longer go about together, Caligula's nerves being so shaken that solitude upsets them. He would

sooner expire than be left alone with the servant, for the excellent reason that his bad temper and absurd airs

Another household in this city revolves around two brainless, goggleeyed beasts, imported at much expense

from the slopes of Fujiyama. The care that is lavished on those heathen monsters passes belief. Maids are

employed to carry them up and down stairs, and men are called in the night to hurry for a doctor when Chi

has overeaten or Fu develops colic; yet their devoted mistress tells me, with tears in her eyes, that in spite of

this care, when she takes her darlings for a walk they do not know her from the first stranger that passes, and

What revolts me in the character of dogs is that, not content with escaping from the responsibilities entailed

on all the other inhabitants of our globe by the struggle for existence, these fourlegged Pecksniffs have

succeeded in making for themselves a fallacious reputation for honesty and devotion. What little lingering

belief I had in canine fidelity succumbed then I was told that St. Bernards those models of integrity and

courage have fallen into the habit of carrying the flasks of brandy that the kind monks provide for the

succor of snowbound travellers, to the neighboring hamlets and exchanging the contents for chops!

Will the world ever wake to the true character of these four legged impostors and realize that instead of

being disinterested and sincere, most family pets are consummate hypocrites. Innocent? Pshaw! Their pretty,

coaxing ways and pretences of affection are unadulterated guile; their ostentatious devotion, simply a clever

manoeuvre to excite interest and obtain unmerited praise. It is useless, however, to hope that things will

change. So long as this giddy old world goes on waltzing in space, so long shall we continue to be duped by

shams and pin our faith on frauds, confounding an attractive bearing with a sweet disposition and mistaking

dishevelled hair and eccentric appearance for brains. Even in the Orient, where dogs have been granted

immunity from other labor on the condition that they organized an effective streetcleaning department, they

have been false to their trust and have evaded their contracts quite as if they were Tammany braves, like

whom they pass their days in slumber and their nights in settling private disputes, while the city remains

I nurse yet another grudge against the canine race! That Voltaire of a whelp, who imposed himself upon our

confiding first parents, must have had an important pull at headquarters, for he certainly succeeded in getting

the decree concerning beauty and fitness which applies to all mammals, including man himself, reversed in

favor of dogs, and handed down to his descendants the secret of making defects and deformities pass current

as qualities. While other animals are valued for sleek coats and slender proportions, canine monstrosities have

always been in demand. We do not admire squints or protruding under jaws in our own race, yet bulldogs

have persuaded many weakminded people that these defects are charming when combined in an individual

The fox in the fable, who after losing his tail tried to make that bereavement the fashion, failed in his

undertaking; Dutch canalboat dogs have, however, been successful where the fox failed, and are today

pampered and prized for a curtailment that would condemn any other animal (except perhaps a Manx cat) to a

I can only recall two instances where canine sycophants got their deserts; the first tale (probably apocryphal)

is about a donkey, for years the silent victim of a little terrier who had been trained to lead him to water and

back. The dog as might have been expected abused the situation, while pretending to be very kind to his

charge, never allowed him to roll on the grass, as he would have liked, or drink in peace, and harassed the

poor beast in many other ways, getting, however, much credit from the neighbors for devotion and

intelligence. Finally, one day after months of waiting, the patient victim's chance came. Getting his tormentor

The other tale is true, for I knew the lady who provided in her will that her entire establishment should be

kept up for the comfort and during the life of the three fat spaniels that had solaced her declining years. The

heirs tried to break the will and failed; the delighted domestics, seeing before them a period of repose,

proceeded (headed by the portly housekeeper) to consult a "vet" as to how the life of the precious legatees

might be prolonged to the utmost. His advice was to stop all sweets and rich food and give each of the

animals at least three hours of hard exercise a day. From that moment the lazy brutes led a dog's life. Water

and the detested "Spratt" biscuit, scorned in happier days, formed their meagre ordinary; instead of somnolent

airings in a softly cushioned landau they were torn from chimney corner musings to be raced through cold,

Those two tales give me the keenest pleasure. When I am received on entering a friend's room with a chorus

of yelps and attacked in dark corners by snarling little hypocrites who fawn on me in their master's presence,

I humbly pray that some such Nemesis may be in store for these FAUX BONHOMMES before they leave

this world, as apparently no provision has been made for their punishment in the next.

AMONG the proverbs of Spanish folklore there is a saying that good wine retains its flavor in spite of rude

bottles and cracked cups. The success of M. Rostand's brilliant drama, CYRANO DE BERGERAC, in its

English dress proves once more the truth of this adage. The fun and pathos, the wit and satire, of the original

pierce through the halting, feeble translation like light through a ragged curtain, dazzling the spectators and

Those who love the theatre at its best, when it appeals to our finer instincts and moves us to healthy laughter

and tears, owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Mansfield for his courage in giving us, as far as the difference of

language and rhythm would allow, this CHEF D'OEUVRE unchanged, free from the mutilations of the

adapter, with the author's wishes and the stage decorations followed into the smallest detail. In this way we

profit by the vast labor and study which Rostand and Coquelin gave to the original production.

Rumors of the success attained by this play in Paris soon floated across to us. The two or three French

booksellers here could not import the piece fast enough to meet the ever increasing demand of our reading

public. By the time spring came, there were few cultivated people who had not read the new work and

On arriving in Paris, my first evening was passed at the Porte St. Martin. After the piece was over, I dropped

into Coquelin's dressingroom to shake this old acquaintance by the hand and give him news of his many

Coquelin in his dressingroom is one of the most delightful of mortals. The effort of playing sets his blood in

motion and his wit sparkling. He seemed as fresh and gay that evening as though there were not five killing

acts behind him and the fatigue of a twohundrednight run, uninterrupted even by Sundays, added to his

After the operation of removing his historic nose had been performed and the actor had resumed his own

clothes and features, we got into his carriage and were driven to his apartment in the Place de l'Etoile, a cosy

museum full of comfortable chairs and priceless bricabrac. The conversation naturally turned during

supper on the piece and this new author who had sprung in a night from obscurity to a globeembracing

fame. How, I asked, did you come across the play, and what decided you to produce it?

Coquelin's reply was so interesting that it will be better to repeat the actor's own words as he told his tale over

"I had, like most Parisians, known Rostand for some time as the author of a few graceful verses and a play

"About four years ago Sarah Bernhardt asked me to her `hotel' to hear M. Rostand read a play he had just

completed for her. I accepted reluctantly, as at that moment we were busy at the theatre. I also doubted if

there could be much in the new play to interest me. It was LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE. I shall remember

that afternoon as long as I live! From the first line my attention was riveted and my senses were charmed.

What struck me as even more remarkable than the piece was the masterly power and finish with which the

boyish author delivered his lines. Where, I asked myself, had he learned that difficult art? The great actress,

"After the reading was over I walked home with M. Rostand, and had a long talk with him about his work

and ambitions. When we parted at his door, I said: `In my opinion, you are destined to become the greatest

dramatic poet of the age; I bind myself here and now to take any play you write (in which there is a part for

me) without reading it, to cancel any engagements I may have on hand, and produce your piece with the least

possible delay.' An offer I don't imagine many young poets have ever received, and which I certainly never

"About six weeks later my new acquaintance dropped in one morning to read me the sketch he had worked

out for a drama, the title role of which he thought would please me. I was delighted with the idea, and told

him to go ahead. A month later we met in the street. On asking him how the play was progressing, to my

astonishment he answered that he had abandoned that idea and hit upon something entirely different. Chance

had thrown in his way an old volume of Cyrano de Bergerac's poems, which so delighted him that he had

been reading up the life and death of that unfortunate poet. From this reading had sprung the idea of making

Cyrano the central figure of a drama laid in the city of Richelieu, d'Artagnan, and the PRECIEUSES

"At first this idea struck me as unfortunate. The elder Dumas had worked that vein so well and so completely,

I doubted if any literary gold remained for another author. It seemed foolhardy to resuscitate the THREE

GUARDSMEN epoch and I doubted if it were possible to carry out his idea and play an intense and

"This contrasting of the grotesque and the sentimental was of course not new. Victor Hugo had broken away

from classic tradition when he made a hunchback the hero of a drama. There remained, however, the risk of

our Parisian public not accepting the new situation seriously. It seemed to me like bringing the sublime

"Fortunately, Rostand did not share this opinion or my doubts. He was full of enthusiasm for his piece and

confident of its success. We sat where we had met, under the trees of the Champs Elysees, for a couple of

hours, turning the subject about and looking at the question from every point of view. Before we parted the

poet had convinced me. The role, as he conceived it, was certainly original, and therefore tempting, opening

"I found out later that Rostand had gone straight home after that conversation and worked for nearly twenty

hours without leaving the study, where his wife found him at daybreak, fast asleep with his head on a pile of

manuscript. He was at my rooms the next day before I was up, sitting on the side of my bed, reading the

result of his labor. As the story unfolded itself I was more and more delighted. His idea of resuscitating the

quaint interior of the Hotel de Bourgogne Theatre was original, and the balcony scene, even in outline,

enchanting. After the reading Rostand dashed off as he had come, and for many weeks I saw no more of him.

"LA PRINCESSE LOINTAINE was, in the meantime, produced by Sarah, first in London and then in Paris.

In the English capital it was a failure; with us it gained a SUCCES D'ESTIME, the fantastic grace and

lightness of the piece saving it from absolute shipwreck in the eyes of the literary public.

"Between ourselves," continued Coquelin, pushing aside his plate, a twinkle in his small eyes, "is the reason

of this lack of success very difficult to discover? The Princess in the piece is supposed to be a fairy

enchantress in her sixteenth year. The play turns on her youth and innocence. Now, honestly, is Sarah, even

on the stage, any one's ideal of youth and innocence?" This was asked so naively that I burst into a laugh, in

which my host joined me. Unfortunately, this grandmamma, like Ellen Terry, cannot be made to understand

that there are roles she should leave alone, that with all the illusions the stage lends she can no longer play

"The failure of his play produced the most disastrous effect on Rostand, who had given up a year of his life to

its composition and was profoundly chagrined by its fall. He sank into a mild melancholy, refusing for more

than eighteen months to put pen to paper. On the rare occasions when we met I urged him to pull himself

together and rise above disappointment. Little by little, his friends were able to awaken his dormant interest

and get him to work again on CYRANO. As he slowly regained confidence and began taking pleasure once

more in his work, the boyish author took to dropping in on me at impossible morning hours to read some

scene hot from his ardent brain. When seated by my bedside, he declaimed his lines until, lit at his flame, I

would jump out of bed, and wrapping my dressinggown hastily around me, seize the manuscript out of his

hands, and, before I knew it, find my self addressing imaginary audiences, poker in hand, in lieu of a sword,

with any hat that came to hand doing duty for the plumed headgear of our hero. Little by little, line upon line,

the masterpiece grew under his hands. My career as an actor has thrown me in with many forms of literary

industry and dogged application, but the power of sustained effort and untiring, unflagging zeal possessed by

"As the work began taking form, Rostand hired a place in the country, so that no visitors or invitations might

tempt him away from his daily toil. Rich, young, handsome, married to a woman all Paris was admiring, with

every door, social or Bohemian, wide open before his birth and talent, he voluntarily shut himself up for over

a year in a dismal suburb, allowing no amusement to disturb his incessant toil. Mme. Rostand has since told

me that at one time she seriously feared for his reason if not for his life, as he averaged ten hours a day steady

work, and when the spell was on him would pass night after night at his study table, rewriting, cutting,

modelling his play, never contented, always striving after a more expressive adjective, a more harmonious or

original rhyme, casting aside a month's finished work without a second thought when he judged that another

"That no success is cheaply bought I have long known; my profession above all others is calculated to teach

"If Rostand's play is the best this century has produced, and our greatest critics are unanimous in pronouncing

it equal, if not superior, to Victor Hugo's masterpieces, the young author has not stolen his laurels, but gained

them leaf by leaf during endless midnight hours of brainwringing effort a price that few in a generation

would be willing to give or capable of giving for fame. The labor had been in proportion to the success; it

always is! I doubt if there is one word in his `duel' ballad that has not been changed again and again for a

more fitting expression, as one might assort the shades of a mosaic until a harmonious whole is produced. I

have there in my desk whole scenes that he discarded because they were not essential to the action of the

piece. They will probably never be printed, yet are as brilliant and cost their author as much labor as any that

"As our rehearsals proceeded I saw another side of Rostand's character; the energy and endurance hidden in

his almost effeminate frame astonished us all. He almost lived at the theatre, drilling each actor, designing

each costume, ordering the setting of each scene. There was not a dress that he did not copy from some old

print, or a PASSADE that he did not indicate to the humblest member of the troop. The marvellous diction

that I had noticed during the reading at Sarah's served him now and gave the key to the entire performance. I

have never seen him peevish or discouraged, but always courteous and cheerful through all those weary

weeks of repetition, when even the most enthusiastic feel their courage oozing away under the awful grind of

afternoon and evening rehearsal, the latter beginning at midnight after the regular performance was over.

"The news was somehow spread among the theatreloving public that something out if the ordinary was in

preparation. The papers took up the tale and repeated it until the whole capital was keyed up to concert pitch.

The opening night was eagerly awaited by the critics, the literary and the artistic worlds. When the curtain

rose on the first act there was the emotion of a great event floating in the air." Here Coquelin's face assumed

an intense expression I had rarely seen there before. He was back on the stage, living over again the glorious

hours of that night's triumph. His breath was coming quick and his eyes aglow with the memory of that

evening. "Never, never have I lived through such an evening. Victor Hugo's greatest triumph, the first night

of HERNANI, was the only theatrical event that can compare to it. It, however, was injured by the enmity of

a clique who persistently hissed the new play. There is but one phrase to express the enthusiasm at our first

performance UNE SALLE EN DELIRE gives some idea of what took place. As the curtain fell on each

succeeding act the entire audience would rise to its feet, shouting and cheering for ten minutes at a time. The

coulisse and the dressingrooms were packed by the critics and the author's friends, beside themselves with

delight. I was trembling so I could hardly get from one costume into another, and had to refuse my door to

every one. Amid all this confusion Rostand alone remained cool and seemed unconscious of his victory. He

continued quietly giving last recommendations to the figurants, overseeing the setting of the scenes, and

thanking the actors as they came off the stage, with the same selfpossessed urbanity he had shown during

the rehearsals. Finally, when the play was over, and we had time to turn and look for him, our author had

disappeared, having quietly driven off with his wife to their house in the country, from which he never moved

It struck two o'clock as Coquelin ended. The sleepless city had at last gone to rest. At our feet, as we stood by

the open window, the great square around the Arc de Triomphe lay silent and empty, its vast arch rising

As I turned to go, Coquelin took my hand and remarked, smiling: "Now you have heard the story of a genius,

AMONG the commonplace white and yellow envelopes that compose the bulk of one's correspondence,

appear from time to time dainty epistles on tinted paper, adorned with crests or monograms. "Ha! ha!" I think

when one of these appears, "here is something worth opening!" For between ourselves, reader mine, old

bachelors love to receive notes from women. It's so flattering to be remembered by the dear creatures, and

recalls the time when life was beginning, and POULETS in feminine writing suggested such delightful

Only this morning an envelope of delicate Nile green caused me a distinct thrill of anticipation. To judge by

appearances it could contain nothing less attractive than a declaration, so, tearing it hurriedly open, I read:

"Messrs. Sparks Splithers take pleasure in calling attention to their patent suspenders and newest designs in

Now, if that's not enough to put any man in a bad humor for twentyfour hours, I should like to know what

is? Moreover, I have "patents" in horror, experience having long ago revealed the fact that a patent is pretty

sure to be only a new way of doing fast and cheaply something that formerly was accomplished slowly and

Few people stop to think how quickly this land of ours is degenerating into a paradise of the cheap and nasty,

but allow themselves to be heated and cooled and whirled about the streets to the detriment of their nerves

and digestions, under the impression that they are enjoying the benefits of modern progress.

So complex has life become in these later days that the very beds we lie on and the meals we eat are

controlled by patents. Every garment and piece of furniture now pays a "royalty" to some inventor, from the

hats on our heads to the carpets under foot, which latter are not only manufactured, but cleaned and shaken by

machinery, and (be it remarked EN PASSANT) lose their nap prematurely in the process. To satisfy our

national love of the new, an endless and nameless variety of trifles appears each season, socalled labor and

timesaving combinations, that enjoy a brief hour of vogue, only to make way for a newer series of

As long as our geniuses confined themselves to making life one long and breathless scramble, it was bad

enough, but a line should have been drawn where meddling with the sanctity of the toilet began. This, alas!

was not done. Nothing has remained sacred to the inventor. In consequence, the average upto date

American is a walking collection of Yankee notions, an ingenious illusion, made up of patents, requiring as

nice adjustment to put together and undo as a thirteenthcentury warrior, and carrying hardly less metal about

There are a number of haberdashery shops on Broadway that have caused me to waste many precious minutes

gazing into their windows and wondering what the strange instruments of steel and elastic could be, that were

exhibited alongside of the socks and ties. The uses of these would, in all probability, have remained wrapped

in mystery but for the experience of one fateful morning (after a night in a sleepingcar), when countless

hidden things were made clear, as I sat, an awe struck witness to my fellowpassengers' toilets? No!

Getting their machinery into running order for the day, would be a more correct expression.

Originally, "tags" were the backbone of the toilet, different garments being held together by their aid. Later,

buttons and attendant buttonholes were evolved, now replaced by the devices used in composing the

machinemade man. As far as I could see (I have overcome a natural delicacy in making my discoveries

public, because it seems unfair to keep all this information to myself), nothing so archaic as a buttonhole is

employed at the present time by our patentridden compatriots. The shirt, for instance, which was formerly

such a simple minded and straightforward garment, knowing no guile, has become, in the hands of the

inventors, a mere pretence, a frail scaffold, on which an elaborate superstructure of shams is erected.

The varieties of this garment that one sees in the shop windows, exposing virgin bosoms to the day, are not

what they seem! Those very bosoms are fakes, and cannot open, being instead pierced by eyelets, into which

bogus studs are fixed by machinery. The owner is obliged to enter into those deceptive garments

surreptitiously from the rear, by stratagem, as it were. Why all this trouble, one asks, for no apparent reason,

except that oldfashioned shirts opened in front, and no Yankee will wear a nonpatented garment if he

There was not a single accessory to the toilet in that car which behaved in a normal way. Buttons mostly

backed into place, tailend foremost (like horses getting between shafts), where some hidden mechanism

Collars and cuffs (integral parts of the primitive garment) are now a labyrinth, in which all but the initiated

must lose themselves, being doubledecked, detachable, reversible, and made of every known substance

except linen. The cuff most in favor can be worn four different ways, and is attached to the shirt by a steel

instrument three inches long, with a nipper at each end. The amount of white visible below the coat sleeve is

regulated by another contrivance, mostly of elastic, worn further up the arm, around the biceps. Modern

collars are retained in position by a system of screws and levers. Socks are attached no longer with the

oldfashioned garter, but by aid of a little harness similar to that worn by pug dogs.

One traveller, after lacing his shoes, adjusted a contrivance resembling a black beetle on the knot to prevent

its untying. He also wore "hygienic suspenders," a discovery of great importance (over three thousand patents

have been taken out for this one necessity of the toilet!). This brace performs several tasks at the same time,

such as holding unmentionable garments in place, keeping the wearer erect, and providing a nightkey guard.

It is also said to cure liver and kidney disease by means of an arrangement of pulleys which throw the strain

The watches of my companions, I noticed with astonishment, all wore Indiarubber ruffs around their necks.

Here curiosity getting the better of discretion, I asked what purpose that invention served. It was graciously

explained to me how such ruffs prevented theft. They were so made that it was impossible to draw your

watch out of a pocket unless you knew the trick, which struck me as a mitigated blessing. In fact, the idea

kept occurring that life might become terribly uncomfortable under these complex conditions for

Pencils, I find, are no longer put into pockets or slipped behind the ear. Every commercial "gent" wears a

patent on his chest, where his pen and pencil nestle in a coil of wire. Eyeglasses are not allowed to dangle

aimlessly about, as of old, but retire with a snap into an oval box, after the fashion of roller shades.

Scarfpins have guards screwed on from behind, and undergarments but here modesty stops my pen.

Seeing that I was interested in their makeup, several travelling agents on the train got out their boxes and

showed me the latest artifices that could be attached to the person. One gentleman produced a collection of

rings made to go on the finger with a spring, like bracelets, an arrangement, he explained, that was

Another tempted me with what he called a "literary shirt front," it was in fact a paper pad, from which for

cleanliness a leaf could be peeled each morning; the "wrong" side of the sheet thus removed contained a

calendar, much useful information, and the chapters of a "continued" story, which ended when the "dickey"

A third traveller was "pushing" a collarbutton that plied as many trades as Figaro, combining the functions

of cravat holder, stud, and scarfpin. Not being successful in selling me one of these, he brought forward

something "without which," he assured me, "no gentleman's wardrobe was complete"! It proved to be an

insidious arrangement of gilt wire, which he adjusted on his poor, overworked collarbutton, and then tied

his cravat through and around it. "No tie thus made," he said, "would ever slip or get crooked." He had been

so civil that it was embarrassing not to buy something of him; I invested twentyfive cents in the

cravatholder, as it seemed the least complicated of the patents on exhibition; not, however, having graduated

in a school of mechanics I have never been able to make it work. It takes an hour to tie a cravat with its aid,

and as long to get it untied. Most of the men in that car, I found, got around the difficulty by wearing

It has been suggested that the reason our compatriots have such a strained and anxious look is because they

are all trying to remember the numbers of their streets and houses, the floor their office is on, and the

combination of their safes. I am inclined to think that the hunted look we wear comes from an awful fear of

forgetting the secrets of our patents and being unable to undo ourselves in an emergency!

Think for a moment of the horror of coming home tired and sleepy after a convivial evening, and finding that

some of your hidden machinery had gone wrong; that by a sudden movement you had disturbed the nice

balance of some lever which in revenge refused to release its prey! The inventors of one wellknown

cuffholder claim that it had a "bulldog grip." Think of sitting dressed all night in the embrace of that

I never doubted that bravery was the leading characteristic of the American temperament; since that glimpse

into the secret composition of my compatriots, admiration has been vastly increased. The foolhardy daring it

must require dressed as those men were to go out in a thunderstorm makes one shudder: it certainly

could not be found in any other race. The danger of crosscountry hunting or bullfighting is as nothing

compared to the risk a modern American takes when he sits in a trolleycar, where the chances of his

machinery forming a fatal "short circuit" must be immense. The utter impossibility in which he finds himself

of making a toilet quickly on account of so many timesaving accessories must increase his chances of

getting "left" in an accident about fifty per cent. Who but one of our people could contemplate with

equanimity the thought of attempting the adjustment of such delicate and difficult combinations while a

Our grandfathers contributed the wooden nutmeg to civilization, and endowed a grateful universe with other

moneysaving devices. Today the inventor takes the American baby from his cradle and does not release

him even at the grave. What a treat one of the machinemade men of today will be to the archeologists of

the year 3000, when they chance upon a wellpreserved specimen, with all his patents thick upon I him! With

a prophetic eye one can almost see the kindly old gentleman of that day studying the paraphernalia found in

the tomb and attempting to account for the different pieces. Ink will flow and discussions rage between the

camp maintaining that cuffholders were tutelar deities buried with the dead by pious relatives and the croup

asserting that the little pieces of steel were a form of pocket money in the year 1900. Both will probably

The question has often been raised, What side of our nineteenthcentury civilization will be most admired by

future generations? In view of the above facts there can remain little doubt that when the secrets of the paper

collar and the trouserstretcher have become lost arts, it will be those benefits that remote ages will envy us,

and rare specimens of "ventilated shoes" and "reversible tissuepaper undergarments" will form the choicest

MANY years ago, a gentleman with whom I was driving in a distant quarter of Paris took me to a house on

the rue Montparnasse, where we remained an hour or more, he chatting with its owner, and I listening to their

conversation, and wondering at the confusion of books in the big room. As we drove away, my companion

turned to me and said, "Don't forget this afternoon. You have seen one of the greatest writers our century has

produced, although the world does not yet realize it. You will learn to love his works when you are older, and

it will be a satisfaction to remember that you saw and spoke with him in the flesh! "

When I returned later to Paris the little house had changed hands, and a marble tablet stating that

SainteBeuve had lived and died there adorned its facade. My student footsteps took me many times through

that quiet street, but never without a vision of the poetcritic flashing back, as I glanced up at the window

where he had stood and talked with us; as my friend predicted, SainteBeuve's writings had become a

precious part of my small library, the memory of his genial face adding a vivid interest to their perusal.

I made a little Pilgrimage recently to the quiet old garden where, after many years' delay, a bust of this writer

has been unveiled, with the same companion, now very old, who thirty years ago presented me to the

There is, perhaps, in all Paris no more exquisite corner than the Garden of the Luxembourg. At every season

it is beautiful. The winter sunlight seems to linger on its stately Italian terraces after it has ceased to shine

elsewhere. The first lilacs bloom here in the spring, and when midsummer has turned all the rest of Paris into

a blazing, white wilderness, these gardens remain cool and tranquil in the heart of turbulent "Bohemia," a bit

of fragrant nature filled with the song of birds and the voices of children. Surely it was a gracious inspiration

that selected this shady park as the "Poets' Corner" of great, new Paris. Henri Murger, Leconte de Lisle,

Theodore de Banville, Paul Verlaine, are here, and now SainteBeuve has come back to his favorite haunt.

Like Francois Coppee and Victor Hugo, he loved these historic ALLEES, and knew the stone in them as he

knew the "Latin Quater," for his life was passed between the bookstalls of the quays and the outlying street

As we sat resting in the shade, my companion, who had been one of SainteBeuve's pupils, fell to talking of

his master, his memory refreshed by the familiar surroundings. "Can anything be sadder," he said, "than

finding a face one has loved turned into stone, or names that were the watchwords of one's youth serving as

signs at street corners la rue Flaubert or Theodore de Banville? How far away they make the past seem!

Poor SainteBeuve, that bust yonder is but a poor reward for a life of toil, a modest tribute to his

encyclopaedic brain! His works, however, are his best monument; he would be the last to repine or cavil.

"The literary world of my day had two poles, between which it vibrated. The little house in the rue

Montparnasse was one, the rock of Guernsey the other. We spoke with awe of `Father Hugo' and mentioned

`Uncle Beuve' with tenderness. The Goncourt brothers accepted SainteBeuve's judgment on their work as

the verdict of a `Supreme Court.' Not a poet or author of that day but climbed with a beating heart the narrow

staircase that led to the great writer's library. Paul Verlaine regarded as his literary diploma a letter from this

"At the entrance of the quaint Passage du Commerce, under the arch that leads into the rue

SaintAndredesArts, stands a hotel, where for years SainteBeuve came daily to work (away from the

importunate who besieged his dwelling) in a room hired under the assumed name of Delorme. It was there

that we sent him a basket of fruit one morning addressed to Mr. Delorme, NE SainteBeuve. It was there that

"A curious corner of old Paris that Cour du Commerce! Just opposite his window was the apartment where

Danton lived. If one chose to seek for them it would not be hard to discover on the pavement of this same

passage the marks made by a young doctor in decapitating sheep with his newly invented machine. The

"The great critic loved these old quarters filled with history. He was fond of explaining that Montparnasse

had been a hill where the students of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries came to amuse themselves. In

1761 the slope was levelled and the boulevard laid out, but the name was predestined, he would declare, for

"His enemies pretended that you had but to mention Michelet, Balzac, and Victor Hugo to see SainteBeuve

in three degrees of rage. He had, it is true, distinct expressions on hearing those authors discussed. The phrase

then much used in speaking of an original personality, `He is like a character out of Balzac,' always threw my

master into a temper. I cannot remember, however, having seen him in one of those famous rages which

made Barbey d'Aurevilly say that `Sainte Beuve was a clever man with the temper of a turkey!' The former

was much nearer the truth when he called the author of LES LUNDIS a French Wordsworth, or compared

him to a lay BENEDICTIN. He had a way of reading a newly acquired volume as he walked through the

streets that was typical of his life. My master was always studying and always advancing.

"He never entirely recovered from his mortification at being hissed by the students on the occasion of his first

lecture at the College de France. Returning home he loaded two pistols, one for the first student who should

again insult him, and the other to blow out his own brains. It was no idle threat. The man Guizot had

nicknamed `Werther' was capable of executing his plan, for this causeless unpopularity was anguish to him.

After his death, I found those two pistols loaded in his bedroom, but justice had been done another way. All

opposition had vanished. Every student in the `Quarter' followed the modest funeral of their Senator, who had

become the champion of literary liberty in an epoch when poetry was held in chains.

"The Empire which made him Senator gained, however, but an indocile recruit. On his one visit to

Compiegne in 1863, the Emperor, wishing to be particularly gracious, said to him, `I always read the

MONITEUR on Monday, when your article appears.' Unfortunately for this compliment, it was the

CONSTITUTIONNEL that had been publishing the NOUVEAUX LUNDIS for more than four years. In

spite of the united efforts of his friends, SainteBeuve could not be brought to the point of complimenting

The author of LES CONSOLATIONS remained through life the proudest and most independent of men, a

bourgeois, enemy of all tyranny, asking protection of no one. And what a worker! Reading, sifting, studying,

analyzing his subject before composing one of his famous LUNDIS, a literary portrait which he aimed at

making complete and final. One of these articles cost him as much labor as other authors give to the

"By way of amusement on Sunday evenings, when work was temporarily laid aside, he loved the theatre,

delighting in every kind of play, from the broad farces of the Palais Royal to the tragedies of Racine, and

entertaining comedians in order, as he said, `to keep young'! One evening Theophile Gautier brought a pretty

actress to dinner. SainteBeuve, who was pastmaster in the difficult art of conversation, and on whom a fair

woman acted as an inspiration, surpassed himself on this occasion, surprising even the Goncourts with his

knowledge of the Eighteenth century and the women of that time, Mme. de Boufflers, Mlle. de Lespinasse, la

Marechale de Luxembourg. The hours flew by unheeded by all of his guests but one. The DEBUTANTE was

overheard confiding, later in the evening, to a friend at the Gymnase, where she performed in the last act,

`Ouf! I'm glad to get here. I`ve been dining with a stupid old Senator. They told me he would be amusing, but

I've been bored to death.' Which reminded me of my one visit to England, when I heard a young nobleman

declare that he had been to `such a dull dinner to meet a duffer called "Renan!" '

"SainteBeuve's LARMES DE RACINE was given at the Theatre Francais during its author's last illness. His

disappointment at not seeing the performance was so keen that M. Thierry, then ADMINISTRATEUR of La

Comedie, took Mlle. Favart to the rue Montparnasse, that she might recite his verses to the dying writer.

Jean Racine, le grand poete, Le poete aimant et pieux, Apres que sa lyre muette Se fut voilee a tous les yeux,

Renoncant a la gloire humaine, S'il sentait en son ame pleine Le flot contenu murmurer, Ne savait que fondre

There were tears also in the eyes my companion turned toward me as he concluded. The sun had set while he

had been speaking. The marble of the statues gleamed white against the shadows of the sombre old garden.

The guardians were closing the gates and warning the lingering visitors as we strolled toward the entrance.

It seemed as if we had been for an hour in the presence of the portly critic; and the circle of brilliant men and

witty women who surrounded him Flaubert, Tourgueneff, Theophile Gautier, Renan, George Sand were

realities at that moment, not abstractions with great names. It was like returning from another age, to step out

IF a foreign tourist, ignorant of his whereabouts, were to sail about sunset up our spacious bay and view for

the first time the eccentric skyline of lower New York, he would rub his eyes and wonder if they were not

playing him a trick, for distance and twilight lend the chaotic masses around the Battery a certain wild grace

suggestive of Titan strongholds or prehistoric abodes of Wotan, rather than the business part of a practical

"But," as John Drew used to say in THE MASKED BALL, "what a difference in the morning!" when a visit

to his banker takes the new arrival down to Wall Street, and our uncompromising American daylight dispels

Years ago SPIRITUAL Arthur Gilman mourned over the decay of architecture in New York and pointed out

that Stewart's shop, at Tenth Street, bore about the same relation to Ictinus' noble art as an iron cooking stove!

It is well death removed the Boston critic before our city entered into its present Brobdingnagian phase. If he

considered that Stewart's and the Fifth Avenue Hotel failed in artistic beauty, what would have been his

opinion of the graceless piles that crowd our island today, beside which those older buildings seem almost

One hardly dares to think what impression a student familiar with the symmetry of Old World structures must

receive on arriving for the first time, let us say, at the Bowling Green, for the truth would then dawn upon

him that what appeared from a distance to be the ground level of the island was in reality the roof line of

average fourstory buildings, from among which the keeps and campaniles that had so pleased him (when

viewed from the Narrows) rise like gigantic weeds gone to seed in a field of grass.

It is the heterogeneous character of the buildings down town that renders our streets so hideous. Far from

seeking harmony, builders seem to be trying to "go" each other "one story better"; if they can belittle a

neighbor in the process it is clear gain, and so much advertisement. Certain blocks on lower Broadway are

gems in this way! Any one who has glanced at an auctioneer's shelves when a "job lot" of books is being

sold, will doubtless have noticed their resemblance to the sidewalks of our down town streets. Dainty little

duodecimo buildings are squeezed in between towering in folios, and richly bound and tooled octavos chum

with cheap editions. Our careless City Fathers have not even given themselves the trouble of pushing their

stone and brick volumes into the same line, but allow them to straggle along the shelf I beg pardon, the

The resemblance of most new business buildings to flashy books increases the more one studies them; they

have the proportions of school atlases, and, like them, are adorned only on their backs (read fronts). The

modern builder, like the frugal binder, leaves the sides of his creations unadorned, and expends his ingenuity

in decorating the narrow strip which he naively imagines will be the only part seen, calmly ignoring the fact

that on glancing up or down a street the sides of houses are what we see first. It is almost impossible to get

mathematically opposite a building, yet that is the only point from which these new constructions are not

It seems as though the rudiments of common sense would suggest that under existing circumstances the less

decoration put on a facade the greater would be the harmony of the whole. But trifles like harmony and

fitness are splendidly ignored by the architects of today, who, be it remarked in passing, have slipped into

another curious habit for which I should greatly like to see an explanation offered. As long as the ground

floors and the tops of their creations are elaborate, the designer evidently thinks the intervening twelve or

fifteen stories can shift for themselves. One clumsy mass on the Bowling Green is an excellent example of

this weakness. Its ground floor is a playful reproduction of the tombs of Egypt. About the second story the

architect must have become discouraged or perhaps the owner's funds gave out for the next dozen floors

are treated in the severest "tenement house" manner; then, as his building terminates well up in the sky, a top

floor or two are, for no apparent reason, elaborately adorned. Indeed, this desire for a brilliant finish pervades

the neighborhood. The Johnson Building on Broad Street (to choose one out of the many) is sober and

discreet in design for a dozen stories, but bursts at its top into a Byzantine colonnade. Why? one asks in

Another newcomer, corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, is a commonplace structure, with a fairly good

cornice, on top of which an afterthought, probably a miniature State Capitol has been added, with dome

and colonnade complete. The result recalls dear, absentminded Miss Matty (in Mrs. Gaskell's charming

story), when she put her best cap on top of an old one and sat smiling at her visitors from under the double

Nowhere in the world not even in Moscow, that city of domes can one see such a collection of pagodas,

cupolas, kiosks, and turrets as grace the roofs of our office buildings! Architects evidently look upon such

adornments as compensations! The more hideous the structure, the finer its dome! Having perpetrated a blot

upon the city that cries to heaven in its enormity, the repentant owner adds a pagoda or two, much in the same

spirit, doubtless, as prompts an Italian peasant to hang a votive heart on some friendly shrine when a crime

What would be thought of a bookcollector who took to standing inkstands or pepperboxes on the tops of his

tallest volumes by way of adornment? Yet domes on business buildings are every bit as appropriate. A choice

collection of those monstrosities graces Park Row, one muchgilded offender varying the monotony by

looking like a yellow stopper in a highshouldered bottle! How modern architects with the exquisite City

Hall before them could have wandered so far afield in their search for the original must always remain a

When a tall, thin building happens to stand on a corner, the likeness to an atlas is replaced by a grotesque

resemblance to a waffle iron, of which one structure just finished on Rector Street skilfully reproduces' the

lines. The rows of little windows were evidently arranged to imitate the indentations on that humble utensil,

and the elevated road at the back seems in this case to do duty as the handle. Mrs. Van Rensselaer tells us in

her delightful GOEDE VROUW OF MANAHATA that waffle irons used to be a favorite wedding present

among the Dutch settlers of this island, and were adorned with monograms and other devices, so perhaps it is

atavism that makes us so fond of this form in building! As, however, no careful HAUSFRAU would have

stood her iron on its edge, architects should hesitate before placing their buildings in that position, as the

After leaving the vicinity of the City Hall, the tall slabs that like magnified milestones mark the progress of

Architecture up Broadway become a shade less objectionable, although one meets some strange freaks in

socalled decoration by the way. Why, for instance, were those Titan columns grouped around the entrance

to the American Surety Company's building? They do not support anything (the "business" of columns in

architecture) except some rather feeble statuary, and do seriously block the entrance. Were they added with

the idea of fitness? That can hardly be, for a portico is as inappropriate to such a building as it would be to a

Farther up town our attention is arrested by another misplaced adornment. What purpose can that tomb with a

railing round it serve on top of the New York Life Insurance building? It looks like a monument in

Greenwood, surmounted by a rattrap, but no one is interred there, and vermin can hardly be troublesome at

How did this craze for decoration originate? The inhabitants of Florence and Athens did not consider it

necessary. There must, I feel sure, be a reason for its use in this city; American landlords rarely spend

money without a purpose; perhaps they find that rococo detail draws business and inspires confidence!

I should like to ask the architects of New York one question: Have they not been taught that in their art, as in

every other, pretences are vulgar, that things should be what they seem? Then why do they continue to hide

steel and firebrick cages under a veneer of granite six inches thick, causing them to pose as solid stone

buildings? If there is a demand for tall, light structures, why not build them simply (as bridges are

constructed), and not add a poultice of bogus columns and zinc cornices that serve no purpose and deceive no

Union Square possesses blocks out of which the Jackson and Decker buildings spring with a noble disregard

of all rules and a delicious incongruity that reminds one of Falstaff's corps of illdrilled soldiers. Madison

Square, however, is FACILE PRINCEPS, with its annex to the Hoffman House, a building which would

make the fortune of any dime museum that could fence it in and show it for a fee! Long contemplation of this

structure from my study window has printed every comic detail on my brain. It starts off at the ground level

to be an imitation of the Doge's Palace (a neat and appropriate idea in itself for a Broadway shop). At the

second story, following the usual New York method, it reverts to a design suggestive of a county jail (the

Palace and the Prison), with here and there a balcony hung out, emblematical, doubtless, of the inmates' wash

and bedding. At the ninth floor the repentant architect adds two more stories in memory of the Doge's

residence. Have you ever seen an accordion (concertina, I believe, is the correct name) hanging in a shop

window? The Twentyfifth Street Doge's Palace reminds me of that humble instrument. The wooden part,

where the keys and round holes are, stands on the sidewalk. Then come an indefinite number of pleats, and

finally the other wooden end well up among the clouds. So striking is this resemblance that at times one

expects to hear the longdrawn moans peculiar to the concertina issuing from those portals. Alas! even the

most original designs have their drawbacks! After the proprietor of the Venetian accordion had got his

instrument well drawn out and balanced on its end, he perceived that it dwarfed the adjacent buildings, so

cast about in his mind for a scheme to add height and dignity to the rest of the block. One day the astonished

neighborhood saw what appeared to be a "roomy suburban villa" of iron rising on the roof of the old Hoffman

House. The results suggests a small man who, being obliged to walk with a giant, had put on a hat several

How astonished Pericles and his circle of architects and sculptors would be could they stand on the corner of

Broadway and Twentyeighth Street and see the miniature Parthenon that graces the roof of a pile innocent

of other Greek ornament? They would also recognize their old friends, the ladies of the Erechtheum, doing

duty on the Reveillon Building across the way, pretending to hold up a cornice, which, being in proportion to

the building, is several hundred times too big for them to carry. They can't be seen from the sidewalk, the

street is too narrow for that, but such trifles don't deter builders from decorating when the fit is on them.

Perhaps this one got his caryatides at a bargain, and had to work them in somewhere; so it is not fair to be

If ever we take to ballooning, all these elaborate tops may add materially to our pleasure. At the present

moment the birds, and angels, it is to be hoped, appreciate the effort. I, perhaps, of all the inhabitants of the

city, have seen those ladies face to face, when I have gone on a semimonthly visit to my roof to look for

"It's all very well to carp and cavil," many readers will say, "but `Idler' forgets that our modern architects

have had to contend with difficulties that the designers of other ages never faced, demands for space and light

forcing the nineteenthcentury builders to produce structures which they know are neither graceful nor in

If my readers will give themselves the trouble to glance at several office buildings in the city, they will

realize that the problem is not without a solution. In almost every case where the architect has refrained from

useless decoration and stuck to simple lines, the result, if not beautiful, has at least been inoffensive. It is

where inappropriate elaboration is added that taste is offended. Such structures as the Singer building, corner

of Liberty Street and Broadway, and the home of LIFE, in Thirtyfirst Street, prove that beauty and grace of

Feeling as many New Yorkers do about this defacing of what might have been the most beautiful of modern

cities, it is galling to be called upon to admire where it is already an effort to tolerate.

A sprightly gentleman, writing recently in a scientific weekly, goes into ecstasies of admiration over the

advantages and beauty of a steel mastodon on Park Row, a building that has the proportions of a carpenter's

plane stood on end, decorated here and there with balconies and a colonnade perched on brackets up toward

its fifteenth story. He complacently gives us its weight and height as compared with the pyramids, and

numerous other details as to floor space and ventilation, and hints in conclusion that only old fogies and

dullards, unable to keep pace with the times, fail to appreciate the charm of such structures in a city. One of

the "points" this writer makes is the quality of air enjoyed by tenants, amusingly oblivious of the fact that at

least three facades of each tall building will see the day only so long as the proprietors of adjacent land are

When all the buildings in a block are the same height, seven eighths of the rooms in each will be without light

or ventilation. It's rather poor taste to brag of advantages that are enjoyed only through the generosity of one's

Business demands may force us to bow before the necessity of these horrors, but it certainly is "rubbing it in"

to ask our applause. When the Eiffel Tower was in course of construction, the artists and literary lights of

Paris raised a tempest of protest. One wonders why so little of the kind has been done here. It is perhaps

rather late in the day to suggest reform, yet if more New Yorkers would interest themselves in the work,

One hears with satisfaction that a group of architects have lately met and discussed plans for the

embellishment of our neglected city. There is a certain poetical justice in the proposition coming from those

who have worked so much of the harm. Remorse has before now been known to produce good results. The

MYRIADS of people have no ear for music and derive but little pleasure from sweet sounds. Strange as it

may appear, many gifted and sensitive mortals have been unable to distinguish one note from another,

Apollo's harmonious art remaining for them, as for the elder Dumas, only an "expensive noise."

Another large class find it impossible to discriminate between colors. Men afflicted in this way have even

become painters of reputation. I knew one of the latter, who, when a friend complimented him on having

caught the exact shade of a pink toilet in one of his portraits, answered, "Does that dress look pink to you? I

Both these classes are to be pitied, but are not the cause of much suffering to others. It is annoying, I grant

you, to be torn asunder in a collision, because red and green lights on the switches combined into a pleasing

harmony before the brakeman's eyes. The tonedeaf gentleman who insists on whistling a popular melody is

almost as trying as the lady suffering from the same weakness, who shouts, "Ninon, Ninon, que faistu de la

Examinations now keep daltonic gentlemen out of locomotives, and ladies who have lost their "keys" are apt

to find their friends' pianos closed. What we cannot guard against is a variety of the genus HOMO which

suffers from "social color blindness." These wellmeaning mortals form one of the hardest trials that society

is heir to; for the disease is incurable, and as it is almost impossible to escape from them, they continue to

This malady, which, as far as I know, has not been diagnosed, invades all circles, and is, curiously enough,

Why is it that the entertainments at certain houses are always dull failures, while across the way one enjoys

such agreeable evenings? Both hosts are gentlemen, enjoying about the same amount of "unearned

increment," yet the atmosphere of their houses is radically different. This contrast cannot be traced to the

dulness or brilliancy of the entertainer and his wife. Neither can it be laid at the door of inexperience, for the

The only explanation possible is that the owners of houses where one is bored are socially colorblind, as

cheerfully unconscious of their weakness as the keyless lady and the whistling abomination.

Since increasing wealth has made entertaining general and lavish, this malady has become more and more

apparent, until one is tempted to parody Mme. Roland's dying exclamation and cry, "Hospitality! hospitility!

Entertaining is for many people but an excuse for ostentation. For others it is a means to an end; while a third

variety apparently keep a debit and credit account with their acquaintances in books of double entry, so that

no errors may occur and issue invitations like receipts, only in return for value received.

We can rarely tell what is passing in the minds of people about us. Some of those mentioned above may feel

a vague pleasure when their rooms are filled with a chattering crowd of more or less wellassorted guests; if

that is denied them, can find consolation for the outlay in an indefinite sensation of having performed a duty,

Let the novice flee from the allurements of such a host. Old hands know him and have got him on their list,

escaping when escape is possible; for he will mate the green youth with the red frump, or like a premature

millennium force the lion and the lamb to lie down together, and imagine he has given unmixed pleasure to

One would expect that great worldly lights might learn by experience how fatal bungled entertainments can

be, but such is not the case. Many wellintentioned people continue sacrificing their friends on the altar of

hospitality year after year with never a qualm of conscience or a sensation of pity for their victims. One

practical lady of my acquaintance asks her guests alphabetically, commencing the season and the first leaf of

her visiting list simultaneously and working steadily on through both to "finis." If you are an A, you will meet

only A's at her table, with perhaps one or two B's thrown in to fill up; you may sit next to your

motherinlaw for all the hostess cares. She has probably never heard that the number of guests at table

should not exceed that of the muses; or if by any chance she has heard it, does not care, and considers such a

rule oldfashioned and not appropriate to our improved modern methods of entertaining.

One wonders what possible satisfaction a host can derive from providing fifty people with unwholesome food

and drink at a fixed date. It is a physical impossibility for him to have more than a passing word with his

guests, and ten to one the unaccustomed number has upset the internal arrangements of his household, so that

A sidelight on this question came to me recently when an exceedingly frank husband confided to a circle of

his friends at the club the scheme his wife, who, though on pleasure bent, was of a frugal mind, had adopted

"As we dine out constantly through the year," remarked Benedict, "some return is necessary. So we wait until

the height of the winter season, when everybody is engaged two weeks in advance, then send out our

invitations at rather short notice for two or three consecutive dinners. You'd be surprised," he remarked, with

a beaming smile, "what a number refuse; last winter we cancelled all our obligations with two dinners, the

flowers and entrees being as fresh on the second evening as the first! It's wonderful!" he remarked in

conclusion, "how simple entertaining becomes when one knows how!" Which reminded me of an ingenious

youth I once heard telling some friends how easy he had found it to write the book he had just published.

After his departure we agreed that if he found it so easy it would not be worth our while to read his volume.

Tenderhearted people generally make bad hosts. They have a way of collecting the morally lame, halt, and

blind into their drawingrooms that gives those apartments the air of a convalescent home. The moment a

couple have placed themselves beyond the social pale, these purblind hosts conceive an affection for and

lavish hospitality upon them. If such a host has been fortunate enough to get together a circle of healthy

people, you may feel confident that at the last moment a leper will be introduced. This class of entertainers

fail to see that society cannot he run on a philanthropic basis, and so insist on turning their salons into

It would take too long to enumerate the thousand idiosyncrasies of the colorblind; few, however, are more

amusing than those of the impulsive gentlemen who invite people to their homes indiscriminately, because

they happen to feel in a good humor or chance to be seated next them at another house, invitations which

the host regrets half an hour later, and would willingly recall. "I can't think why I asked the Soandsos!" he

will confide to you. " I can't abide them; they are as dull as the dropsy!" Many years ago in Paris, we used to

call a certain hospitable lady's invitations "soup tickets," so little individuality did they possess.

The subtle laws of moral precedence are difficult reading for the most intelligent, and therefore remain sealed

books to the afflicted mortals mentioned here. The delicate tact that, with no apparent effort, combines

congenial elements into a delightful whole is lacking in their composition. The nice discrimination that

presides over some households is replaced by a jovial indifference to other persons' feelings and prejudices.

The idea of placing pretty Miss Debutante next young Strongboys instead of giving her over into the clutches

of old Mr. Boremore will never enter these obtuse entertainers' heads, any more than that of trying to keep

It is useless to enumerate instances; people have suffered too severely at the hands of careless and

incompetent hosts not to know pretty well what the title of this paper means. So many of us have come away

from fruitless evenings, grinding our teeth, and vowing never to enter those doors again while life lasts, that

If the colorblind would only refrain from painting, and the tonedeaf not insist on inviting one to their

concerts, the world would be a much more agreeable place. If people would only learn what they can and

what they can't do, and leave the latter feats alone, a vast amount of unnecessary annoyance would be

TO those fortunate mortals from whom Poseidon exacts no tribute in crossing his broad domain, a

transatlantic voyage must afford each year an ever new delight. The cares and worries of existence fade away

and disappear in company with the land, in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. One no longer feels like the

bored mortal who has all winter turned the millstone of work and pleasure, but seems to have transmigrated

into a new body, endowed with a ravenous appetite and perfectly fresh sensations.

Perhaps it is only the novelty of the surroundings; but as I lie somnolent in my chair, tucked into a corner of

the white deck, watching the jadecolored water rush past below, and the seagulls circle gayly overhead, the

SUMMUM BONUM of earthly contentment seems attained. The book chosen with care remains uncut; the

sense of physical and mental rest is too exquisite to be broken by any effort, even the reading of a favorite

Drowsy lapses into unconsciousness obscure the senses, like the transparent clouds that from time to time

dim the sunlight. A distant bell in the wheelhouse chimes the lazy halfhours. Groups of people come and

go like figures on a lanternslide. A curiously detached reeling makes the scene and the actors in it as unreal

as a painted ship manned by a shadowy crew. The inevitable child tumbles on its face and is picked up

shrieking by tender parents; energetic youths organize games of skill or discover whales on the horizon,

I congratulate myself on having chosen a foreign line. For a week at least no familiar name will be spoken, no

accustomed face appear. The galling harness of routine is loosened; one breathes freely again conscious of

The welcome summons to luncheon comes as a pleasant shock. Is it possible that the morning has passed? It

seems to have but commenced. I rouse myself and descend to the cabin. Toward the end of the meal a

rubicund Frenchman opposite makes the startling proposition that if I wish to send a message home he will

undertake to have it delivered. It is not until I notice the little square of oiled paper he is holding out to me

that I understand this reference to the "pigeon post" with which the Compagnie Transatlantique is

experimenting. At the invitation of this new acquaintance I ascend to the upper deck and watch his birds

The tiny bits of paper on which we have written (postcard fashion) message and address are rolled two or

three together, and inserted into a piece of quill less than two inches long, which, however, they do not

entirely fill. While a pigeon is held by one man, another pushes one of the bird's tail feathers well through

the quill, which is then fastened in its place by two minute wooden wedges. A moment later the pigeon is

tossed up into the air, and we witness the working of that mysterious instinct which all our modern science

leaves unexplained. After a turn or two far up in the clear sky, the bird gets its bearings and darts off on its

fivehundredmile journey across unknown seas to an unseen land a voyage that no deviation or loitering

will lengthen, and only fatigue or accident interrupt, until he alights at his cote.

Five of these willing messengers were started the first day out, and five more will leave tomorrow, poor

little aerial postmen, almost predestined to destruction (in the latter case), for we shall then be so far from

land that their one chance of life and home must depend on finding some friendly mast where an hour's rest

In two or three days, according to the weather, we shall begin sending French pigeons on ahead of us toward

Havre. The gentleman in charge of them tells me that his wife received all the messages he sent to her during

his westward trip, the birds appearing each morning at her window (where she was in the habit feeding them)

with their tidings from midocean. He also tells me that the French fleet in the Mediterranean recently

received messages from their comrades in the Baltic on the third day by these feathered envoys.

It is hoped that in future ocean steamers will be able to keep up communication with the land at least four out

of the seven days of their trips, so that, in case of delay or accident, their exact position and circumstances

can be made known at headquarters. It is a pity, the originator of the scheme remarked, that seagulls are

such hopeless vagabonds, for they can fly much greater distances than pigeons, and are not affected by

Later in the day a compatriot, inspired doubtless by the morning's experiment, confided to me that he had hit

on "a great scheme," which he intends to develop on arriving. His idea is to domesticate families of porpoises

at Havre and New York, as that fish passes for having (like the pigeon) the homing instinct. Ships provided

with the parent fish can free one every twentyfour hours, charged with the morning's mail. The inventor of

this luminous idea has already designed the letterboxes that are to be strapped on the fishes' backs, and

It is amusing during the first days "out" to watch the people whom chance has thrown together into such close

quarters. The occult power that impels a pigeon to seek its kind is feeble in comparison with the faculty that

travellers develop under these circumstances for seeking out congenial spirits. Twelve hours do not pass

before affinities draw together; what was apparently a homogeneous mass has by that time grouped and

The "sporty" gentlemen in loud clothes have united in the bonds of friendship with the travelling agents and

have chosen the smokingroom as their headquarters. No mellow sunset or serene moonlight will tempt these

comrades from the subtleties of poker; the pool on the run is the event of their day.

A portly prima donna is the centre of another circle. Her wraps, her dogs, her admirers, and her brandnew

husband (a handsome young Hungarian with a voice like two Bacian bulls) fill the sittingroom, where the

piano gets but little rest. Neither sunshine nor soft winds can draw them to the deck. Although too ill for the

regular meals, this group eat and drink during fifteen out of the twentyfour hours.

The deck, however, is not deserted; two fashionable dressmakers revel there. These sociable ladies asked the

COMMISSAIRE at the start "to introduce all the young unmarried men to them," as they wanted to be jolly.

They have a numerous court around them, and champagne, like the conversation, flows freely. These ladies

have already become expert at shuffleboard, but their "sea legs" are not so good as might be expected, and the

dames require to be caught and supported by their admirers at each moment to prevent them from tripping

The American wife of a French ambassador sits on the captain's right. A turn of the diplomatic wheel is

taking the lady to Madrid, where her position will call for supreme tact and selfrestraint. One feels a thrill of

national pride on looking at her highbred young face and listening as she chats in French and Spanish, and

wonders once more at the marvellous faculty our women have of adapting themselves so graciously and so

naturally to difficult positions, which the women of other nations rarely fill well unless born to the purple. It

is the high opinion I have of my countrywomen that has made me cavil, before now, on seeing them turned

The voyage is wearing itself away. Sunny days are succeeded by gray mornings, as exquisite in their way,

when one can feel the ship fight against contending wind and wave, and shiver under the blows received in a

struggle which dashes the salt spray high over the decks. There is an aroma in the air then that breathes new

life into jaded nerves, and stirs the drop of old Norse blood, dormant in most American veins, into quivering

ecstasy. One dreams of throwing off the trammels of civilized existence and returning to the free life of older

But here is Havre glittering in the distance against her background of chalk cliffs. People come on deck in

strangely conventional clothes and with demure citified airs. Passengers of whose existence you were

unaware suddenly make their appearance. Two friends meet near me for the first time. "Hallo, Jones!" says

The company's tug has come alongside by this time, bringing its budget of letters and telegrams. The brief

holiday is over. With a sigh one comes back to the positive and the present, and patiently resumes the harness

THE expression "Little Englander," much used of late to designate an inhabitant of the Mother Isle in contra

distinction to other subjects of Her Majesty, expresses neatly the feeling of our insular cousins not only as

regards ourselves, but also the position affected toward their colonial brothers and sisters.

Have you ever noticed that in every circle there is some individual assuming to do things better than his

comrades to know more, dress better, run faster, pronounce more correctly? Who, unless promptly

suppressed, will turn the conversation into a monologue relating to his own exploits and opinions. To differ is

Human nature is, however, so constituted that a man of this type mostly succeeds in hypnotizing his hearers

into sharing his estimate of himself, and impressing upon them the conviction that he is a rare being instead

of a commonplace mortal. He is not a bad sort of person at bottom, and ready to do one a friendly turn if it

does not entail too great inconvenience. In short, a good fellow, whose principal defect is the profound

What this individual is to his environment, Englishmen are to the world at large. It is the misfortune, not the

fault, of the rest of the human race, that they are not native to his island; a fact, by the way, which outsiders

are rarely allowed to lose sight of, as it entails a becoming modesty on their part.

Few idiosyncrasies get more quickly on American nerves or are further from our hearty attitude toward

strangers. As we are far from looking upon wandering Englishmen with suspicion, it takes us some time to

realize that Americans who cut away from their countrymen and settle far from home are regarded with

distrust and reluctantly received. When a family of this kind prepares to live in their neighborhood, Britons

have a formula of three questions they ask themselves concerning the new comers: "Whom do they know?

How much are they worth?" and "What amusement (or profit) are we likely to get out of them?" If the answer

to all or any of the three queries is satisfactory, my lord makes the necessary advances and becomes an

Given this and a number of other peculiarities, it seems curious that a certain class of Americans should be so

anxious to live in England. What is it tempts them? It cannot be the climate, for that is vile; nor the city of

London, for it is one of the ugliest in existence; nor their "cuisine" for although we are not good cooks

ourselves, we know what good food is and could give Britons points. Neither can it be art, nor the opera,

one finds both better at home or on the Continent than in England. So it must be society, and here one's

When I hear friends just back from a stay over there enlarging on the charms of "country life," or a London

"season," I look attentively to see if they are in earnest, so incomparably dull have I always found English

house parties or town entertainments. At least that side of society which the climbing stranger mostly affects.

Other circles are charming, if a bit slow, and the "Bohemia" and semiBohemia of London have a delicate

County society, that ideal life so attractive to American readers of British novels, is, taken on the whole, the

most insipid existence conceivable. The women lack the sparkle and charm of ours; the men, who are out all

day shooting or hunting according to the season, get back so fagged that if they do not actually drop asleep at

the dinnertable, they will nap immediately after, brightening only when the ladies have retired, when, with

evening dress changed for comfortable smoking suits, the hunters congregate in the billiardroom for cigars

A particularly agreeable American woman, whose husband insists on going every winter to

MeltonMowbray for the hunting, was describing the other day the life there among the women, and

expressing her wonder that those who did not hunt could refrain from blowing out their brains, so awful was

the dulness and monotony! She had ended by not dining out at all, having discovered that the conversation

never by any chance deviated far from the knees of the horses and the height of the hedges!

Which reminds one of Thackeray relating how he had longed to know what women talked about when they

were alone after dinner, imagining it to be on mysterious and thrilling subjects, until one evening he

overheard such a conversation and found it turned entirely on children and ailments! As regards wit, the

English are like the Oriental potentate who at a ball in Europe expressed his astonishment that the guests took

the trouble to dance and get themselves hot and dishevelled, explaining that in the East he paid people to do

that for him. In England "amusers" are invited expressly to be funny; anything uttered by one of these

delightful individuals is sure to be received with much laughter. It is so simple that way! One is prepared and

knows when to laugh. Whereas amateur wit is confusing. When an American I knew, turning over the books

on a drawingroom table and finding Hare's WALKS IN LONDON, in two volumes, said, "So you part your

hair in the middle over here," the remark was received in silence, and with looks of polite surprise.

It is not necessary, however, to accumulate proofs that this much described society is less intelligent than our

own. Their authors have acknowledged it, and well they may. For from Scott and Dickens down to Hall

Caine, American appreciation has gone far toward establishing the reputation of English writers at home.

In spite of lack of humor and a thousand other defects which ought to make English swelldom antagonistic to

our countrymen, the fact remains that "smart" London tempts a certain number of Americans and has become

a promised land, toward which they turn longing eyes. You will always find a few of these votaries over there

in the "season," struggling bravely up the social current, making acquaintances, spending money at charity

sales, giving dinners and fetes, taking houses at Ascot and filling them with their new friends' friends. With

more or less success as the newcomers have been able to return satisfactory answers to the three primary

What Americans are these, who force us to blush for them infinitely more than for the unlettered tourists

trotting conscientiously around the country, doing the sights and asking for sodawater and buckwheat cakes

Any one who has been an observer of the genus "Climber" at home, and wondered at their way and courage,

will recognize these ambitious souls abroad; five minutes' conversation is enough. It is never about a place

that they talk, but of the people they know. London to them is not the city of Dickens. It is a place where one

One description will cover most climbers. They are, as a rule, people who start humbly in some small city,

then when fortune comes, push on to New York and Newport, where they carry all before them and make

their houses centres and themselves powers. Next comes the discovery that the circle into which they have

forced their way is not nearly as attractive as it appeared from a distance. Consequently that vague

disappointment is felt which most of us experience on attaining a long desired goal the unsatisfactoriness of

success! Much the same sensation as caused poor Du Maurier to answer, when asked shortly before his death

So true is this of all human nature that the following recipe might be given for the attainment of perfect

happiness: "Begin far down in any walk of life. Rise by your efforts higher each year, and then be careful to

die before discovering that there is nothing at the top. The excitement of the struggle `the rapture of the

Our ambitious friends naturally ignore this bit of philosophy. When it is discovered that the "world" at home

has given but an unsatisfactory return for cash and conniving, it occurs to them that the fault lies in the circle,

and they assume that their particular talents require a larger field. Having conquered all in sight, these social

Alexanders pine for a new world, which generally turns out to be the "Old," so a crossing is made, and the

"Conquest of England" begun with all the enthusiasm and push employed on starting out from the little native

It is in Victoria's realm that foemen worthy of their steel await the conquerors. Home society was a too easy

prey, opening its doors and laying down its arms at the first summons. In England the newcomers find that

their little game has been played before; and, well, what they imagined was a discovery proves to be a

longstudied science with "DONNANT! DONNANT!" as its fundamental law. Wily opponents with trump

cards in their hands and a profound knowledge of "Hoyle" smilingly offer them seats. Having acquired in a

home game a knowledge of "bluff," our friends plunge with delight into the fray, only to find English society

so formed that, climb they never so wisely, the top can never be reached. Work as hard as they may, succeed

even beyond their fondest hopes, there will always remain circles above, toward which to yearn people who

will refuse to know them, houses they will never be invited to enter. Think of the charm, the attraction such a

civilization must have for the real born climber, and you, my reader, will understand why certain of our

compatriots enjoy living in England, and why when once the intoxicating draught (supplied to the ambitious

WHILE I was making a "cure" last year at Lamalou, an obscure Spa in the Cevennes Mountains, Madame

Calve, to whom I had expressed a desire to see her picturesque home, telegraphed an invitation to pass the

day with her, naming the train she could meet, which would allow for the long drive to her chateau before

luncheon. It is needless to say the invitation was accepted. As my train drew up at the little station, Madame

Calve, in her trap, was the first person I saw, and no time was lost in getting EN ROUTE.

During the hour passed on the poplarbordered road that leads straight and white across the country I had

time to appreciate the transformation in the woman at my side. Was this gray clad, nunlike figure the

passionate, sensuous Carmen of Bizet's masterpiece? Could that calm, pale face, crossed by innumerable

lines of suffering, as a spider's web lies on a flower, blaze and pant with Sappho's guilty love?

Something of these thoughts must have appeared on my face, for turning with a smile, she asked, "You find

me changed? It's the air of my village. Here I'm myself. Everywhere else I'm different. On the stage I am any

part I may be playing, but am never really happy away from my hill there." As she spoke, a sunbaked

hamlet came in sight, huddled around the base of two tall towers that rose cool and gray in the noonday heat.

"All that wing," she added, "is arranged for the convalescent girls whom I have sent down to me from the

Paris hospitals for a cure of fresh air and simple food. Six years ago, just after I had bought this place, a series

of operations became necessary which left me prostrated and anaemic. No tonics were of benefit. I grew

weaker day by day, until the doctors began to despair of my life. Finally, at the advice of an old woman here

who passes for being something of a curer, I tried the experiment or lying five or six hours a day motionless

in the sunlight. It wasn't long before I felt life creeping back to my poor feeble body. The hot sun of our

magic south was a more subtle tonic than any drug. When the cure was complete, I made up my mind that

each summer the same chance should be offered to as many of my suffering sisters as this old place could be

The bells on the shaggy Tarbes ponies she was driving along the Languedoc road drew, on nearing her

As the ruddy urchins ran shouting around our carriage wheels and scrambled in the dust for the sous we threw

them, my hostess pointed laughing to a scrubby little girl with tomato colored cheeks and tousled dark hair,

remarking, "I looked like that twenty years ago and performed just those antics on this very road. No

punishment would keep me off the highway. Those pennies, if I'm not mistaken, will all be spent at the

This was said with such a tender glance at the children that one realized the great artist was at home here,

surrounded by the people she loved and understood. True to the "homing" instinct of the French peasant,

Madame Calve, when fortune came to her, bought and partially restored the rambling chateau which at sunset

casts its shadow across the village of her birth. Since that day every moment of freedom from professional

labor and every penny of her large income are spent at Cabrieres, building, planning, even farming, when her

"I think," she continued, as we approached the chateau, "that the happiest day of my life and I have, as you

know, passed some hours worth living, both on and off the stage was when, that wing completed, a Paris

train brought the first occupants for my twenty little bedrooms; no words can tell the delight it gives me now

to see the color coming back to my patients' pale lips and hear them laughing and singing about the place. As

I am always short of funds, the idea of abandoning this work is the only fear the future holds for me."

With the vivacity peculiar to her character, my companion then whipped up her cobs and turned the

conversation into gayer channels. Five minutes later we clattered over a drawbridge and drew up in a roomy

courtyard, half blinding sunlight and half blue shadow, where a score of girls were occupied with books and

The luncheon bell was ringing as we ascended the terrace steps. After a hurried five minutes for brushing and

washing, we took our places at a long table set in the cool stone hall, guests stopping in the chateau

occupying one end around the chatelaine, the convalescents filling the other seats.

Those who have only seen the capricious diva on the stage or in Parisian salons can form little idea of the

proprietress of Cabrieres. No shade of coquetry blurs the clear picture of her home life. The capped and

saboted peasant women who waited on us were not more simple in their ways. Several times during the meal

she left her seat to inquire after the comfort of some invalid girl or inspect the cooking in the adjacent

kitchen. These wanderings were not, however, allowed to disturb the conversation, which flowed on after the

mellow French fashion, enlivened by much wit and gay badinage. One of our hostess's anecdotes at her own

"When in Venice," she told us, "most prima donnas are carried to and from the opera in sedan chairs to avoid

the risk of colds from the draughty gondolas. The last night of my initial season there, I was informed, as the

curtain fell, that a number of Venetian nobles were planning to carry me in triumph to the hotel. When I

descended from my dressingroom the courtyard of the theatre was filled with men in dress clothes, bearing

lanterns, who caught up the chair as soon as I was seated and carried it noisily across the city to the hotel.

Much moved by this unusual honor, I mounted to the balcony of my room, from which elevation I bowed my

"Next morning the hotel proprietor appeared with my coffee, and after hesitating a moment, remarked: `Well,

we made a success of it last night. It has been telegraphed to all the capitals of Europe! I hope you will not

think a thousand francs too much, considering the advertisement!' In blank amazement, I asked what he

meant. `I mean the triumphal progress,' he answered. `I thought you understood! We always organize one for

the "stars" who visit Venice. The men who carried your chair last night were the waiters from the hotels. We

hire them on account of their dress clothes'! Think of the disillusion," added Calve, laughing, "and my

disgust, when I thought of myself naively throwing kisses and flowers to a group of Swiss garcons at fifteen

francs a head. There was nothing to do, however, but pay the bill and swallow my chagrin!"

How many pretty women do you suppose would tell such a joke upon themselves? Another story she told us

"When I came back here after my first season in St. Petersburg and London the CURE requested me to sing

at our local fete. I gladly consented, and, standing by his side on the steps of the MAIRIE, gave the great aria

from the HUGUENOTS in my best manner. To my astonishment the performance was received in complete

silence. `Poor Calve,' I heard an old friend of my mother's murmur. `Her voice used to be so nice, and now

it's all gone!' Taking in the situation at a glance, I threw my voice well up into my nose and started off on a

wellknown provincial song, in the shrill falsetto of our peasant women. The effect was instantaneous! Long

before the end the performance was drowned in thunders of applause. Which proves that to be popular a

Luncheon over, we repaired for cigarettes and coffee to an upper room, where Calve was giving

DagnanBouveret some sittings for a portrait, and lingered there until four o'clock, when our hostess left us

for her siesta, and a "break" took those who cared for the excursion across the valley to inspect the ruins of a

Roman bath. A late dinner brought us together again in a small dining room, the convalescents having eaten

their simple meal and disappeared an hour before. During this time, another transformation had taken place in

our mercurial hostess! It was the Calve of Paris, Calve the witch, Calve the CAPITEUSE, who presided at the

A few notes struck on a guitar by one of the party, as we sat an hour later on the moonlit terrace, were enough

to start off the versatile artist, who was in her gayest humor. She sang us stray bits of opera, alternating her

music with scenes burlesqued from recent plays. No one escaped her inimitable mimicry, not even the "divine

Sarah," Calve giving us an unpayable impersonation of the elderly TRAGEDIENNE as Lorenzaccio, the boy

hero of Alfred de Musset's drama. Burlesquing led to her dancing some Spanish steps with an abandon never

attempted on the stage! Which in turn gave place to an imitation of an American whistling an air from

CARMEN, and some "coon songs" she had picked up during her stay at New York. They, again, were

succeeded by a superb rendering of the imprecation from Racine's CAMILLE, which made her audience

realize that in gaining a soprano the world has lost, perhaps, its greatest TRAGEDIENNE.

At eleven o'clock the clatter of hoofs in the court warned us that the pleasant evening had come to an end. A

journalist EN ROUTE for Paris was soon installed with me in the little omnibus that was to take us to the

station, Calve herself lighting our cigars and providing the wraps that were to keep out the cool night air.

As we passed under the low archway of the entrance amid a clamor of "adieu" and "au revoir," the young

Frenchman at my side pointed up to a row of closed windows overhead. "Isn't it a lesson," he said, "for all of

us, to think of the occupants of those little rooms, whom the generosity and care of that gracious artist are

leaning by such pleasant paths back to health and courage for their toilsome lives?"

"ONCE upon a time," reads the familiar nursery tale, while the fairies, invited by a king and queen to the

christening of their daughter, were showering good gifts on the baby princess, a disgruntled old witch, whom

no one had thought of asking to the ceremony, appeared uninvited on the scene and revenged herself by

decreeing that the presents of the good fairies, instead of proving beneficial, should bring only trouble and

A telling analogy might be drawn between that unhappy princess over whose fate so many youthful tears

have been shed, and the condition of our inventionridden country; for we see every day how the good gifts

of those nineteenth century fairies, Science and Industry, instead of proving blessings to mankind, are being

If a prophetic gentleman had told Louis Fourteenth's shivering courtiers whom an iron etiquette forced on

winter mornings into the (appropriately named) Galerie des Glaces, stamping their silkclad feet and blowing

on their blue fingers, until the king should appear that within a century and a half one simple discovery

would enable all classes of people to keep their shops and dwellings at a summer temperature through the

severest winters, the halffrozen nobles would have flouted the suggestion as an "iridescent dream," a sort of

What was to those noblemen an unheardof luxury has become within the last decade one of the primary

The question arises now: Are we gainers by the change? Has the indiscriminate use of heat been of

The incubus of caloric that sits on our gasping country is particularly painful at this season, when nature

In other lessfavored lands, the first spring days, the exquisite awakening of the world after a long winter,

bring to the inhabitants a sensation of joy and renewed vitality. We, however, have discounted that

enjoyment. Delicate gradations of temperature are lost on people who have been stewing for six months in a

What pleasure can an early April day afford the man who has slept in an overheated flat and is hurrying to

an office where eighty degrees is the average all the year round? Or the pale shopgirl, who complains if a

As people who habitually use such "relishes" as Chutney and Worcestershire are incapable of appreciating

delicately prepared food, so the "soft" mortals who have accustomed themselves to a perpetual August are

The other day I went with a friend to inspect some rooms he had been decorating in one of our public

schools. The morning had been frosty, but by eleven o'clock the sun warmed the air uncomfortably. On

entering the school we were met by a blast of heated air that was positively staggering. In the recitation

rooms, where, as in all New York schoolrooms, the children were packed like dominoes in a box, the

The pale, spectacled spinster in charge, to whom we complained of this, was astonished and offended at what

she considered our interference, and answered that "the children liked it warm," as for herself she "had a cold

and could not think of opening a window." If the rooms were too warm it was the janitor's fault, and he had

Twelve o'clock struck before we had finished our tour of inspection. It is to be doubted if anywhere else in

the world could there be found such a procession of pastyfaced, dull eyed youngsters as trooped past us

down the stairs. Their appearance was the natural result of compelling children dressed for winter weather to

sit many hours each day in hothouses, more suited to tropical plants than to growing human beings.

A gentleman with us remarked with a sigh, "I have been in almost every school in the city and find the same

condition everywhere. It is terrible, but there doesn't seem to be any remedy for it." The taste for living in a

redhot atmosphere is growing on our people; even public vehicles have to be heated now to please the

When tiresome old Benjamin Franklin made stoves popular he struck a terrible blow at the health of his

compatriots; the introduction of steam heat and consequent suppression of all healthgiving ventilation did

the rest; the rosy cheeks of American children went up the chimney with the last whiff of wood smoke, and

have never returned. Much of our home life followed; no family can be expected to gather in cheerful

How can this horror of fresh air among us be explained? If people really enjoy living in overheated rooms

with little or no ventilation, why is it that we hear so much complaining, when during the summer months the

thermometer runs up into the familiar nineties? Why are children hurried out of town, and why do wives

It's rather inconsistent, to say the least, for not one of those deserters but would "kick" if the theatre or church

It is impossible to go into our banks and offices and not realize that the air has been breathed again and again,

heated and cooled, but never changed, doors and windows fit too tightly for that.

The pallor and dazed expression of the employees tell the same tale. I spoke to a youth the other day in an

office about his appearance and asked if he was ill. "Yes," he answered, "I have had a succession of colds all

winter. You see, my desk here is next to the radiator, so I am in a perpetual perspiration and catch cold as

soon as I go out. Last winter I passed three months in a farmhouse, where the water froze in my room at

night, and we had to wear overcoats to our meals. Yet I never had a cold there, and gained in weight and

Twenty years ago no "palatial private residence" was considered complete unless there was a stationary

washstand (forming a direct connection with the sewer) in each bedroom. We looked pityingly on foreigners

who did not enjoy these advantages, until one day we realized that the latter were in the right, and straightway

How much time must pass and how many victims be sacrificed before we come to our senses on the great

As a result of our population living in a furnace, it happens now that when you rebel on being forced to take

an impromptu Turkish bath at a theatre, the usher answers your complaint with "It can't be as warm as you

think, for a lady over there has just told me she felt chilly and asked for more heat!"

Another invention of the enemy is the "revolving door." By this ingenious contrivance the little fresh air that

formerly crept into a building is now excluded. Which explains why on entering our larger hotels one is taken

by the throat, as it were, by a sickening longdead atmosphere in which the souvenir of past meals and

decaying flowers floats like a regret such as explorers must find on opening an Egyptian tomb.

Absurd as it may seem, it has become a distinction to have cool rooms. Alas, they are rare! Those blessed

households where one has the delicious sensation of being chilly and can turn with pleasure toward crackling

wood! The open fire has become, within the last decade, a test of refinement, almost a question of good

breeding, forming a broad distinction between dainty households and vulgar ones, and marking the line which

separates the homes of cultivated people from the parlors of those who care only for display.

A drawingroom filled with heat, the source of which remains invisible, is as characteristic of the parvenu as

An open fire is the "eye" of a room, which can no more be attractive without it than the human face can be

beautiful if it lacks the visual organs. The "gas fire" bears about the same relation to the real thing as a glass

eye does to a natural one, and produces much the same sensation. Artificial eyes are painful necessities in

some cases, and therefore cannot be condemned; but the household which gathers complacently around a

"gas log" must have something radically wrong with it, and would be capable of worse offences against taste

There is a tombstone in a New England graveyard the inscription on which reads: "I was well, I wanted to

As regards heating of our houses, it's to be feared that we have gone much the same road as the unfortunate

New Englander. I don't mean to imply that he is now suffering from too much heat, but we, as a nation,

Janitors and parlorcar conductors have replaced the wicked fairies of other days, but are apparently

animated by their malignant spirit, and employ their hours of brief authority as cruelly. No witch dancing

around her boiling cauldron was ever more joyful than the fireman of a modern hotel, as he gleefully turns

more and more steam upon his helpless victims. Long acquaintance with that gentleman has convinced me

that he cannot plead ignorance as an excuse for falling into these excesses. It is pure, unadulterated

perversity, else why should he invariably choose the mildest mornings to show what his engines can do?

Many explanations have been offered for this love of a high temperature by our compatriots. Perhaps the true

one has not yet been found. Is it not possible that what appears to be folly and almost criminal negligence of

the rules of health, may be, after all, only a commendable ambition to renew the exploits of those biblical

WE are apt to fall into the error of assuming that only American cities have displaced their centres and

The "oldest inhabitant," with his twicetold tales of transformations and changes, is to a certain extent

responsible for this; by contrast, we imagine that the capitals of Europe have always been just as we see them.

So strong is this impression that it requires a serious effort of the imagination to reconstruct the Paris that our

grandparents knew and admired, few as the years are that separate their day from ours.

It is, for instance, difficult to conceive of a Paris that ended at the rue Royale, with only waste land and

market gardens beyond the Madeleine, where today so many avenues open their stately perspectives; yet

such was the case! The few fine residences that existed beyond that point faced the Faubourg SaintHonore,

with gardens running back to an unkempt open country called the Champs Elysees, where an unfinished Arc

The fashionable ladies of that time drove in the afternoon along the boulevards from the Madeleine to the

Chateau d'Eau, and stopped their ponderous yellow barouches at Tortoni's, where ices were served to them in

their carriages, while they chatted with immaculate dandies in skintight nankeen unmentionables, blue

While looking over some books in the company of an old lady who from time to time opens her store of

treasures and recalls her remote youth at my request, and whose SPIRITUEL and graphic language gives to

her souvenirs the air of being stray chapters from some oldfashioned romance, I received a vivid impression

Emptying in her company a chest of books that had not seen the light for several decades, we came across a

"Panorama of the Boulevards," dated 1845, which proved when unfolded to be a colored lithograph, a couple

of yards long by five or six inches high, representing the line of boulevards from the Madeleine to the Place

de la Bastille. Each house, almost each tree, was faithfully depicted, together with the crowds on the

sidewalks and the carriages in the street. The whole scene was as different from the effect made by that

thoroughfare today as though five hundred and not fifty years had elapsed since the little book was printed.

The picture breathed an atmosphere of calm and nameless quaintness that one finds now only in old

My companion sat with the book unfolded before her, in a smiling trance. Her mind had turned back to the

faraway days when she first trod those streets a bride, with all the pleasures and few of the cares of life to

I watched her in silence (it seemed a sacrilege to break in on such a train of thought), until gradually her eyes

lost their faraway expression, and, turning to me with a smile, she exclaimed: "How we ever had the

courage to appear in the street dressed as we were is a mystery! Do you see that carriage?" pointing in the

print to a highswung family vehicle with a powdered coachman on the box, and two skyblue lackeys

standing behind. "I can remember, as if it were yesterday, going to drive with Lady B, the British

ambassadress, in just such a conveyance. She drove four horses with feathers on their heads, when she used

to come to Meurice's for me. I blush when I think that my frock was so scant that I had to raise the skirt

"Why we didn't all die of pneumonia is another marvel, for we wore lownecked dresses and the thinnest of

slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly

proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B affected poke bonnets, then just coming

into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two

curls, `as damp and as black as leeches.' In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for everyday wear;

Returning to an examination of the panorama, my companion pointed out to me that there was no break in the

boulevards, where the operahouse, with its seven radiating avenues, now stands, but a long line of Hotels,

dozing behind high walls, and quaint twostoried buildings that undoubtedly dated from the razing of the city

A little farther on was the worldfamous Maison Doree, where one almost expected to see Alfred de Musset

"What in the name of goodness is that?" I exclaimed, pointing to a couple of black and yellow monstrosities

on wheels, which looked like three carriages joined together with a "buggy" added on in front.

"That's the diligence just arrived from Calais; it has been two days EN ROUTE, the passengers sleeping as

best they could, side by side, and escaping from their confinement only when horses were changed or while

stopping for meals. That high twowheeled trap with the little `tiger' standing up behind is a tilbury. We used

to see the Count d'Orsay driving one like that almost every day. He wore buttercolored gloves, and the skirts

of his coat were pleated full all around, and stood out like a ballet girl's. It is a pity they have not included

Louis Philippe and his family jogging off to Neuilly in the court `carryall,' the `Citizen King,' with his blue

umbrella between his knees, trying to look like an honest bourgeois, and failing even in that attempt to please

"We were in Paris in '48; from my window at Meurice's I saw poor old JUSTE MILIEU read his abdication

from the historic middle balcony of the Tuileries, and half an hour later we perceived the Duchesse d'Orleans

leave the Tuileries on foot, leading her two sons by the hand, and walk through the gardens and across the

Place de la Concorde to the Corps Legislatif, in a last attempt to save the crown for her son. Futile effort!

That evening the `Citizen King' was hurried through those same gardens and into a passing cab, EN ROUTE

"Our balcony at Meurice's was a fine point of observation from which to watch a revolution. With an

operaglass we could see the mob surging to the sack of the palace, the priceless furniture and bricabrac

flung into the street, court dresses waved on pikes from the tall windows, and finally the throne brought out,

and carried off to be burned. There was no keeping the men of our party in after that. They rushed off to have

a nearer glimpse of the fighting, and we saw no more of them until daybreak the following morning when,

just as we were preparing to send for the police, two dilapidated, ragged, blackfaced mortals appeared, in

whom we barely recognized our husbands. They had been impressed into service and passed their night

building barricades. My better half, however, had succeeded in snatching a handful of the gold fringe from

the throne as it was carried by, an act of prowess that repaid him for all his troubles and fatigue.

"I passed the greater part of fortyeight hours on our balcony, watching the mob marching by, singing LA

MARSEILLAISE, and camping at night in the streets. It was all I could do to tear myself away from the

"There was no Avenue de l'Opera then. The trip from the boulevards to the PalaisRoyal had to be made by a

long detour across the Place Vendome (where, by the bye, a cattle market was held) or through a labyrinth of

narrow, badsmelling little streets, where strangers easily lost their way. Next to the boulevards, the

PalaisRoyal was the centre of the elegant and dissipated life in the capital. It was there we met of an

afternoon to drink chocolate at the `Rotonde,' or to dine at `Les Trois Freres Provencaux,' and let our

"No one thought of buying jewelry anywhere else. It was from the windows of its shops that the fashions

started on their way around the world. When Victoria as a bride was visiting Louis Philippe, she was so

fascinated by the aspect of the place that the gallant French king ordered a miniature copy of the scene, made

IN PAPIERMACHE, as a present for his guest, a sort of gigantic dolls' house in which not only the palace

and its long colonnades were reproduced, but every tiny shop and the myriad articles for sale were copied

with Chinese fidelity. Unfortunately the pearheaded old king became England's uninvited guest before this

clumsy toy was finished, so it never crossed the Channel, but can be seen today by any one curious enough

"Few of us realize that the Paris of Charles X. and Louis Philippe would seem to us now a small, illpaved,

and worse lighted provincial town, with few theatres or hotels, communicating with the outer world only by

means of a horse drawn `post,' and practically farther from London than Constantinople is today. One feels

this isolation in the literature of the time; brilliant as the epoch was, the horizon of its writers was bounded by

Dumas says laughingly, in a letter to a friend: "I have never ventured into the unexplored country beyond the

Bastille, but am convinced that it shelters wild animals and savages." The wit and brains of the period were

concentrated into a small space. Moneymaking had no more part in the programme of a writer then than an

introduction into "society." Catering to a foreign market and snobbishness were undreamedof degradations.

Paris had not yet been turned into the FOIRE DU MONDE that she has since become, with whole quarters

given over to the use of foreigners, theatres, restaurants, and hotels created only for the use of a polyglot

UNTIL the beginning of this century men played the BEAU ROLE in life's comedy. As in the rest of the

animal world, our males were the brilliant members of the community, flaunting their gaudy plumage at

home and abroad, while the womenfolk remained in seclusion, tending their children, directing the servants,

In those happy days the husband ruled supreme at his own fireside, receiving the homage of the family, who

During the last century, however, the "part" of better half has become less and less attractive in America, one

prerogative after another having been whisked away by enterprising wives. Modern Delilahs have yearly

snipped off more and more of Samson's luxuriant curls, and added those ornaments to their own

COIFFURES, until in the majority of families the husband finds himself reduced to a state of bondage

compared with which the biblical hero enjoyed a pampered idleness. Times have indeed changed in America

since the native chief sat in dignified repose bedizened with all the finery at hand, while the ladies of the

family waited tremblingly upon him. Today it is the American husband who turns the grindstone all the year

round, and it is his pretty tyrant who enjoys the elegant leisure that a century ago was considered a masculine

To America must be given the credit of having produced the model husband, a new species, as it were, of the

In no role does a compatriot appear to such advantage as in that of Benedict. As a boy he is often too

advanced for his years or his information; in youth he is conspicuous neither for his culture nor his

unselfishness. But once in matrimonial harness this untrained animal becomes bridlewise with surprising

rapidity, and will for the rest of life go through his paces, waltzing, kneeing, and saluting with hardly a touch

of the whip. Whether this is the result of superior horsewomanship on the part of American wives or a trait

peculiar to sons of "Uncle Sam," is hard to say, but the fact is selfevident to any observer that our fair

Any one who has studied marital ways in other lands will realize that in no country have the men effaced

themselves so gracefully as with us. In this respect no foreign production can compare for a moment with the

domestic article. In English, French, and German families the husband is still all powerful. The house is

mounted, guests are asked, and the year planned out to suit his occupations and pleasure. Here papa is rarely

consulted until such matters have been decided upon by the ladies, when the head of the house is called in to

I have had occasion more than once to bewail the shortcomings of the American man, and so take pleasure in

pointing out the modesty and good temper with which he fills this role. He is trained from the beginning to

give all and expect nothing in return, an American girl rarely bringing any DOT to her husband, no matter

how wealthy her family may be. If, as occasionally happens, an income is allowed a bride by her parents, she

expects to spend it on her toilets or pleasures. This condition of the matrimonial market exists in no other

country; even in England, where MARIAGES DE CONVENANCE are rare, "settlements" form an inevitable

The fact that she contributes little or nothing to the common income in no way embarrasses an American

wife; her pretensions are usually in an inverse proportion to her personal means. A man I knew some years

ago deliberately chose his bride from an impecunious family (in the hope that her simple surroundings had

inculcated homely taste), and announced to an incredulous circle of friends, at his last bachelor dinner, that he

intended, in future, to pass his evenings at his fireside, between his book and his pretty spouse. Poor,

innocent, confiding mortal! The wife quickly became a belle of the fastest set in town. Having had more than

she wanted of firesides and quiet evenings before her marriage, her idea was to go about as much as possible,

and, when not so occupied, to fill her house with company. It may be laid down as a maxim in this

connection that a man marries to obtain a home, and a girl to get away from one; hence disappointment on

The couple in question have in all probability not passed an evening alone since they were married, the lady

rarely stopping in the round of her gayeties until she collapses from fatigue. Their home is typical of their

life, which itself can be taken as a good example of the existence that most of our "smart" people lead. The

ground floor and the first floor are given up to entertaining. The second is occupied by the spacious sitting,

bath, and sleeping rooms of the lady. A tenbytwelve chamber suffices for my lord, and the only den he can

rightly call his own is a small room near the front door, about as private as the sidewalk, which is turned into

a cloakroom whenever the couple receive, making it impossible to keep books or papers of value there, or

even to use it as a smokingroom after dinner, so his men guests sit around the dismantled diningtable while

At first the idea of such an unequal division of the house shocks our sense of justice, until we reflect that the

American husband is not expected to remain at home. That's not his place! If he is not down town making

money, fashion dictates that he must be at some clubhouse playing a game. A man who should remain at

home, and read or chat with the ladies of his family, would be considered a bore and unmanly. There seems

to be no place in an American house for its head. More than once when the friend I have referred to has asked

me, at the club, to dine informally with him, we have found, on arriving, that Madame, having an evening off,

had gone to bed and forgotten to order any dinner, so we were obliged to return to the club for our meal.

When, however, his wife is in good health, she expects her weary husband to accompany her to dinner, opera,

or ball, night after night, oblivious of the work the morrow holds in store for him.

In one family I know, paterfamilias goes by the name of the "purse." The more one sees of American

households the more appropriate that name appears. Everything is expected of the husband, and he is

accorded no definite place in return. He leaves the house at 8.30. When he returns, at five, if his wife is

entertaining a man at tea, it would be considered the height of indelicacy for him to intrude upon them, for his

arrival would cast a chill on the conversation. When a couple dine out, the husband is always LA BETE

NOIRE of the hostess, no woman wanting to sit next to a married man, if she can help it.

The few Benedicts who have had the courage to break away from these conditions and amuse themselves

with yachts, salmon rivers, or "grassbachelor" trips to Europe, while secretly admired by the women, are

frowned upon in society as dangerous examples, likely to sow the seeds of discontent among their comrades;

although it is the commonest thing in the world for an American wife to take the children and go abroad on a

Imagine a German or Italian wife announcing to her spouse that she had decided to run over to England for a

year with her children, that they might learn English. The mind recoils in horror from the idea of the

Glance around a ballroom, a dinner party, or the opera, if you have any doubts as to the unselfishness of our

married men. How many of them do you suppose are present for their own pleasure? The owner of an opera

box rarely retains a seat in his expensive quarters. You generally find him idling in the lobbies looking at his

watch, or repairing to a neighboring concert hall to pass the weary hours. At a ball it is even worse. One

wonders why cardrooms are not provided at large balls (as is the custom abroad), where the bored husbands

might find a little solace over "bridge," instead of yawning in the coatroom or making desperate signs to

their wives from the doorway, signals of distress, by the bye, that rarely produce any effect.

It is the rebellious husband who is admired and courted, however. A curious trait of human nature compels

admiration for whatever is harmful, and forces us, in spite of our better judgment, to depreciate the useful and

beneficent. The coats ofarms of all countries are crowded with eagles and lions, that never yet did any

good, living or dead; orators enlarge on the fine qualities of these birds and beasts, and hold them up as

models, while using as terms of reproach the name of the goose or the cow, creatures that minister in a

hundred ways to our wants. Such a spirit has brought helpful, productive "better halves" to the humble place

As long as men passed their time in fighting and carousing they were heroes; as soon as they became patient

breadwinners all the romance evaporated from their atmosphere. The Jewish Hercules had his revenge in the

end and made things disagreeable for his tormentors. So far, however, there are no signs of a revolt among

the shorn lambs in this country. They patiently bend their necks to the collar the kindest, most loving and

When in the East, one watches with admiration the part a donkey plays in the economy of those primitive

lands. All the work is reserved for that industrious animal, and little play falls to his share. The camel is

always badtempered, and when overladen lies down, refusing to move until relieved of its burden. The Turk

is lazy and selfish, the native women pass their time in chattering and giggling, the children play and

squabble, the ubiquitous dog sleeps in the sun; but from daybreak to midnight the little mousecolored

donkeys toil unceasingly. All burdens too bulky or too cumbersome for man are put on his back; the

provender which horses and camels have refused becomes his portion; he is the first to begin the day's labor,

and the last to turn in. It is impossible to live long in the Orient or the south of France without becoming

attached to those gentle, willing animals. The role which honest "Bourico" fills so well abroad is played on

I mean no disrespect to my married compatriots; on the contrary, I admire them as I do all docile, unselfish

beings. It is well for our women, however, that their lords, like the little Oriental donkeys, ignore their

strength, and are content to toil on to the end of their days, expecting neither praise nor thanks in return.

IN the early seventies a group of students dissatisfied with the cutanddried instruction of the Paris art

school and attracted by certain qualities of color and technique in the work of a young Frenchman from the

city of Lille, who was just beginning to attract the attention of connoisseurs went in a body to his studio

with the request that he would oversee their work and direct their studies. The artist thus chosen was

CarolusDuran. Oddly enough, a majority of the youths who sought him out and made him their master were

The first modest workroom on the Boulevard Montparnasse was soon too small to hold the pupils who

crowded under this newly raised banner, and a move was made to more commodious quarters near the

master's private studio. Sargent, Dannat, Harrison, Beckwith, Hinckley, and many others whom it is needless

to mention here, will if these lines come under their notice doubtless recall with a thrill of pleasure the

roomy one storied structure in the rue NotreDame des Champs where we established our ATELIER

D'ELEVES, a selfsupporting cooperative concern, each student contributing ten francs a month toward rent,

fire, and models, "Carolus" the name by which this master is universally known abroad not only refusing

all compensation, according to the immutable custom of French painters of distinction, but, as we discovered

later, contributing too often from his own pocket to help out the MASSIER at the end of a difficult season, or

Those were cloudless, enchanted days we passed in the tumbled down old atelier: an ardent springtime of life

when the future beckons gayly and no doubts of success obscure the horizon. Our young master's enthusiasm

fired his circle of pupils, who, as each succeeding year brought him increasing fame, revelled in a reflected

glory with the generous admiration of youth, in which there is neither calculation nor shadow of envy.

A portrait of Madame de Portalais, exhibited about this time, drew all artloving Paris around the new

celebrity's canvas. Shortly after, the government purchased a painting (of our master's beautiful wife), now

It is difficult to overestimate the impetus that a master's successes impart to the progress of his pupils. My

first studious year in Paris had been passed in the shadow of an elderly painter, who was comfortably dozing

on the laurels of thirty years before. The change from that sleepy environment to the vivid enthusiasm and

dash of CarolusDuran's studio was like stepping out of a musty cloister into the warmth and movement of a

Here, be it said in passing, lies perhaps the secret of the dry rot that too often settles on our American art

schools. We, for some unknown reason, do not take the work of native painters seriously, nor encourage them

in proportion to their merit. In consequence they retain but a feeble hold upon their pupils.

Carolus, handsome, young, successful, courted, was an ideal leader for a band of ambitious, highstrung

youths, repaying their devotion with an untiring interest and lifting clever and dull alike on the strong wings

of his genius. His visits to the studio, on which his friend Henner often accompanied him, were frequent and

prolonged; certain Tuesdays being especially appreciated by us, as they were set apart for his criticism of

When our sketches (the subject for which had been given out in advance) were arranged, and we had seated

ourselves in a big halfcircle on the floor, Carolus would install himself on a tall stool, the one seat the studio

boasted, and chat A PROPOS of the works before him on composition, on classic art, on the theories of color

and clairobscur. Brilliant talks, inlaid with much wit and incisive criticism, the memory of which must

linger in the minds of all who were fortunate enough to hear them. Nor was it to the studio alone that our

master's interest followed us. He would drop in at the Louvre, when we were copying there, and after some

pleasant words of advice and encouragement, lead us off for a stroll through the galleries, interrupted by

So important has he always considered a constant study of Renaissance art that recently, when about to

commence his TRIUMPH OF BACCHUS, Carolus copied one of Rubens's larger canvases with all the

An occasion soon presented itself for us to learn another side of our trade by working with our master on a

ceiling ordered of him by the state for the Palace of the Luxembourg. The vast studios which the city of Paris

provides on occasions of this kind, with a liberality that should make our home corporations reflect, are

situated out beyond the Exhibition buildings, in a curious, unfrequented quarter, ignored alike by Parisians

and tourists, where the city stores compromising statues and the valuable debris of her many revolutions.

There, among throneless Napoleons and riderless bronze steeds, we toiled for over six months side by side

with our master, on gigantic APOTHEOSIS OF MARIE DE MEDICIS, serving in turn as painter and

painted, and leaving the imprint of our hands and the reflection of our faces scattered about the composition.

Day after day, when work was over, we would hoist the big canvas by means of a system of ropes and

pulleys, from a perpendicular to the horizontal position it was to occupy permanently, and then sit straining

our necks and discussing the progress of the work until the tardy spring twilight warned us to depart.

The year 1877 brought CarolusDuran the MEDAILLE D'HONNEUR, a crowning recompense that set the

atelier mad with delight. We immediately organized a great (but economical) banquet to commemorate the

event, over which our master presided, with much modesty, considering the amount of incense we burned

before him, and the speeches we made. One of our number even burst into some very bad French verses,

This allusion to his proficiency in fencing was considered particularly neat, and became the favorite song of

Curiously enough, there is always something in CarolusDuran's attitude when at work which recalls the

swordsman. With an enormous palette in one hand and a brush in the other, he has a way of planting himself

in front of his sitter that is amusingly suggestive of a duel. His lithe body sways to and fro, his fine leonine

face quivers with the intense study of his model; then with a sudden spring forward, a few rapid touches are

dashed on the canvas (like home strokes in the enemy's weakest spot) with a precision of hand acquired only

An order to paint the king and queen of Portugal was the next step on the road to fame, another rung on the

pleasant ladder of success. When this work was done the delighted sovereign presented the painter with the

order of "Christ of Portugal," together with many other gifts, among which a caricature of the master at work,

When the great schism occurred several years ago which rent the art world of France, CarolusDuran was

elected vice president of the new school under Meissonier, to whose office he succeeded on that master's

death; and now directs and presides over the yearly exhibition known as the SALON DU CHAMP DE

At his chateau near Paris or at Saint Raphael, on the Mediterranean, the master lives, like Leonardo of old,

the existence of a grand seigneur, surrounded by his family, innumerable guests, and the horses and dogs he

loves, a group of which his ornate figure and expressive face form the natural centre. Each year he lives

more away from the world, but no more inspiriting sight can be imagined than the welcome the president

receives of a "varnishing" day, when he makes his entry surrounded by his pupils. The students cheer

themselves hoarse, and the public climbs on everything that comes to hand to see him pass. It is hard to

realize then that this is the same man who, not content with his youthful progress, retired into an Italian

The works of no other painter give me the same sensation of quivering vitality, except the Velasquez in the

Madrid Gallery and, perhaps, Sargent at his best; and one feels all through the American painter's work the

CarolusDuran's lips, may be taken as the keynote of his work, where one finds a noble simplicity of line and

color scheme, an elimination of useless detail, a contempt for tricks to enforce an effect, and above all a

comprehension and mastery of light, vitality, and texture those three unities of the painter's art that bring

Those who know the French painter's more important works and his many splendid studies from the nude,

feel it a pity that such masterpieces as the equestrian portrait of Mlle. Croisette, of the Comedie Francaise, the

REVEIL, the superb full length of Mme. Pelouse on the Terrace of Chenonceau, and the head of Gounod in

the Luxembourg, could not be collected into one exhibition, that lovers of art here in America might realize

for themselves how this master's works are of the class that typify a school and an epoch, and engrave their

author's name among those destined to become household words in the mouths of future generations.

WITHOUT being more curious than my neighbors, there are several social mysteries that I should like to

fathom, among others, the real reasons that induce the different classes of people one sees at the opera to

A taste for the theatre is natural enough. It is also easy to understand why people who are fond of sport and

animals enjoy races and dog shows. But the continued vogue of grand opera, and more especially of

Wagner's longdrawnout compositions, among our restless, unmusical compatriots, remains unexplained.

The sheeplike docility of our public is apparent in numberless ways; in none, however, more strikingly than

in their choice of amusements. In business and religion, people occasionally think for themselves; in the

selection of entertainments, never! but are apparently content to receive their opinions and prejudices

The careful study of an opera audience from different parts of our auditorium has brought me to the

conclusion that the public there may be loosely divided into three classes leaving out reporters of

fashionable intelligence, dressmakers in search of ideas, and the lady inhabitants of "Crank Alley" (as a

certain corner of the orchestra is called), who sit in perpetual adoration before the elderly tenor.

First but before venturing further on dangerously thin ice, it may be as well to suggest that this subject is

not treated in absolute seriousness, and that all assertions must not be taken AU PIED DE LA LETTRE.

First, then, and most important, come the stockholders, for without them the Metropolitan would close. The

majority of these fortunate people and their guests look upon the opera as a social function, where one can

meet one's friends and be seen, an entertaining antechamber in which to linger until it's time to "go on," her

Box being to day as necessary a part of a great lady's outfit as a country house or a ballroom.

Second are those who attend because it has become the correct thing to be seen at the opera. There is so much

wealth in this city and so little opportunity for its display, so many people long to go about who are asked

nowhere, that the opera has been seized upon as a centre in which to air rich apparel and elbow the "world."

Third, and last, come the lovers of music, who mostly inhabit greater altitudes.

The motive of the typical boxowner is simple. Her night at the opera is the excuse for a cosy little dinner,

one woman friend (two would spoil the effect of the box) and four men, without counting the husband, who

appears at dinner, but rarely goes further. The pleasant meal and the subsequent smoke are prolonged until 9

or 9.30, when the men are finally dragged murmuring from their cigars. If she has been fortunate and timed

her arrival to correspond with an ENTR'ACTE, my lady is radiant. The lights are up, she can see who are

present, and the public can inspect her toilet and jewels as she settles herself under the combine d gaze of the

house, and proceeds to hold an informal reception for the rest of the evening. The men she has brought with

her quickly cede their places to callers, and wander yawning in the lobby or invade the neighboring boxes and

Although there is much less talking than formerly, it is the toleration of this custom at all by the public that

indicates (along with many other straws) that we are not a musicloving people. Audible conversation during

a performance would not be allowed for a moment by a Continental audience. The little visiting that takes

place in boxes abroad is done during the ENTR'ACTES, when people retire to the salons back of their

LOGES to eat ices and chat. Here those little parlors are turned into cloakrooms, and small talk goes on in

many boxes during the entire performance. The joke or scandal of the day is discussed; strangers in town, or

literary and artistic lights "freaks," they are discriminatingly called are pointed out, toilets passed in

review, and those dreadful two hours passed which, for some undiscovered reason, must elapse between a

dinner and a dance. If a favorite tenor is singing, and no one happens to be whispering nonsense over her

shoulder, my lady may listen in a distrait way. It is not safe, however, to count on prolonged attention or ask

her questions about the performance. She is apt to be a bit hazy as to who is singing, and with the exception

of FAUST and CARMEN, has rudimentary ideas about plots. Singers come and go, weep, swoon, or are

killed, without interfering with her equanimity. She has, for instance, seen the HUGUENOTS and the

RHEINGOLD dozens of times, but knows no more why Raoul is brought blindfolded to Chenonceaux, or

what Wotan and Erda say to each other in their interminable scenes, than she does of the contents of the

Vedas. For the matter of that, if three or four principal airs were suppressed from an opera and the scenery

and costumes changed, many in that chattering circle would, I fear, not know what they were listening to.

Last winter, when Melba sang in AIDA, disguised by dark hair and a brown skin, a lady near me vouchsafed

the opinion that the "little black woman hadn't a bad voice;" a gentleman (to whom I remarked last week "that

as Sembrich had sung Rosina in the BARBER, it was rather a shock to see her appear as that lady's servant in

the MARIAGE DE FIGARO") looked his blank amazement until it was explained to him that one of those

operas was a continuation of the other. After a pause he remarked, "They are not by the same composer,

anyway! Because the first's by Rossini, and the MARIAGE is by Bon Marche. I've been at his shop in Paris."

The presence of the second category the wouldbe fashionable people is not so easily accounted for.

Their attendance can hardly be attributed to love of melody, as they are, if anything, a shade less musical than

the boxdwellers, who, by the bye, seem to exercise an irresistible fascination, to judge by the trend of

conversation and direction of glasses. Although an imposing and sufficiently attentive throng, it would be

difficult to find a less discriminating public than that which gathers nightly in the Metropolitan parterre. One

wonders how many of those people care for music and how many attend because it is expensive and "swell."

They will listen with the same bland contentment to either bad or good performances so long as a

worldrenowned artist (some one who is being paid a comfortable little fortune for the evening) is on the

stage. The orchestra may be badly led (it often is); the singers may flat or be out of voice; the performance

may go all at sixes and sevens there is never a murmur of dissent. Faults that would set an entire audience

The unfortunate part of it is that this weakness of ours has become known. The singers feel they can give an

American audience any slipshod performance. I have seen a favorite soprano shrug her shoulders as she

entered her dressingroom and exclaim: "MON DIEU! How I shuffled through that act! They'd have hooted

me off the stage in Berlin, but here no one seems to care. Did you notice the baritone tonight? He wasn't on

the key once during our duo. I cannot sing my best, try as I will, when I hear the public applauding good and

It is strange that our pleasureloving rich people should have hit on the opera as a favorite haunt. We and the

English are the only race who will attend performances in a foreign language which we don't understand.

How can intelligent people who don't care for music go on, season after season, listening to operas, the plots

Is it so very amusing to watch two middleaged ladies nagging each other, at two o'clock in the morning, on

a public square, as they do in LOHENGRIN? Do people find the lecture that Isolde's husband delivers to the

guilty lovers entertaining? Does an opera produce any illusion on my neighbors? I wish it did on me! I see

too plainly the paint on the singers' hot faces and the cords straining in their tired throats! I sit on certain

nights in agony, fearing to see stout Romeo roll on the stage in apoplexy! The sopranos, too, have a way,

when about to emit a roulade, that is more suggestive of a dentist's chair, and the attendant gargle, than of a

When two celebrities combine in a final duo, facing the public and not each other, they give the impression of

victims whom an unseen inquisitor is torturing. Each turn of his screw draws out a wilder cry. The orchestra

(in the pay of the demon) does all it can to prevent their shrieks from reaching the public. The lovers in turn

redouble their efforts; they are purple in the face and glistening with perspiration. Defeat, they know, is

before them, for the orchestra has the greater staying power! The flutes bleat; the trombones grunt; the fiddles

squeal; an epileptic leader cuts wildly into the air about him. When, finally, their strength exhausted, the

breathless human beings, with one last earpiercing note, give up the struggle and retire, the public, excited

Why wouldn't it be a good idea, in order to avoid these painful exhibitions, to have an arrangement of

screens, with the singing people behind and a company of young and attractive pantomimists going through

the gestures and movements in front? Otherwise, how can the most imaginative natures lose themselves at an

opera? Even when the singers are comely, there is always that eternal double row of stony faced witnesses

in full view, whom no crimes astonish and no misfortunes melt. It takes most of the poetry out of Faust's first

words with Marguerite, to have that short interview interrupted by a line of old, weary women shouting, "Let

us whirl in the waltz o'er the mount and the plain!" Or when Scotch Lucy appears in a smart teagown and is

good enough to perform difficult exercises before a halfcircle of Italian gentlemen in pantalets and ladies in

court costumes, does she give any one the illusion of an abandoned wife dying of a broken heart alone in the

Highlands? Broken heart, indeed! It's much more likely she'll die of a ruptured bloodvessel!

Philistines in matters musical, like myself, unfortunate mortals whom the sweetest sounds fail to enthrall

when connected with no memory or idea, or when prolonged beyond a limited period, must approach the

third group with hesitation and awe. That they are sincere, is evident. The rapt expressions of their faces, and

their patience, bear testimony to this fact. For a long time I asked myself, "Where have I seen that intense,

absorbed attitude before?" Suddenly one evening another scene rose in my memory.

Have you ever visited Tangiers? In the marketplace of that city you will find the inhabitants crouched by

hundreds around their native musicians. When we were there, one old duffer the Wagner, doubtless, of the

place was having an immense success. No matter at what hour of the day we passed through that square,

there was always the same spellbound circle of halfclad Turks and Arabs squatting silent while "Wagner"

tinkled to them on a threestringed lute and chanted in a highpitched, dismal whine like the squeaking of

an unfastened door in the wind. At times, for no apparent reason, the nevervarying, neverending measure

would be interrupted by a flutter of applause, but his audience remained mostly sunk in a hypnotic apathy. I

never see a "Ring" audience now without thinking of that scene outside the BabelMarsa gate, which has

led me to ask different people just what sensations serious music produced upon them. The answers have

been varied and interesting. One good lady who rarely misses a German opera confessed that sweet sounds

acted upon her like opium. Neither scenery nor acting nor plot were of any importance. From the first notes

of the overture to the end, she floated in an ecstatic dream, oblivious of time and place. When it was over she

came back to herself faint with fatigue. Another professed lover of Wagner said that his greatest pleasure was

in following the different "motives" as they recurred in the music. My faith in that gentleman was shaken,

however, when I found the other evening that he had mistaken Van Dyck for Jean de Reszke through an

entire performance. He may be a dab at recognizing his friends the "motives," but his discoveries don't

No one doubts that hundreds of people unaffectedly love German opera, but that as many affect to appreciate

Once upon a time the unworthy member of an ultraserious "Browning" class in this city, doubting the

sincerity of her companions, asked permission to read them a poem of the master's which she found beyond

her comprehension. When the reading was over the opinion of her friends was unanimous. "Nothing could be

simpler! The lines were lucidity itself! Such close reasoning etc." But dismay fell upon them when the

naughty lady announced, with a peal of laughter, that she had been reading alternate lines from opposite

Bearing this tale in mind, I once asked a musician what proportion of the audience at a "Ring" performance

he thought would know if alternate scenes were given from two of Wagner's operas, unless the scenery

enlightened them. His estimate was that perhaps fifty per cent might find out the fraud. He put the number of

people who could give an intelligent account of those plots at about thirty per hundred.

The popularity of music, he added, is largely due to the fact that it saves people the trouble of thinking.

Pleasant sounds soothe the nerves, and, if prolonged long enough in a darkened room will, like the Eastern

tomtoms, lull the senses into a mild form of trance. This must be what the gentleman meant who said he

Being a tailless old fox, I look with everincreasing suspicion on the tooluxuriant caudal appendages of my

neighbors, and think with amusement of the multitudes who during the last ten years have sacrificed

themselves upon the altar of grand opera simple, kindly souls, with little or no taste for classical music,

who have sat in the dark (mentally and physically), applauding what they didn't understand, and listening to

vague German mythology set to sounds that appear to us outsiders like music sunk into a verbose dotage. I

am convinced the greater number would have preferred a jolly performance of MME. ANGOT or the

It is, however, so easy to be mistaken on subjects of this kind that generalizing is dangerous. Many great

authorities have liked tuneless music. One of the most telling arguments in its favor was recently advanced by

a foreigner. The Chinese ambassador told us last winter in a club at Washington that Wagner's was the only

European music that he appreciated and enjoyed. "You see," he added, "music is a much older art with us

than in Europe, and has naturally reached a far greater perfection. The German school has made a long step in

advance, and I can now foresee a day not far distant when, under its influence, your music will closely

THOSE who have not lived in France can form little idea of the important place the CAFE occupies in the

life of an average Frenchman, clubs as we know them or as they exist in England being rare, and when found

being, with few exceptions, but gamblinghouses in disguise. As a Frenchman rarely asks an acquaintance,

or even a friend, to his apartment, the CAFE has become the common ground where all meet, for business or

pleasure. Not in Paris only, but all over France, in every garrison town, provincial city, or tiny village, the

CAFE is the chief attraction, the centre of thought, the focus toward which all the rays of masculine existence

For the student, newly arrived from the provinces, to whose modest purse the theatres and other places of

amusement are practically closed, the CAFE is a supreme resource. His mind is moulded, his ideas and

opinions formed, more by what he hears and sees there than by any other influence. A restaurant is of little

importance. One may eat anywhere. But the choice of his CAFE will often give the bent to a young man's

career, and indicate his exact shade of politics and his opinions on literature, music, or art. In Paris, to know a

man at all is to know where you can find him at the hour of the APERITIF what Baudelaire called

When young men form a society among themselves, a CAFE is chosen as their meetingplace. Thousands of

establishments exist only by such patronage, as, for example, the Cafe de la Regence, Place du Theatre

Business men transact their affairs as much over their coffee as in their offices. The reading man finds at his

CAFE the daily and weekly papers; a writer is sure of the undisturbed possession of pen, ink, and paper.

Henri Murger, the author, when asked once why he continued to patronize a certain establishment notorious

for the inferior quality of its beer, answered, "Yes, the beer is poor, but they keep such good INK!"

The use of a CAFE does not imply any great expenditure, a CONSUMMATION costing but little. With it is

acquired the right to use the establishment for an indefinite number of hours, the client being warmed,

lighted, and served. From five to seven, and again after dinner, the HABITUES stroll in, grouping themselves

about the small tables, each newcomer joining a congenial circle, ordering his drink, and settling himself for

a long sitting. The last editorial, the newest picture, or the fall of a ministry is discussed with a vehemence

and an interest unknown to AngloSaxon natures. Suddenly, in the excitement of the discussion, some one

will rise in his place and begin speaking. If you happen to drop in at that moment, the lady at the desk will

welcome you with, "You are just in time! Monsieur SoandSo is speaking; the evening promises to be

interesting." She is charmed; her establishment will shine with a reflected light, and new patrons be drawn

there, if the debates are brilliant. So universal is this custom that there is hardly an orator today at the French

bar or in the Senate, who has not broken his first lance in some such obscure tournament, under the smiling

Opposite the Palace of the Luxembourg, in the heart of the old Latin Quarter, stands a quaint building, half

hotel, half CAFE, where many years ago Joseph II. resided while visiting his sister, Marie Antoinette. It is

known now as Foyot's; this name must awaken many happy memories in the hearts of American students, for

it was long their favorite meeting place. In the early seventies a club, formed among the literary and poetic

youth of Paris, selected Foyot's as their "home" during the winter months. Their summer vacations were spent

in visiting the university towns of France, reciting verses, or acting in original plays at Nancy, Bordeaux,

Lyons, or Caen. The enthusiasm these youthful performances created inspired one of their number with the

idea of creating in Paris, on a permanent footing, a centre where a limited public could meet the young poets

The success of the original "Chat Noir," the first CABARET of this kind, was largely owing to the

sympathetic and attractive nature of its founder, young Salis, who drew around him, by his sunny disposition,

shy personalities who, but for him, would still be "mute, inglorious Miltons." Under his kindly and

discriminating rule many a successful literary career has started. Salis's gifted nature combined a delicate

taste and critical acumen with a rare business ability. His first venture, an obscure little CAFE on the

Boulevard Rochechouart, in the outlying quarter beyond the Place Pigalle, quickly became famous, its

everincreasing vogue forcing its happy proprietor to seek more commodious quarters in the rue Victor

Masse, where the worldfamous "Chat Noir" was installed with much pomp and many joyous ceremonies.

The old word CABARET, corresponding closely to our English "inn," was chosen, and the establishment

decorated in imitation of a Louis XIII. HOTELLERIE. Oaken beams supported the lowstudded ceilings:

The plaster walls disappeared behind tapestries, armor, old FAIENCE. Beer and other liquids were served in

quaint porcelain or pewter mugs, and the waiters were dressed (merry anachronism) in the costume of

members of the Institute (the Immortal Forty), who had so long led poetry in chains. The success of the

"Black Cat" in her new quarters was immense, all Paris crowding through her modest doors. Salis had

founded Montmartre! the rugged old hill giving birth to a generation of writers and poets, and nourishing

It would be difficult to imagine a form of entertainment more tempting than was offered in this picturesque

inn. In addition to the first, the entire second floor of the building had been thrown into one large room, the

walls covered with a thousand sketches, caricatures, and crayon drawings by hands since celebrated the world

over. A piano, with many chairs and tables, completed the unpretending installation. Here, during a couple of

hours each evening, either by the piano or simply standing in their places, the young poets gave utterance to

the creations of their imagination, the musicians played their latest inspirations, the RACONTEUR told his

newest story. They called each other and the better known among the guests by their names, and joked

mutual weaknesses, eliminating from these gatherings every shade of a perfunctory performance.

It is impossible to give an idea of the delicate flavor of such informal evenings the sensation of being at

home that the picturesque surroundings produced, the low murmur of conversation, the clink of glasses, the

swing of the waltz movement played by a master hand, interrupted only when some slender form would lean

against the piano and pour forth burning words of infinite pathos, the inspired young face lighted up by the

passion and power of the lines. The burst of applause that his talent called forth would hardly have died away

before another figure would take the poet's place, a wave of laughter welcoming the newcomer, whose

twinkling eyes and demure smile promised a treat of fun and humor. So the evening would wear gayly to its

end, the younger element in the audience, full of the future, drinking in long draughts of poetry and art, the

elders charmed to live over again the days of their youth and feel in touch once more with the present.

In this world of routine and conventions an innovation as brilliantly successful as this could hardly be

inaugurated without raising a whirlwind of jealousy and opposition. The struggle was long and arduous.

Directors of theatres and concert halls, furious to see a part of their public tempted away, raised the cry of

immorality against the newcomers, and called to their aid every resource of law and chicanery. At the end of

the first year Salis found himself with over eight hundred summonses and lawsuits on his hands. After having

made every effort, knocked at every door, in his struggle for existence, he finally conceived the happy

thought of appealing directly to Grevy, then President of the Republic, and in his audience with the latter

succeeded in charming and interesting him, as he had so many others. The influence of the head of the state

once brought to bear on the affair, Salis had the joy of seeing opposition crushed and the storm blow itself

From this moment, the poets, feeling themselves appreciated and their rights acknowledged and defended,

flocked to the "Sacred Mountain," as Montmartre began to be called; other establishments of the same

character sprang up in the neighborhood. Most important among these were the "4 z'Arts," Boulevard de

Trombert, who, together with Fragerolle, Goudezki, and Marcel Lefevre, had just ended an artistic voyage in

the south of France, opened the "4 z'Arts," to which the noveltyloving public quickly found its way,

crowding to applaud Coquelin CADET, Fragson, and other budding celebrities. It was here that the poets first

had the idea of producing a piece in which rival CABARETS were reviewed and laughingly criticised. The

success was beyond all precedent, in spite of the difficulty of giving a play without a stage, without scenery

or accessories of any kind, the interest centring in the talent with which the lines were declaimed by their

authors, who next had the pleasant thought of passing in review the different classes of popular songs, Clovis

Hugues, at the same time poet and statesman, discoursing on each subject, and introducing the singer;

Brittany local songs, Provencal ballads, ant the half Spanish, half French CHANSONS of the Pyrenees were

sung or recited by local poets with the charm and abandon of their distinctive races.

The great critics did not disdain to attend these informal gatherings, nor to write columns of serious criticism

At the hour when all Paris takes its APERITIF the "4 z'Arts" became the meetingplace of the painters, poets,

and writers of the day. Montmartre gradually replaced the old Latin Quarter; it is there today that one must

The "4 z'Arts," next to the "Chat Noir," has had the greatest influence on the taste of our time, the pleiad of

poets that grouped themselves around it in the beginning, dispersing later to form other centres, which, in

Another charming form of entertainment inaugurated by this group of men is that of "shadow pictures,"

conceived originally by Caran d'Ache, and carried by him to a marvellous perfection. A mediumsized frame

filled with ground glass is suspended at one end of a room and surrounded by sombre draperies. The room is

darkened; against the luminous background of the glass appear small black groups (shadows cast by figures

cut out of cardboard). These figures move, advancing and retreating, grouping or separating themselves to the

cadence of the poet's verses, for which they form the most original and striking illustrations. Entire poems are

One of Caran d'Ache's greatest successes in this line was an EPOPEE DE NAPOLEON, the great Emperor

appearing on foot and on horseback, the long lines of his army passing before him in the foreground or small

in the distance. They stormed heights, cheered on by his presence, or formed hollow squares to repulse the

enemy. During their evolutions, the clear voice of the poet rang out from the darkness with thrilling effect.

The nicest art is necessary to cut these little figures to the required perfection. So great was the talent of their

inventor that, when he gave burlesques of the topics of the day, or presented the celebrities of the hour to his

public, each figure would be recognized with a burst of delighted applause. The great Sarah was represented

in poses of infinite humor, surrounded by her menagerie or receiving the homage of the universe. Political

leaders, foreign sovereigns, social and operatic stars, were made to pass before a laughing public. None were

spared. Paris went mad with delight at this new "art," and for months it was impossible to find a seat vacant

At the Boite a Musique, the idea was further developed. By an ingenious arrangement of lights, of which the

secret has been carefully kept, landscapes are represented in color; all the gradations of light are given, from

the varied twilight hues to purple night, until the moon, rising, lights anew the picture. During all these

variations of color little groups continue to come and go, acting out the story of a poem, which the poet

delivers from the surrounding obscurity as only an author can render his own lines.

One of the pillars of this attractive centre was Jules Jouy, who made a large place for himself in the hearts of

his contemporaries a true poet, whom neither privations nor the difficult beginnings of an unknown writer

could turn from his vocation. His songs are alternately tender, gay, and bitingly sarcastic. Some of his

betterknown ballads were written for and marvellously interpreted by Yvette Guilbert. The difficult critics,

A CABARET of another kind which enjoyed much celebrity, more on account of the personality of the poet

who founded it than from any originality or picturesqueness in its intallation, was the "Mirliton," opened by

Aristide Bruant in the little rooms that had sheltered the original "Chat Noir."

To give an account of the "Mirliton" is to tell the story of Bruant, the most popular balladwriter in France

today. This original and eccentric poet is as wellknown to a Parisian as the boulevards or the Arc de

Triomphe. His costume of shabby black velvet, Brittany waistcoat, red shirt, topboots, and enormous hat is

a familiar feature in the caricatures and prints of the day. His little CABARET remains closed during the day,

opening its doors toward evening. The personality of the balladwriter pervades the atmosphere. He walks

about the tiny place hailing his acquaintances with some gay epigram, receiving strangers with easy

familiarity or chilling disdain, as the humor takes him; then in a moment, with a rapid change of expression,

pouring out the ringing lines of one of his ballads always the story of the poor and humble, for he has

identified himself with the outcast and the disinherited. His volumes DANS LA RUE and SUR LA ROUTE

have had an enormous popularity, their contents being known and sung all over France.

In 1892 Bruant was received as a member of the society of GENS DE LETTRES. It may be of interest to

recall a part of the speech made by Francois Coppee on the occasion: "It is with the greatest pleasure that I

present to my confreres my good friend, the balladwriter, Aristide Bruant. I value highly the author of

DANS LA RUE. When I close his volume of sad and caustic verses it is with the consoling thought that even

vice and crime have their conscience: that if there is suffering there is a possible redemption. He has sought

his inspiration in the gutter, it is true, but he has seen there a reflection of the stars."

In the Avenue Trudaine, not far from the other CABARETS, the "Ane Rouge" was next opened, in a quiet

corner of the immense suburb, its shadylittle garden, on which the rooms open, making it a favorite

meetingplace during the warm months. Of a summer evening no more congenial spot can be found in all

Paris. The quaint chambers have been covered with mural paintings or charcoal caricatures of the poets

One of the many talents that clustered around this quiet little garden was the brilliant Paul Verlaine, the most

Bohemian of all inhabitants of modern Prague, whose death has left a void, difficult to fill. Fame and honors

came too late. He died in destitution, if not absolutely of hunger; today his admirers are erecting a bronze

bust of him in the Garden of the Luxembourg, with money that would have gone far toward making his life

In the old hotel of the Lesdiguieres family, rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, the "Carillon" opened its doors in

1893, and quickly conquered a place in the public favor, the inimitable fun and spirits of Tiercy drawing

The famous "Treteau de Tabarin," which today holds undisputed precedence over all the CABARETS of

Paris, was among the last to appear. It was founded by the brilliant Fursy and a group of his friends. Here no

Many years ago, in the days of the good king Louis XIII., a strolling poetactor, Tabarin, erected his little

canvas covered stage before the statue of Henry IV., on the Pont Neuf, and drew the court and the town by

his fun and pathos. The founders of the latest and most complete of Parisian CABARETS have reconstructed,

as far as possible, this historic scene. On the wall of the room where the performances are given, is painted a

view of old Paris, the Seine and its bridges, the towers of Notre Dame in the distance, and the statue of Louis

XIII.'s warlike father in the foreground. In front of this painting stands a staging of rough planks, reproducing

the little theatre of Tabarin. Here, every evening, the authors and poets play in their own pieces, recite their

verses, and tell their stories. Not long ago a young musician, who has already given an opera to the world,

sang an entire oneact operetta of his composition, changing his voice for the different parts, imitating

Montmartre is now sprinkled with attractive CABARETS, the taste of the public for such informal

entertainments having grown each year; with reason, for the careless grace of the surroundings, the absence

of any useless restraint or obligation as to hour or duration, has a charm for thousands whom a long concert

or the inevitable five acts at the Francais could not tempt. It would be difficult to overrate the influence such

an atmosphere, breathed in youth, must have on the taste and character. The absence of a sordid spirit, the

curse of our material day and generation, the contact with intellects trained to incase their thoughts in serried

verse or crisp and lucid prose, cannot but form the hearer's mind into a higher and better mould. It is both a

satisfaction and a hope for the future to know that these influences are being felt all over the capital and

throughout the length and breadth of France. There are at this moment in Paris alone three or four hundred

It must be hard for the untravelled AngloSaxon to grasp the idea that a poet can, without loss of prestige,

recite his lines in a public CAFE before a mixed audience. If such doubting souls could, however, be present

at one of these NOCTES AMBROSIANAE, they would acknowledge that the Latin temperament can throw a

grace and childlike abandon around an act that would cause an Englishman or an American to appear

supremely ridiculous. One's taste and sense of fitness are never shocked. It seems the most natural thing in

the world to be sitting with your glass of beer before you, while some rising poet, whose name ten years later

may figure among the "Immortal Forty," tells to you his loves and his ambition, or brings tears into your eyes

From the days of Homer poetry has been the instructor of nations. In the Orient today the poet storyteller

holds his audience spellbound for hours, teaching the people their history and supplying their minds with

food for thought, raising them above the dull level of the brutes by the charm of his verse and the elevation of

his ideas. The power of poetry is the same now as three thousand years ago. Modern skeptical Paris, that

scoffs at all creeds and chafes impatiently under any rule, will sit today docile and complaisant, charmed by

the melody of a poet's voice; its passions lulled or quickened, like Alexander's of old, at the will of a modern

READING that a sentinel had been punished the other day at St. Petersburg for having omitted to present

arms, as her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Olga, was leaving the winter palace in her nurse's arms

I smiled at what appeared to be needless punctilio; then, as is my habit, began turning the subject over, and

gradually came to the conclusion that while it could doubtless be well to suppress much of the ceremonial

encumbering court life, it might not be amiss if we engrafted a little more etiquette into our intercourse with

strangers and the home relations. In our dear free and easygoing country there is a constant tendency to

loosen the ties of fireside etiquette until any manners are thought good enough, as any toilet is considered

sufficiently attractive for home use. A singular impression has grown up that formal politeness and the saying

of gracious and complimentary things betray the toady and the hypocrite, both if whom are abhorrent to

By the force of circumstances most people are civil enough in general society; while many fail to keep to

their high standard in the intimacy of home life and in their intercourse with inferiors, which is a pity, as

these are the two cases where selfrestraint and amenity are most required. Politeness is, after all, but the

dictate of a kind heart, and supplies the oil necessary to make the social machinery run smoothly. In home

life, which is the association during many hours each day of people of varying dispositions, views, and

occupations, friction is inevitable; and there is especial need of lubrication to lessen the wear and tear and

Americans are always much shocked to learn that we are not popular on the Continent. Such a discovery

comes to either a nation or an individual like a douche of cold water on nice, warm conceit, and brings with it

a feeling of discouragement, of being unjustly treated, that is painful, for we are very "touchy" in America,

and cry out when a foreigner expresses anything but admiration for our ways, yet we are the last to lend

It has been a home thrust for many of us to find that our dear friends the French sympathized warmly with

Spain in the recent struggle, and had little but sneers for us. One of the reasons for this partiality is not hard to

The Spanish who travel are mostly members of an aristocracy celebrated for its grave courtesy, which has

gone a long way toward making them popular on the Continent, while we have for years been riding

roughshod over the feelings and prejudices of the European peoples, under the pleasing but fallacious

illusion that the money we spent so lavishly in foreign lands would atone for all our sins. The large majority

of our travelling compatriots forget that an elaborate etiquette exists abroad regulating the intercourse

between one class and another, the result of centuries of civilization, and as the Medic and Persian laws for

durability. In our ignorance we break many of these social laws and give offence where none was intended.

A single illustration will explain my meaning. A young American girl once went to the mistress of a

PENSION where she was staying and complained that the CONCIERGE of the house had been impertinent.

When the proprietress asked the CONCIERGE what this meant, the latter burst out with her wrongs. "Since

Miss B. has been in this house, she has never once bowed to me, or addressed a word to either my husband or

myself that was not a question or an order; she walks in and out of my LOGE to look for letters or take her

key as though my room were the street; I won't stand such treatment from any one, much less from a girl. The

duchess who lives AU QUATRIEME never passes without a kind word or an inquiry after the children or my

Now this American girl had erred through ignorance of the fact that in France servants are treated as humble

friends. The man who brings your matutinal coffee says "Good morning" on entering the room, and inquires

if "Monsieur has slept well," expecting to be treated with the same politeness he shows to you.

The lady who sits at the CAISSE of the restaurant you frequent is as sure of her position as her customers are

of theirs, and exacts a courteous salutation from every one entering or leaving her presence; logically, for no

gentleman would enter a ladies' drawingroom without removing his hat. The fact that a woman is obliged to

People on the Continent know their friends' servants by name, and speak to them on arriving at a house, and

thank them for an opened door or offered coat; if a tip is given it is accompanied by a gracious word. So rare

is this form of civility in America and England (for Britons err as gravely in this matter as ourselves) that our

servants are surprised and inclined to resent politeness, as in the case of an English butler who recently came

to his master and said he should be "obliged to leave." On being questioned it came out that one of the guests

was in the habit of chatting with him, "and," added the Briton, "I won't stand being took liberties with by no

Some years ago I happened to be standing in the vestibule of the Hotel Bristol as the Princess of Wales and

her daughters were leaving. Mr. Morlock, the proprietor, was at the foot of the stairs to take leave of those

ladies, who shook hands with and thanked him for his attention during their stay, and for the flowers he had

sent. Nothing could have been more gracious and freer from condescension than their manner, and it

undoubtedly produced the best impression. The waiter who served me at that time was also under their

charm, and remarked several times that "there had never been ladies so easy to please or so considerate of the

My neighbor at dinner the other evening confided to me that she was "worn out being fitted." "I had such an

unpleasant experience this morning," she added. "The JUPIERE could not get one of my skirts to hang

properly. After a dozen attempts I told her to send for the forewoman, when, to my horror, the girl burst out

crying, and said she should lose her place if I did. I was very sorry for her, but what else could I do?" It does

That it needs a lighter hand and more tact to deal with tradespeople than with equals is certain, and we are

sure to be the losers when we fail. The last time I was in the East a friend took me into the bazaars to see a

carpet he was anxious to buy. The price asked was out of all proportion to its value, but we were gravely

invited by the merchant to be seated and coffee was served, that bargaining (which is the backbone of

Oriental trade) might be carried on at leisure. My friend, nervous and impatient, like all our race, turned to me

and said, "What's all this tomfoolery? Tell him I'll give so much for his carpet; he can take it or leave it."

When this was interpreted to the bearded tradesman, he smiled and came down a few dollars in his price, and

ordered more coffee. By this time we were outside his shop, and left without the carpet simply because my

friend could not conform to the customs of the country he was visiting. The sale of his carpet was a big affair

for the Oriental; he intended to carry it through with all the ceremony the occasion required, and would

It is not only in intercourse with inferiors that tact is required. The treatment of children and young people in

a family calls for delicate handling. The habit of taking liberties with young relations is a common form of a

relaxed social code and the besetting sin of elderly people, who, having little to interest them in their own

lives, imagine that their mission is to reform the ways and manners of their family. Ensconced behind the

respect which the young are supposed to pay them, they give free vent to inclination, and carp, cavil, and

correct. The victims may have reached maturity or even middle age, but remain always children to these

social policemen, to be reproved and instructed in and out of season. "I am doing this for your own good," is

an excuse that apparently frees the veterans from the necessity of respecting the prejudices and feelings of

their pupils, and lends a gloss of unselfishness to actions which are simply impertinent. Oddly enough,

amateur "schoolmarms" who fall into this unpleasant habit are generally oversensitive, and resent as a

personal affront any restlessness under criticism on the part of their victims. It is easy, once the habit is

acquired, to carry the suavity and consideration of general society into the home circle, yet how often is it

done? I should like to see the principle that ordered presentation of arms to the infant princess applied to our

intimate relations, and the rights of the young and dependent scrupulously respected.

In the third act of CASTE, when old Eccles steals the "coral" from his grandson's neck, he excuses the theft

by a grandiloquent soliloquy, and persuades himself that he is protecting "the weak and the humble" (pointing

to himself) "against the powerful and the strong" (pointing to the baby). Alas, too many of us take liberties

with those whom we do not fear, and excuse our little acts of cowardice with arguments as fallacious as those

IN former years, we inquiring youngsters in foreign studios were much bewildered by the repetition of a

certain phrase. Discussion of almost any picture or statue was (after other forms of criticism had been

exhausted) pretty sure to conclude with, "It's all very well in its way, but it's not Art." Not only foolish youths

but the "masters" themselves constantly advanced this opinion to crush a rival or belittle a friend. To ardent

minds seeking for the light and catching at every thread that might serve as a guide out of perplexity, this

vague assertion was confusing. According to one master, the eighteenthcentury "school" did not exist. What

had been produced at that time was pleasing enough to the eye, but "was not Art!" In the opinion of another,

Italian music might amuse or cheer the ignorant, but could not be recognized by serious musicians.

As most of us were living far from home and friends for the purpose of acquiring the rudiments of art, this

continual sweeping away of our foundations was discouraging. What was the use, we sometimes asked

ourselves, of toiling, if our work was to be cast contemptuously aside by the next "school" as a pleasing trifle,

not for a moment to be taken seriously? How was one to find out the truth? Who was to decide when doctors

disagreed? Where was the rock on which an earnest student might lay his cornerstone without the misgiving

that the next wave in public opinion would sap its base and cast him and his ideals out again at sea?

The eighteenthcentury artists and the Italian composers had been sincere and convinced that they were

producing works of art. In our own day the idol of one moment becomes the jest of the next. Was there, then,

The short period, for instance, between 1875 and the present time has been long enough for the talent of one

painter (BastienLepage) to be discovered, discussed, lauded, acclaimed, then gradually forgotten and

decried. During the years when we were studying in Paris, that young painter's works were pronounced by

the critics and their following to be the last development of Art. Museums and amateurs vied with each other

in acquiring his canvases. Yet, only this spring, while dining with two or three art critics in the French

capital, I heard Lepage's name mentioned and his works recalled with the smile that is accorded to those who

If any one doubts the fleeting nature of a reputation, let him go to a sale of modern pictures and note the

prices brought by the favorites of twenty years ago. The paintings of that archpriest, Meissonier, no longer

command the sums that eager collectors paid for them a score of years back. When a great European critic

dares assert, as one has recently, of the master's "1815," that "everything in the picture appears metallic,

except the cannon and the men's helmets," the mighty are indeed fallen! It is much the same thing with the

old masters. There have been fashions in them as in other forms of art. Fifty years ago Rembrandt's work

brought but small prices, and until Henri Rochefort (during his exile) began to write up the English school,

The result is that most of us are as far away from the solution of that vexed question "What is Art?" at forty

as we were when boys. The majority have arranged a compromise with their consciences. We have found out

what we like (in itself no mean achievement), and beyond such personal preference, are shy of asserting (as

we were fond of doing formerly) that such and such works are "Art," and such others, while pleasing and

To enquiring minds, sure that an answer to this question exists, but uncertain where to look for it, the fact that

one of the thinkers of the century has, in a recent "Evangel," given to the world a definition of "Art," the

result of many years' meditation, will be received with joy. "Art," says Tolstoi, "is simply a condition of life.

It is any form of expression that a human being employs to communicate an emotion he has experienced to a

An author who, in telling his hopes and sorrows, amuses or saddens a reader, has in just so much produced a

work of art. A lover who, by the sincerity of his accent, communicates the flame that is consuming him to the

object of his adoration; the shopkeeper who inspires a purchaser with his own admiration for an object on

sale; the baby that makes its joy known to a parent artists! artists! Brown, Jones, or Robinson, the moment

he has consciously produced on a neighbor's ear or eye the sensation that a sound or a combination of colors

Of course much of this has been recognized through all time. The formula in which Tolstoi has presented his

meditations to the world is, however, so fresh that it comes like a revelation, with the additional merit of

being understood, with little or no mental effort, by either the casual reader, who, with halfattention

attracted by a headline, says to himself, "`What is art?' That looks interesting!" and skims lightly down the

lines, or the thinker who, after perusing Tolstoi's lucid words, lays down the volume with a sigh, and

murmurs in his humiliation, "Why have I been all these years seeking in the clouds for what was lying ready

The widereaching definition of the Russian writer has the effect of a vigorous blow from a pickaxe at the

foundations of a shaky and too elaborate edifice. The wordy superstructure of aphorisms and paradox falls to

the ground, disclosing fair "Truth," so long a captive within the temple erected in her honor. As, however, the

newly freed goddess smiles on the ignorant and the pedants alike, the result is that with one accord the

aesthetes raise a howl! "And the `beautiful,'" they say, "the beautiful? Can there be any `Art' without the

`Beautiful'? What! the little greengrocer at the corner is an artist because, forsooth, he has arranged some

lettuce and tomatoes into a tempting pile! Anathema! Art is a secret known only to the initiated few; the

vulgar can neither understand nor appreciate it! We are the elect! Our mission is to explain what Art is and

point out her beauty to a coarse and heedless world. Only those with a sense of the `beautiful' should be

Here the expounders of "Art" plunge into a sea of words, offering a dozen definitions each more obscure than

its predecessor, all of which have served in turn as watchwords of different "schools." Tolstoi's sweeping

truth is too far reaching to please these gentry. Like the priests of past religions, they would have preferred

to keep such knowledge as they had to themselves and expound it, little at a time, to the ignorant. The great

Russian has kicked away their altar and routed the false gods, whose acolytes will never forgive him.

Those of my readers who have been intimate with painters, actors, or musicians, will recall with amusement

how lightly the performances of an associate are condemned by the brotherhood as falling short of the high

standard which according to these wiseacres, "Art" exacts, and how sure each speaker is of understanding just

Voltaire once avoided giving a definition of the beautiful by saying, "Ask a toad what his ideas of beauty are.

He will indicate the particular female toad he happens to admire and praise her goggleeyes and yellow belly

as the perfection of beauty!" A negro from Guiana will make much the same unsatisfactory answer, so the old

philosopher recommends us not to be didactic on subjects where judgments are relative, and at the same time

Tolstoi denies that an idea as subtle as a definition of Art can be classified by pedants, and proceeds to

formulate the following delightful axiom: "A principle upon which no two people can agree does not exist."

A truth is proved by its evidence to all. Discussion outside of that is simply beating the air. Each succeeding

"school" has sounded its deathknell by asserting that certain combinations alone produced beauty the

weakness of today being an inclination to see art only in the obscure and the recondite. As a result we drift

each hour further from the truth. Modern intellectuality has formed itself into a scornful aristocracy whose

members, esteeming themselves the elite, withdraw from the vulgar public, and live in a world of their own,

looking (like the Lady of Shalott) into a mirror at distorted images of nature and declaring that what they see

In literature that which is difficult to understand is much admired by the simpleminded, who also decry

pictures that tell their own story! A certain class of minds enjoy being mystified, and in consequence writers,

painters, and musicians have appeared who are willing to juggle for their amusement. The simple definition

given to us by the Russian writer comes like a breath of wholesome air to those suffocating in an atmosphere

of perfumes and artificial heat. Art is our common inheritance, not the property of a favored few. The wide

world we love is full of it, and each of us in his humble way is an artist when with a full heart he

communicates his delight and his joy to another. Tolstoi has given us back our birthright, so long withheld,

THERE undoubtedly is something in the American temperament that prevents our doing anything in

moderation. If we take up an idea, it is immediately run to exaggeration and then abandoned, that the nation

may fly at a tangent after some new fad. Does this come from our climate, or (as I am inclined to think) from

the curiously unclassified state of society in our country, where so few established standards exist and so few

are sure of their own or their neighbors' standing? In consequence, if Mrs. Brown starts anything, Mrs. Jones,

for fear of being left behind, immediately "goes her one better" to be in turn "raised" by Mrs. Robinson.

In other lands a reasonable pride of birth has always been one of the bonds holding communities together,

and is estimated at its just value. We, after having practically ignored the subject for half a century, suddenly

rush to the other extreme, and develop an entire forest of genealogical trees at a growth.

Chagrined, probably, at the small amount of consideration that their superior birth commanded, a number of

aristocratically minded matrons united a few years ago as "Daughters of the Revolution," restricting

membership to women descended from officers of Washington's army. There may have been a reason for the

formation of this society. I say "may" because it does not seem quite clear what its aim was. The originators

doubtless imagined they were founding an exclusive circle, but the numbers who clamored for admittance

quickly dispelled this illusion. So a small group of the elect withdrew in disgust and banded together under

The only result of these two movements was to awaken envy, hatred, and malice in the hearts of those

excluded from the mysterious rites, which to outsiders seemed to consist in blackballing as many aspirants as

possible. Some victims of this bad treatment, thirsting for revenge, struck on the happy thought of

inaugurating an "Aztec" society. As that title conveyed absolutely no idea to any one, its members were

forced to explain that only descendants of officers who fought in the Mexican War were eligible. What the

The "Social Order of Foreign Wars" was the next creation, its authors evidently considering the Mexican

campaign as a domestic article, a sort of family squabble. Then the "Children of 1812" attracted attention,

both groups having immediate success. Indeed, the vogue of these enterprises has been in inverse ratio to

their usefulness or RAISON D'ETRE, people apparently being ready to join anything rather than get left out

Jealous probably of seeing women enjoying all the fun, their husbands and brothers next banded together as

"Sons of the Revolution." The wives retaliated by instituting the "Granddaughters of the Revolution" and

"The Mayflower Order," the "price of admission" to the latter being descent from some one who crossed in

It was not, however, in the American temperament to rest content with modest beginnings, the national motto

being, "The best is good enough for me." So wind was quickly taken out of the Mayflower's sails by "The

Royal Order of the Crown," to which none need apply who were not prepared to prove descent from one or

more royal ancestors. It was not stated in the prospectus whether Irish sovereigns and Fiji Island kings

counted, but I have been told that bar sinisters form a class apart, and are deprived of the right to vote or hold

Descent from any old king was, however, not sufficient for the hightoned people of our republic. When you

come to think of it, such a circle might be "mixed." One really must draw the line somewhere (as the Boston

parvenu replied when asked why he had not invited his brother to a ball). So the founders of the "Circle of

Holland Dames of the New Netherlands" drew the line at descent from a sovereign of the Low Countries. It

does not seem as if this could be a large society, although those old Dutch pashas had an unconscionable

The promoters of this enterprise seem nevertheless to have been fairly successful, for they gave a fete

recently and crowned a queen. To be acclaimed their sovereign by a group of people all of royal birth is

indeed an honor. Rumors of this ceremony have come to us outsiders. It is said that they employed only lineal

descendants of Vatel to prepare their banquet, and I am assured that an offspring of Gambrinus acted as

But it is wrong to joke on this subject. The state of affairs is becoming too serious. When sane human beings

form a "Baronial Order of Runnymede," and announce in their prospectus that only descendants through the

male line from one (or more) of the forty noblemen who forced King John to sign the Magna Charta are what

our Washington Mrs. Malaprop would call "legible," the action attests a diseased condition of the

community. Any one taking the trouble to remember that eight of the original barons died childless, and that

the Wars of the Roses swept away nine tenths of what families the others may have had, that only one man in

England (Lord de Ros) can at the present day PROVE male descent further back than the eleventh century,

must appreciate the absurdity of our compatriots' pretensions. Burke's Peerage is acknowledged to be the

most "faked" volume in the English language, but the descents it attributes are like mathematical

demonstrations compared to the "trees" that members of these new American orders climb.

When my class was graduated from Mr. McMullen's school, we little boys had the brilliant idea of uniting in

a society, but were greatly put about for an effective name, hitting finally upon that of Ancient Seniors'

Society. For a group of infants, this must be acknowledged to have been a luminous inspiration. We had no

valid reason for forming that society, not being particularly fond of each other. Living in several cities, we

rarely met after leaving school and had little to say to each other when we did. But it sounded so fine to be an

"Ancient Senior," and we hoped in our next school to impress new companions with that title and make them

feel proper respect for us in consequence. Pride, however, sustained a fall when it was pointed out that the

I have a shrewd suspicion that the motives which prompted our youthful actions are not very different from

those now inciting children of a larger growth to band together, blackball their friends, crown queens, and

perform other senseless mummeries, such as having the weathercock of a departed meetinghouse brought in

during a banquet, and dressing restaurant waiters in knickerbockers for "one night only."

This malarial condition of our social atmosphere accounts for the quantity of genealogical quacks that have

taken to sending typewritten letters, stating that the interest they take in your private affairs compels them to

offer proof of your descent from any crowned head to whom you may have taken a fancy. One correspondent

assured me only this month that he had papers in his possession showing beyond a doubt that I might claim a

certain King McDougal of Scotland for an ancestor. I have misgivings, however, as to the quality of the royal

blood in my veins, for the same correspondent was equally confident six months ago that my people came in

direct line from Charlemagne. As I have no desire to "corner" the market in kings, these letters have remained

Considering the mania to trace descent from illustrious men, it astonishes me that a Mystic Band, consisting

of lineal descendants from the Seven Sages of Greece, has not before now burst upon an astonished world. It

has been suggested that if some one wanted to organize a truly restricted circle, "The Grandchildren of our

Tripoli War" would be an excellent title. So few Americans took part in that conflict and still fewer know

anything about it that the satisfaction of joining the society would be immense to exclusivelyminded

There is only one explanation that seems in any way to account for this vast tomfoolery. A little sentence,

printed at the bottom of a prospectus recently sent to me, lets the ambitious cat out of the genealogical bag. It

states that "social position is assured to people joining our order." Thanks to the idiotic habit some

newspapers have inaugurated of advertising, gratis, a number of selfelected society "leaders," many

feebleminded people, with more ambition than cash, and a larger supply of family papers than brains, have

been bitten with a social madness, and enter these traps, thinking they are the road to position and honors.

The number of fools is larger than one would have believed possible, if the success of so many "orders,"

"circles," "commanderies," and "regencies" were not there to testify to the unending folly of the wouldbe

This last decade of the century has brought to light many strange fads and senseless manias. This "descent"

craze, however, surpasses them all in inanity. The keepers of insane asylums will tell you that one of the

hopeless forms of madness is LA FOLIE DES GRANDEURS. A breath of this delirium seems to be blowing

over our country. Crowns and sceptres haunt the dreams of simple republican men and women, troubling

their slumbers and leading them a willo'thewisp dance back across the centuries.

I KNEW, in my youth, a French village far up among the Cevennes Mountains, where the one cultivated man

of the place, saddened by the unlovely lives of the peasants around him and by the bare walls of the village

school, organized evening classes for the boys. During these informal hours, he talked to them of literature

and art and showed them his prints and paintings. When the youths' interest was aroused he lent them books,

that they might read about the statues and buildings that had attracted their attention. At first it appeared a

hopeless task to arouse any interest among these peasants in subjects not bearing on their abject lives. To talk

with boys of the ideal, when their poor bodies were in need of food and raiment, seemed superfluous; but in

time the charm worked, as it always will. The beautiful appealed to their simple natures, elevating and

refining them, and opening before their eager eyes perspectives of undreamedof interest. The self imposed

task became a delight as his pupils' minds responded to his efforts. Although death soon ended his useful life,

At this moment I know men in several walks of life who revere with touching devotion the memory of the

one human being who had brought to them, at the moment when they were most impressionable, the gracious

message that existence was not merely a struggle for bread. The boys he had gathered around him realize now

that the encouragement and incentive received from those evening glimpses of noble works existing in the

world was the mainspring of their subsequent development and a source of infinite pleasure through all

This reference to an individual effort toward cultivating the poor has been made because other delicate spirits

are attempting some such task in our city, where quite as much as in the French village schoolchildren stand

in need of some message of beauty in addition to the instruction they receive, some window opened for

them, as it were, upon the fields of art, that their eyes when raised from study or play may rest on objects

more inspiring than blank walls and the graceless surroundings of street or schoolroom.

We are far too quick in assuming that love of the beautiful is confined to the highly educated; that the poor

have no desire to surround themselves with graceful forms and harmonious colors. We wonder at and deplore

their crude standards, bewailing the general lack of taste and the gradual reducing of everything to a

commonplace money basis. We smile at the efforts toward adornment attempted by the poor, taking it too

readily for granted that on this point they are beyond redemption. This error is the less excusable as so little

has been done by way of experiment before forming an opinion, whole classes being put down as inferior

beings, incapable of appreciation, before they have been allowed even a glimpse of the works of art that form

The portly charlady who rules despotically in my chambers is an example. It has been a curious study to

watch her growing interest in the objects that have here for the first time come under her notice; the delight

she has come to take in dusting and arranging my belongings, and her enthusiasm at any new acquisition.

Knowing how bare her own home was, I felt at first only astonishment at her vivid interest in what seemed

beyond her comprehension, but now realize that in some blind way she appreciates the rare and the delicate

quite as much as my more cultivated visitors. At the end of one laborious morning, when everything was

arranged to her satisfaction, she turned to me her poor, plain face, lighted up with an expression of delight,

and exclaimed, "Oh, sir, I do love to work in these rooms! I'm never so happy as when I'm arranging them

elegant things!" And, although my pleasure in her pleasure was modified by the discovery that she had taken

an eighteenthcentury comb to disentangle the fringes of a rug, and broken several of its teeth in her ardor,

that she invariably placed a certain Whister etching upside down, and then stood in rapt admiration before it,

still, in watching her enthusiasm, I felt a thrill of satisfaction at seeing how her untaught taste responded to a

Here in America, and especially in our city, which we have been at such pains to make as hideous as possible,

the schoolrooms, where hundreds of thousands of children pass many hours daily, are one degree more

graceless than the town itself; the most artistically inclined child can hardly receive any but unfortunate

impressions. The other day a friend took me severely to task for rating our American women on their love of

the big shops, and gave me, I confess, an entirely new idea on the subject. "Can't you see," she said, "that the

shops here are what the museums abroad are to the poor? It is in them only that certain people may catch

glimpses of the dainty and exquisite manufactures of other countries. The little education their eyes receive is

If this proves so, and it seems probable, it only proves how the humble long for something more graceful than

In the hope of training the younger generations to better standards and less vulgar ideals, a group of ladies are

making an attempt to surround our schoolchildren during their impressionable youth with reproductions of

historic masterpieces, and have already decorated many schoolrooms in this way. For a modest sum it is

possible to tint the bare walls an attractive color a delight in itself and adorn them with plaster casts of

statues and solar prints of pictures and buildings. The transformation that fifty or sixty dollars judiciously

expended in this way produces in a schoolroom is beyond belief, and, as the advertisements say, "must be

seen to be appreciated," giving an air of cheerfulness and refinement to the dreariest apartment.

It is hard to make people understand the enthusiasm these decorations have excited in both teachers and

pupils. The directress of one of our large schools was telling me of the help and pleasure the prints and casts

had been to her; she had given them as subjects for the class compositions, and used them in a hundred

different ways as objectlessons. As the children are graduated from room to room, a great variety of

It is by the eye principally that taste is educated. "We speak with admiration of the eighth sense common

among Parisians, and envy them their magic power of combining simple materials into an artistic whole. The

reason is that for generations the eyes of those people have been unconsciously educated by the harmonious

lines of wellproportioned buildings, finely finished detail of stately colonnade, and shady perspective of

quay and boulevard. After years of this subtle training the eye instinctively revolts from the vulgar and the

crude. There is little in the poorer quarters of our city to rejoice or refine the senses; squalor and all

If you have a subject of interest in your mind, it often happens that every book you open, every person you

speak with, refers to that topic. I never remember having seen an explanation offered of this phenomenon.

The other morning, while this article was lying half finished on my desk, I opened the last number of a Paris

paper and began reading an account of the drama, LES MAUVAIS BERGERS (treating of that perilous

subject, the "strikes"), which Sarah Bernhardt had just had the courage to produce before the Paris public. In

the third act, when the owner of the factory receives the disaffected hands, and listens to their complaints, the

leader of the strike (an intelligent young workman), besides shorter hours and increased pay, demands that

recreation rooms be built where the toilers, their wives, and their children may pass unoccupied hours in the

enjoyment of attractive surroundings, and cries in conclusion: "We, the poor, need some poetry and some art

in our lives, man does not live by bread alone. He has a right, like the rich, to things of beauty!"

In commending the use of decoration as a means of bringing pleasure into dull, cramped lives, one is too

often met by the curious argument that taste is innate. "Either people have it or they haven't," like a long nose

or a short one, and it is useless to waste good money in trying to improve either. "It would be much more to

the point to spend your money in giving the poor children a good roastbeef dinner at Christmas than in

placing the bust of Clytie before them." That argument has crushed more attempts to elevate the poor than

any other ever advanced. If it were listened to, there would never be any progress made, because there are

When we reflect how painfully illarranged rooms or ugly colors affect our senses, and remember that less

fortunate neighbors suffer as much as we do from hideous environments, it seems like keeping sunlight from

a plant, or fresh air out of a sickroom, to refuse glimpses of the beautiful to the poor when it is in our power

to give them this satisfaction with a slight effort. Nothing can be more encouraging to those who occasionally

despair of human nature than the good results already obtained by this small attempt in the schools.

We fall into the error of imagining that because the Apollo Belvedere and the Square of St. Mark's have

become stale to us by reproduction they are necessarily so to others. The great and the wealthy of the world

form no idea of the longing the poor feel for a little variety in their lives. They do not know what they want.

They have no standards to guide them, but the desire is there. Let us offer ourselves the satisfaction, as we

start off for pleasure trips abroad or to the mountains, of knowing that at home the routine of study is

lightened for thousands of children by the counterfeit presentment of the scenes we are enjoying; that, as we

float up the Golden Horn or sit in the moonlight by the Parthenon, far away at home some child is dreaming

of those fair scenes as she raises her eyes from her task, and is unconsciously imbibing a love of the beautiful,

which will add a charm to her humble life, and make the present labors lighter. If the child never lives to see

the originals, she will be happier for knowing that somewhere in the world domed mosques mirror

themselves in still waters, and marble gods, the handiwork of longdead nations, stand in the golden sunlight

SINCE those "precious" days when the habitues of the Hotel Rambouillet first raised social intercourse to the

level of a fine art, the morals and manners, the amusements and intrigues of great French ladies have

interested the world and influenced the ways of civilized nations. Thanks to Memoirs and Maxims, we are

able to reconstruct the life of a seventeenth or eighteenth century noblewoman as completely as German

archeologists have rebuilt the temple of the Wingless Victory on the Acropolis from surrounding debris.

Interest in French society has, however, diminished during this century, ceasing almost entirely with the

Second Empire, when foreign women gave the tone to a parvenu court from which the older aristocracy held

aloof in disgust behind the closed gates of their "hotels" and historic chateaux.

With the exception of Balzac, few writers have drawn authentic pictures of nineteenthcentury noblewomen

in France; and his vivid portrayals are more the creations of genius than correct descriptions of a caste.

During the last fifty years French aristocrats have ceased to be factors even in matters social, the sceptre they

once held having passed into alien hands, the daughters of Albion to a great extent replacing their French

rivals in influencing the ways of the "world," a change, be it remarked in passing, that has not improved the

People like the French nobles, engaged in sulking and attempting to overthrow or boycott each succeeding

regime, must naturally lose their influence. They have held aloof so long fearing to compromise themselves

by any advances to the powers that be, and restrained by countless traditions from taking an active part in

either the social or political strife that little by little they have been passed by and ignored; which is a pity,

for amid the ruin of many hopes and ambitions they have remained true to their caste and handed down from

generation to generation the secret of that gracious urbanity and tact which distinguished the Gallic

noblewoman in the last century from the rest of her kind and made her so deft in the difficult art of pleasing

Within the last few years there have, however, been signs of a change. Young members of historic houses

show an amusing inclination to escape from their austere surroundings and resume the place their

grandparents abdicated. If it is impossible to rule as formerly, they at any rate intend to get some fun out of

This joyous movement to the front is being made by the young matrons enlisted under the "Seven little

duchesses'" banner. Oddly enough, a baker's halfdozen of ducal coronets are worn at this moment, in

France, by small and sprightly women, who have shaken the dust of centuries from those ornaments and sport

It is the members of this clique who, in Paris during the spring, at their chateaux in the summer and autumn,

and on the Riviera after Christmas, lead the amusements and strike the key for the modern French world.

No one of these lighthearted ladies takes any particular precedence over the others. All are young, and some

are wonderfully nice to look at. The Duchesse d'Uzes is, perhaps, the handsomest, good looks being an

There is a vivid grace about the daughter, an intense vitality that suggests some beautiful being of the forest.

As she moves and speaks one almost expects to hear the quick breath coming and going through her

quivering nostrils, and see foam on her full lips. Her mother's tragic death has thrown a glamor of romance

Next in good looks comes an American, the Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld, although marriage (which, as de

Maupassant remarked, is rarely becoming) has not been propitious to that gentle lady. By rights she should

have been mentioned first, as her husband outranks, not only all the men of his age, but also his cousin, the

old Duc de la RochefoucauldDoudeauville, to whom, however, a sort of brevet rank is accorded on account

of his years, his wealth, and the high rank of his two wives. It might almost be asserted that our fair

compatriot wears the oldest coronet in France. She certainly is mistress of three of the finest chateaux in that

country, among which is Miromail, where the family live, and Liancourt, a superb Renaissance structure, a

The young Duchesse de Brissac runs her two comrades close as regards looks. Brissac is the son of Mme. de

Tredern, whom Newporters will remember two years ago, when she enjoyed some weeks of our summer

season. Their chateau was built by the Brissac of Henri IV.'s time and is one of the few that escaped

uninjured through the Revolution, its vast stone corridors and massive oak ceilings, its moat and battlements,

standing to day unimpaired amid a group of chateaux including Chaumont, Rochecotte, AzayleRideau,

Usse, Chenonceau, within "dining" distance of each other, that form a centre of gayety next in importance to

Paris and Cannes. In the autumn these spacious castles are filled with joyous bands and their ample stables

with horses. A couple of years ago, when the king of Portugal and his suite were entertained at Chaumont for

a week of stag hunting, over three hundred people, servants, and guests, slept under its roof, and two

The Duc de Luynes and his wife, who was Mlle. de Crussol (daughter of the brilliant Duchesse d'Uzes of

Boulanger fame), live at Dampierre, another interesting pile filled with rare pictures, bricabrac, and

statuary, first among which is Jean Goujon's lifesized statue (in silver) of Louis XIII., presented by that

monarch to his favorite, the founder of the house. This gem of the Renaissance stands in an octagonal

chamber hung in dark velvet, unique among statues. It has been shown but once in public, at the Loan

Exhibition in 1872, when the patriotic nobility lent their treasures to collect a fund for the AlsaceLorraine

The Duchesse de Noailles, NEE Mlle. de Luynes, is another of this coterie and one of the few French

noblewomen who has travelled. Many Americans will remember the visit she made here with her mother

some years ago, and the effect her girlish grace produced at that time. The de Noailles' chateau of Maintenon

is an inheritance from Louis XIV.'s prudish favorite, who founded and enriched the de Noailles family. The

Duc and Duchesse d'Uzes live near by at Bonnelle with the old Duc de Doudeauville, her grandfather, who is

also the grandfather of Mme. de Noailles, these two ladies being descended each from a wife of the old duke,

the former from the Princesse de Polignac and the latter from the Princesse de Ligne.

The Duchesse de Bisaccia, NEE Princesse Radziwill, and the Duchesse d'Harcourt, who complete the circle

of seven, also live in this vicinity, where another group of historic residences, including Eclimont and

Rambouillet, the summer home of the president, rivals in gayety and hospitality the chateaux of the Loire.

No coterie in England or in this country corresponds at all to this French community. Much as they love to

amuse themselves, the idea of meeting any but their own set has never passed through their welldressed

heads. They differ from their parents in that they have broken away from many antiquated habits. Their

houses are no longer lay hermitages, and their opera boxes are regularly filled, but no foreigner is ever

received, no ambitious parvenu accepted among them. Ostracism here means not a ten years' exile, but

The contrast is strong between this rigor and the enthusiasm with which wealthy newcomers are welcomed

into London society or by our own upper crust, so full of unpalatable pieces of dough. This exclusiveness of

the titled French reminds me incongruously enough of a certain arrangement of graves in a Lenox

cemetery, where the members of an old New England family lie buried in a circle with their feet toward its

centre. When I asked, many years ago, the reason for this arrangement, a wit of that day a daughter, by the

bye, of Mrs. Stowe replied, "So that when they rise at the Last Day only members of their own family may

One is struck by another peculiarity of these French men and women their astonishing proficiency in LES

ARTS D'AGREMENT. Every Frenchwoman of any pretensions to fashion backs her beauty and grace with

some art in which she is sure to be proficient. The dowager Duchesse d'Uzes is a sculptor of mark, and when

during the autumn Mme. de Tredern gives opera at Brissac, she finds little difficulty in recruiting her troupe

from among the youths and maidens under her roof whose musical education has been thorough enough to

Love of the fine arts is felt in their conversation, in the arrangement and decoration of their homes, and in the

interest that an exhibition of pictures or old furniture will excite. Few of these people but are HABITUES of

the Hotel Drouot and conversant with the value and authenticity of the works of art daily sold there. Such

elements combine to form an atmosphere that does not exist in any other country, and lends an interest to

There is but one way that an outsider can enter this Gallic paradise. By marrying into it! Two of the seven

ladies in question lack the quarterings of the rest. Miss Mitchell was only a charming American girl, and the

mother of the Princesse Radziwill was Mlle. Blanc of Monte Carlo. However, as in most religions there are

ceremonies that purify, so in this case the sacrament of marriage is supposed to have reconstructed these

There is something incongruous to most people in the idea of a young girl hardly out of the schoolroom

bearing a ponderous title. The pomp and circumstance that surround historic names connect them (through

our reading) with stately matrons playing the "heavy female" roles in life's drama, much as Lady Macbeth's

name evokes the idea of a rawboned motherinlaw sort of person, the reverse of attractive, and quite the

last woman in the world to egg her husband on to a crime unless it were wife murder!

Names like de Chevreuse, or de la Rochefoucauld, seem appropriate only to the warlike amazons of the

Fronde, or corpulent killjoys in powder and court trains of the Mme. Etiquette school; it comes as a shock,

on being presented to a group of girlish figures in the latest cut of golfing skirts, who are chattering odds on

the Grand Prix in faultless English, to realize that these lighthearted GAMINES are the present owners of

sonorous titles. One shudders to think what would have been the effect on poor Marie Antoinette's priggish

mentor could she have foreseen her granddaughter, clad in knickerbockers, running a petroleum tricycle in

the streets of Paris, or pedalling "tandem" across country behind some young cavalry officer of her

Let no simpleminded American imagine, however, that these up todate women are waiting to welcome

him and his family to their intimacy. The world outside of France does not exist for a properly brought up

French aristocrat. Few have travelled; from their point of view, any man with money, born outside of France,

is a "Rasta," unless he come with diplomatic rank, in which case his position at home is carefully ferreted out

before he is entertained. Wealthy foreigners may live for years in Paris, without meeting a single member of

this coterie, who will, however, join any new club that promises to be amusing; but as soon as the "Rastas"

get a footing, "the seven" and their following withdraw. Puteaux had its day, then the "Polo Club" in the Bois

became their rendezvous. But as every wealthy American and "smart" Englishwoman passing the spring in

Paris rushed for that too open circle, like tacks toward a magnet, it was finally cut by the "Duchesses," who,

together with such attractive aidesde camp as the Princesse de Poix, Mmes. de Murat, de Morny, and de

Broglie, inaugurated last spring "The Ladies' Club of the Acacias," on a tiny island belonging to the "Tir aux

It must be a surprise to those who do not know French family pride to learn that exclusive as these women are

there are cliques in France today whose members consider the ladies we have been speaking of as lacking in

reserve. Men like Guy de Durfort, Duc de Lorges, or the Duc de Massa, and their womenkind, hold

themselves aloof on an infinitely higher plane, associating with very few and scorning the vulgar herd of

It would seem as if such a vigorous weeding out of the unworthy would result in a rather restricted

comradeship. Who the "elect" are must become each year more difficult to discern.

Their point of view in this case cannot differ materially from that of the old Methodist lady, who, while she

was quite sure no one outside of her own sect could possibly be saved, had grave fears concerning the future

of most of the congregation. She felt hopeful only of the clergyman and herself, adding: "There are days

THERE comes, we are told, a crucial moment, "a tide" in all lives, that taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

An assertion, by the bye, which is open to doubt. What does come to every one is an hour fraught with

warning, which, if unheeded, leads on to folly. This fateful date coincides for most of us with the discovery

that we are turning gray, or that the "crow's feet" or our temples are becoming visible realities. The

unpleasant question then presents itself: Are we to slip meekly into middle age, or are arms be taken up

against our insidious enemy, and the rest of life become a losing battle, fought inch by inch?

In other days it was the men who struggled the hardest against their fate. Up to this century, the male had

always been the ornamental member of a family. Caesar, we read, coveted a laurel crown principally because

it would help to conceal his baldness. The wigs of the Grand Monarque are historical. It is characteristic of

the time that the latter's attempts at rejuvenation should have been taken as a matter of course, while a few

years later poor Madame de Pompadour's artifices to retain her fleeting youth were laughed at and decried.

Today the situation is reversed. The battle, given up by the men who now accept their fate with

equanimity is being waged by their better halves with a vigor heretofore unknown. So general has this

mania become that if asked what one weakness was most characteristic of modern women, what peculiarity

marked them as different from their sisters in other centuries, I should unhesitatingly answer, "The desire to

That people should long to be handsomer or taller or better proportioned than a cruel Providence has made

them, is natural enough; but that so much time and trouble should be spent simply in trying to look "young,"

does seem unreasonable, especially when it is evident to everybody that such efforts must, in the nature of

things, be failures. The men or women who do not look their age are rare. In each generation there are

exceptions, people who, from one cause or another generally an excellent constitution succeed in

A curious fatality that has the air of a nemesis pursues those who succeed in giving this false appearance.

When pointing them out to strangers, their admirers (in order to make the contrast more effective) add a

decade or so to the real age. Only last month I was sitting at dinner opposite a famous French beauty, who at

fifty succeeds in looking barely thirty. During the meal both my neighbors directed attention to her

appearance, and in each case said: "Isn't she a wonder! You know she's over sixty!" So all that poor lady

The desire to remain attractive as long as possible is not only a reasonable but a commendable ambition.

Unfortunately the stupid means most of our matrons adopt to accomplish this end produce exactly the

One sign of deficient taste in our day is this failure to perceive that every age has a charm of its own which

can be enhanced by appropriate surroundings, but is lost when placed in an incongruous setting. It saddens a

lover of the beautiful to see matrons going so far astray in their desire to please as to pose for young women

That this folly is in the air today, few will dispute. It seems to be perpetrated unconsciously by the greater

number, with no particular object in view, simply because other people do it. An unanswerable argument

Few matrons stop to think for themselves, or they would realize that by appearing in the same attire as their

daughters they challenge a comparison which can only be to their disadvantage, and should be if possible

avoided. Is there any disillusion more painful than, on approaching what appeared from a distance to be a

young girl, to find one's self face to face with sixty years of wrinkles? That is a modern version of the saying,

"an old head on young shoulders," with a vengeance! If mistaken sexagenarians could divine the effect that

tired eyes smiling from under false hair, aged throats clasped with collars of pearls, and rheumatic old ribs

braced into a semblance of girlish grace, produce on the men for whose benefit such adornments have been

arranged, reform would quickly follow. There is something absolutely uncanny in the illusion. The more

No one wants to see Polonius in the finery of Mercutio. What a sense of fitness demands is, on the contrary, a

"make up" in keeping with the role, which does not mean that a woman is to become a frump, but only that

During the ANCIEN REGIME in France, matters of taste were considered allimportant; an entire court

would consult on the shade of a brocade, and hail a new coiffure as an event. The great ladies who had left

their youth behind never then committed the blunder, so common among our middleaged ladies, of aping

the maidens of the day. They were far too clever for that, and appreciated the advantages to be gained from

sombre stuffs and flattering laces. Let those who doubt study Nattier's exquisite portrait of Maria Leczinska.

Nothing in the pose or toilet suggests a desire on the painter's part to rejuvenate his sitter. If anything, the

queen's age is emphasized as something honorable. The gray hair is simply arranged and partly veiled with

black lace, which sets off her delicate, faded face to perfection, but without flattery or fraud.

We find the same view taken of age by the masters of the Renaissance, who appreciated its charm and loved

Queen Elizabeth stands out in history as a woman who struggled ungracefully against growing old. Her wigs

and hoops and farthingales served only to make her ridiculous, and the fact that she wished to be painted

without shadows in order to appear "young," is recorded as an aberration of a great mind.

Are there no painters today who will whisper to our wives and mothers the secret of looking really lovely,

Let us see some real old ladies once more, as they look at us from miniature and portrait. Few of us, I

imagine, but cherish the memory of some such being in the old home, a soft voiced grandmother, with

silvery hair brushed under a discreet and flattering cap, with soft, dark raiment and tullewrapped throat.

There are still, it is to be hoped, many such lovable women in our land, but at times I look about me in

dismay, and wonder who is to take their places when they are gone. Are there to be no more "old ladies"?

Will the next generation have to look back when the word "grandmother" is mentioned, to a stylish vision in

Parisian apparel, decollete and decked in jewels, or arrayed in cocky little bonnets, perched on tousled curls,

The present horror of anything elderly comes, probably, from the fact that the preceding generation went to

the other extreme, young women retiring at forty into becapped old age. Knowing how easily our excitable

race runs to exaggeration, one trembles to think what surprises the future may hold, or what will be the next

decree of Dame Fashion. Having eliminated the "old lady" from off the face of the earth, how fast shall we

continue down the fatal slope toward the ridiculous? Shall we be compelled by a current stronger than our

wills to array ourselves each year (the bare thought makes one shudder) in more and more youthful apparel,

until corpulent senators take to running about in "sailor suits," and octogenarian business men go "down

town" in "pinafores," while belles of sixty or seventy summers appear in Kate Greenaway costumes, and dine

out in shortsleeved bibs, which will allow coy glimpses of their cunning old ankles to appear over their

THE greatest piece of good luck that can befall a Continental village is the discovery, within its limits, of a

spring supplying some kind of malodorous water. From that moment the entire community, abandoning all

other plans, give themselves over to hatching their golden egg, experience having taught them that no other

source of prosperity can compare with a SOURCE THERMALE. If the water of the newfound spring,

besides having an unpleasant smell, is also hot, then Providence has indeed blessed the township.

The first step is to have the fluid analyzed by a celebrity, and its medicinal qualities duly set forth in a

certificate. The second is to get official recognition from the government and the authorization to erect a bath

house. Once these preliminaries accomplished, the way lies plain before the fortunate village; every citizen,

from the mayor down to the humblest laborer, devotes himself to solving the allimportant problem how to

attract strangers to the place and keep and amuse them when they have been secured.

Multicolored pamphlets detailing the local attractions are mailed to the four corners of the earth, and brilliant

chromos of the village, with groups of peasants in the foreground, wearing picturesque costumes, are posted

in every available railway station and bookingoffice, regardless of the fact that no costumes have been

known in the neighborhood for half a century, except those provided by the hotel proprietors for their

housemaids. A national dress, however, has a fine effect in the advertisement, and gives a local color to the

scene. What, for instance, would Athens be without that superb individual in national getup whom one is

sure to see before the hotel on alighting from the omnibus? I am convinced that he has given as much

pleasure as the Acropolis to most travellers; the knowledge that the hotel proprietors share the expenses of his

keep and toilet cannot dispel the charm of those scarlet embroideries and glittering arms.

After preparing their trap, the wily inhabitants of a new wateringplace have only to sit down and await

events. The first people to appear on the scene are, naturally, the English, some hidden natural law

compelling that race to wander forever in inexpensive byways and serve as pioneers for other nations. No

matter how new or inaccessible the spring, you are sure to find a small colony of Britons installed in the

halffinished hotels, reading weekold editions of the TIMES, and grumbling over the increase in prices

As soon as the first stray Britons have developed into an "English colony," the municipality consider

themselves authorized to construct a casino and open avenues, which are soon bordered by young trees and

younger villas. In the wake of the English come invalids of other nationalities. If a wandering "crowned

head" can be secured for a season, a great step is gained, as that will attract the real paying public and the

At this stage of its evolution, the "city fathers" build a theatre in connection with their casino, and

(persuading the government to wink at their evasion of the gambling laws) add games of chance to the other

There is no better example of the way a spring can be developed by clever handling, and satisfactory results

obtained from advertising and judicious expenditure, than Aix lesBains, which twenty years ago was but a

tiny mountain village, and today ranks among the wealthiest and most brilliant EAUX in Europe. In this

case, it is true, they had tradition to fall back on, for Aquae Gratinae was already a favorite wateringplace in

There is little doubt in my mind that when the Roman Emperor first arrived he found a colony of spinsters

and retired army officers (from recently conquered Britain) living around this spring in POPINAE (which are

supposed to have corresponded to our modern boardinghouse), wearing waterproof togas and

The wife of another Caesar fled hither in 1814. The little inn where she passed a summer in the company of

her oneeyed lover while the fate of her husband and son was being decided at Vienna and Waterloo is

The way in which a wateringplace is "run" abroad, where tourists are regarded as godsends, to be cherished,

spoiled, and despoiled, is amusingly different from the manner of our village populations when summer

visitors (whom they look upon as natural enemies) appear on the scene. Abroad the entire town, together with

the surrounding villages, hamlets, and farmhouses, rack their brains and devote their time to inventing new

amusements for the visitor, and original ways of enticing the gold from his pocket for, mind you, on both

continents the object is the same. In Europe the rural Machiavellis have had time to learn that smiling faces

Another point which is perfectly understood abroad is that a cure must be largely mental; that in consequence

boredom retards recovery. So during every hour of the day and evening a different amusement is provided for

those who feel inclined to be amused. At Aix, for instance, Colonne's orchestra plays under the trees at the

Villa des Fleurs while you are sipping your afterluncheon coffee. At three o'clock "Guignol" performs for

the youngsters. At five o'clock there is another concert in the Casino. At eight o'clock an operetta is given at

the villa, and a comedy in the Casino, both ending discreetly at eleven o'clock. Once a week, as a variety, the

If neither music nor Guignol tempts you, every form of trap from a fourhorse break to a donkeychair (the

latter much in fashion since the English queen's visit) is standing ready in the little square. On the

neighboring lake you have but to choose between a dozen kinds of boats. The hire of all these modes of

conveyance being fixed by the municipality, and plainly printed in boat or carriage, extortions or discussions

are impossible. If you prefer a ramble among the hills, the wily native is lying in wait for you there also.

When you arrive breathless at your journey's end, a shady arbor offers shelter where you may cool off and

enjoy the view. It is not by accident that a dish of freshly gathered strawberries and a bowl of milk happen to

When bicycling around the lake you begin to feel how nice a half hour's rest would be. Presto! a terrace

overhanging the water appears, and a farmer's wife who proposes brewing you a cup of tea, supplementing it

with butter and bread of her own making. Weak human nature cannot withstand such blandishments. You

find yourself becoming fond of the people and their smiling ways, returning again and again to shores where

you are made so welcome. The fact that "business" is at the bottom of all this in no way interferes with one's

enjoyment. On the contrary, to a practical mind it is refreshing to see how much can be made of a little, and

what a fund of profit and pleasure can be extracted from small things, if one goes to work in the right way.

The trick can doubtless be overdone: at moments one feels the little game is worked a bit too openly. The

other evening, for instance, when we entered the diningroom of our hotel and found it decorated with flags

and flowers, because, forsooth, it was the birthday of "Victoria R. and I.," when champagne was offered at

dessert and the band played "God Save the Queen," while the English solemnly stood up in their places, it did

I was apparently the only person, however, who felt this. The English were much flattered by the attention, so

I snubbed myself with the reflection that if the date had been July 4, I doubtless should have considered the

There are also moments when the vivid picturesqueness of this place comes near to palling on one. Its beauty

is so suspiciously like a set scene that it gives the impression of having been arranged by some clever

One is continually reminded of that inimitable chapter in Daudet's TARTARIN SUR LES ALPES, when the

hero discovers that all Switzerland is one enormous humbug, run to attract tourists; that the cataracts are

"faked," and avalanches arranged beforehand to enliven a dull season. Can anything be more delicious than

the disillusion of Tartarin and his friends, just back from a perilous chamois hunt, on discovering that the

animal they had exhausted themselves in following all day across the mountains, was being refreshed with

When one visits the theatrical abbey across the lake and inspects the too picturesque tombs of Savoy's

sovereigns, or walks in the wonderful old garden, with its intermittent spring, the suspicion occurs, in spite of

one's self, that the whole scene will be folded up at sunset and the barefooted "brother" who is showing us

around with so much unction will, after our departure, hurry into another costume, and appear later as one of

the happy peasants who are singing and drinking in front of that absurdly operatic little inn you pass on the

There is a certain pink cottage, with a thatched roof and overhanging vines, about which I have serious

doubts, and fully expect some day to see Columbine appear on that pistachegreen balcony (where the

magpie is hanging in a wicker cage), and, taking Arlequin's hand, disappear into the waterbutt while Clown

does a header over the halfdoor, and the cottage itself turns into a gilded coach, with Columbine kissing her

A problem which our intelligent people have not yet set themselves to solve, is being worked out abroad. The

little cities of Europe have discovered that prosperity comes with the tourist, that with increased facilities of

communication the township which expends the most in money and brains in attracting rich travellers to its

gates is the place that will grow and prosper. It is a simple lesson, and one that I would gladly see our

AS I watch, year after year, the flowers of our aristocratic hothouses blooming behind the glass partitions of

their conservatories, tended always by the same gardeners, admired by the same amateurs, and then, for the

most part, withering unplucked on their virgin stems, I wonder if the wild flowers appreciate the good luck

that allows them to taste the storm and the sunshine untrammelled and disperse perfume according to their

To drop a cumbersome metaphor, there is not the shadow of a doubt that the tamest and most monotonous

lives in this country are those led by the women in our "exclusive" sets, for the good reason that they are

surrounded by all the trammels of European society without enjoying any of its benefits, and live in an

Girls abroad are kept away from the "world" because their social life only commences after marriage. In

America, on the contrary, a woman is laid more or less on the shelf the day she becomes a wife, so that if she

has not made hay while her maiden sunshine lasted, the chances are she will have but meagrely furnished

When in this country, a properly brought up young aristocrat is presented by her mamma to an admiring

circle of friends, she is quite a BLASEE person. The dancing classes she has attended for a couple of years

before her debut (that she might know the right set of youths and maidens) have taken the bloom off her

entrance into the world. She and her friends have already talked over the "men" of their circle, and decided,

with a sigh, that there were matches going about. A juvenile Newporter was recently overheard deploring (to

a friend of fifteen summers), "By the time we come out there will only be two matches in the market,"

meaning, of course, millionnaires who could provide their brides with country and city homes, yachts, and

the other appurtenances of a brilliant position. Now, the unfortunate part of the affair is, that such a

worldlyminded maiden will in good time be obliged to make her debut, dine, and dance through a dozen

seasons without making a new acquaintance. Her migrations from town to seashore, or from one country

house to another, will be but changes of scene: the actors will remain always the same. When she dines out,

she can, if she cares to take the trouble, make a fair guess as to who the guests will be before she starts, for

each entertainment is but a new shuffle of the too wellknown pack. She is morally certain of being taken in

to dinner by one of fifty men whom she has known since her childhood, and has met on an average twice a

Of foreigners such a girl sees little beyond a stray diplomatist or two, in search of a fortune, and her glimpses

of Paris society are obtained from the windows of a hotel on the Place Vendome. In London or Rome she

may be presented in a few international salons, but as she finds it difficult to make her new acquaintances

understand what an exalted position she occupies at home, the chances are that pique at seeing some Daisy

Miller attract all the attention will drive my lady back to the city where she is known and appreciated, nothing

being more difficult for an American "swell" than explaining to the uninitiated in what way her position

When I see the bevies of highly educated and attractive girls who make their bows each season, I ask myself

In the very circle where so much stress is laid on a girl's establishing herself brilliantly, the fewest possible

husbands are to be found. Yet, limited as such a girl's choice is, she will sooner remain single than accept a

husband out of her set. She has a perfectly distinct idea of what she wants, and has lived so long in the

atmosphere of wealth that existence without footmen and male cooks, horses and French clothes, appears to

her impossible. Such large proportions do these details assume in her mind that each year the husband

himself becomes of less importance, and what he can provide the essential point.

If an outsider is sufficiently rich, my lady may consent to unite her destinies to his, hoping to get him

It is pathetic, considering the restricted number of eligible men going about, to see the trouble and expense

that parents take to keep their daughters EN EVIDENCE. When one reflects on the number of people who are

disturbed when such a girl dines out, the horses and men and women who are kept up to convey her home,

the time it has taken her to dress, the cost of the toilet itself, and then see the man to whom she will be

consigned for the evening, some bored man about town who has probably taken her mother in to dinner

twenty years before, and will not trouble himself to talk with his neighbor, or a schoolboy, breaking in his

first dress suit, when one realizes that for many maidens this goes on night after night and season after

season, it seems incredible that they should have the courage, or think it worth their while to keep up the

The logical result of turning eternally in the same circle is that nine times out of ten the men who marry

choose girls out of their own set, some pretty stranger who has burst on their jaded vision with all the charm

of the unknown. A conventional society maiden who has not been fortunate enough to meet and marry a man

she loves, or whose fortune tempts her, during the first season or two that she is "out," will in all probability

go on revolving in an evernarrowing circle until she becomes stationary in its centre.

In comparison with such an existence the life of the average "summer girl" is one long frolic, as varied as that

of her aristocratic sister is monotonous. Each spring she has the excitement of selecting a new battleground

for her manoeuvres, for in the circle in which she moves, parents leave such details to their children. Once

installed in the hotel of her choice, mademoiselle proceeds to make the acquaintance of an entirely new set of

friends, delightful youths just arrived, and bent on making the most of their brief holidays, with whom her

code of etiquette allows her to sail all day, and pass uncounted evening hours in remote corners of piazza or

As the words "position" and "set" have no meaning to her young ears, and no one has ever preached to her the

importance of improving her social standing, the acquaintances that chance throws in her path are accepted

without question if they happen to be goodlooking and amusing. She has no prejudice as to standing, and if

her supply of partners runs short, she will dance and flirt with the clerk from the desk in perfect good humor

in fact, she stands rather in awe of that functionary, and admires the "English" cut of his clothes and his

Eastern swagger. A large hotel is her dream of luxury, and a couple of simultaneous flirtations her ideal of

bliss. No long evenings of cruel boredom, in order to be seen at smart houses, will cloud the maiden's career,

no agonized anticipation of retiring partnerless from cotillion or supper will disturb her pleasure.

In the city she hails from, everybody she knows lives in about the same style. Some are said to be wealthier

than others, but nothing in their way of life betrays the fact; the art of knowing how to enjoy wealth being but

little understood outside of our one or two great cities. She has that tranquil sense of being the social equal of

During her summers away from home our "young friend" will meet other girls of her age, and form

friendships that result in mutual visiting during the ensuing winter, when she will continue to add more new

names to the long list of her admirers, until one fine morning she writes home to her delighted parents that

Never having penetrated to those sacred centres where birth and wealth are considered allimportant, and

ignoring the supreme importance of living in one set, the plan of life that such a woman lays out for herself is

exceedingly simple. She will coquette and dance and dream her pleasant dream until Prince Charming, who is

to awaken her to a new life, comes and kisses away the dew of girlhood and leads his bride out into the

workaday world. The simple surroundings and ambitions of her youth will make it easy for this wife to

follow the man of her choice, if necessary, to the remote village where he is directing a factory or to the

mining camp where the foundations of a fortune lie. Life is full of delicious possibilities for her. Men who are

forced to make their way in youth often turn out to be those who make "history" later, and a bride who has

not become prematurely BLASEE to all the luxuries or pleasures of existence will know the greatest

happiness that can come into a woman's life, that of rising at her husband's side, step by step, enjoying his

IDLING up through the south of France, in company with a passionate lover of that fair land, we learned on

arriving at Lyons, that the actors of the Comedie Francaise were to pass through there the next day, EN

ROUTE for Orange, where a series of fetes had been arranged by "Les Felibres." This society, composed of

the writers and poets of Provence, have the preservation of the Roman theatre at Orange (perhaps the most

perfect specimen of classical theatrical architecture in existence) profoundly at heart, their hope being to

restore some of its pristine beauty to the ruin, and give from time to time performances of the Greek

The money obtained by these representations will be spent in the restoration of the theatre, and it is expected

in time to make Orange the centre of classic drama, as Beyreuth is that of Wagnerian music.

At Lyons, the CORTEGE was to leave the Paris train and take boats down the Rhone, to their destination.

Their programme was so tempting that the offer of places in one of the craft was enough to lure us away from

By eight o'clock the following morning, we were on foot, as was apparently the entire city. A cannon fired

from Fort Lamothe gave the signal of our start. The river, covered with a thousand gayly decorated craft,

glinted and glittered in the morning light. It world be difficult to forget that scene, the banks of the Rhone

were lined with the rural population, who had come miles in every direction to acclaim the passage of their

Everywhere along our route the houses were gayly decorated and arches of flowers had been erected. We

float past Vienne, a city once governed by Pontius Pilate, and Tournon, with its feudal chateau, blue in the

distance, then Saint Peray, on a verdant vineclad slope. As we pass under the bridge at Montelimar, an

The rapid current of the river soon brings our flotilla opposite Vivier, whose Gothic cathedral bathes its feet

in the Rhone. Saint Esprit and its antique bridge appear next on the horizon. Tradition asserts that the Holy

Spirit, disguised as a stone mason, directed its construction; there were thirteen workmen each day, but at

Here the mayor and the municipal council were to have received us and delivered an address, but were not on

hand. We could see the tardy CORTEGE hastening towards the bridge as we shot away down stream.

On nearing Orange, the banks and quays of the river are alive with people. The high road, parallel with the

stream, is alive with a manycolored throng. On all sides one hears the language of Mistral, and recognizes

the music of Mireille sung by these pilgrims to an artistic Mecca, where a miracle is to be performed and

The population of a whole region is astir under the ardent Provencal sun, to witness a resurrection of the

Drama in the historic valley of the Rhone, through whose channel the civilization and art and culture of the

Chateaurenard! our water journey is ended. Through the leafy avenues that lead to Orange, we see the arch of

Marius and the gigantic proscenium of the theatre, rising above the roofs of the little city.

So few of our compatriots linger in the south of France after the spring has set in, or wander in the byways

of that inexhaustible country, that a word about the representations at Orange may be of interest, and

perchance create a desire to see the masterpieces of classic drama (the common inheritance of all civilized

races) revived with us, and our stage put to its legitimate use, cultivating and elevating the taste of the people.

One would so gladly see a little of the money that is generously given for music used to revive in America a

We are certainly not inferior to our neighbors in culture or appreciation, and yet such a performance as I

witnessed at Orange (laying aside the enchantment lent by the surroundings) would not be possible here.

The sun is setting as we toil, ticket in hand, up the Roman stairway to the upper rows of seats; far below the

local GENDARMERIE who mostly understand their orders backwards are struggling with the throng, whose

entrance they are apparently obstructing by every means in their power. Once seated, and having a wait of an

hour before us, we amused ourselves watching the crowd filling in every corner of the vast building, like a

We had purposely chosen places on the highest and most remote benches, to test the vaunted acoustic

qualities of the auditorium, and to obtain a view of the halfcircle of humanity, the gigantic wall back of the

As day softened into twilight, and twilight deepened into a luminous Southern night; the effect was

incomparable. The belfries and roofs of mediaeval Orange rose in the clear air, overtopping the half ruined

theatre in many places. The arch of Marius gleamed white against the surrounding hills, themselves violet

and purple in the sunset, their shadow broken here and there by the outline of a crumbling chateau or the

Behind us the sentries paced along the wall, wrapped in their dark cloaks; and over all the scene, one

snowtopped peak rose white on the horizon, like some classic virgin assisting at an Olympian solemnity.

On the stage, partly cleared of the debris of fifteen hundred years, trees had been left where they had grown,

among fallen columns, fragments of capital and statue; near the front a superb roselaurel recalled the Attic

shores. To the right, wild grasses and herbs alternated with thick shrubbery, among which Orestes hid later,

during the lamentations of his sister. To the left a gigantic figtree, growing again the dark wall, threw its

It was from behind its foliage that "Gaul," "Provence," and "France," personated by three actresses of the

"Francais," advanced to salute Apollo, seated on his rustic throne, in the prologue which began the

Since midday the weather had been threatening. At seven o'clock there was almost a shower a moment of

terrible anxiety. What a misfortune if it should rain, just as the actors were to appear, here, where it had not

rained for nearly four months! My righthand neighbor, a citizen of Beaucaire, assures me, "It will be

nothing, only a strong `mistral' for tomorrow." An electrician is putting the finishing touches to his

arrangements. He tries vainly to concentrate some light on the box where the committee is to sit, which is

Suddenly the bugles sound; the orchestra rings out the Marseillaise; it is eight o'clock. The sky is wild and

threatening. An unseen hand strikes the three traditional blows. The Faun Lybrian slips down from a branch

of a great elm, and throws himself on the steps that later are to represent the entrance to the palace of

Agamemnon, and commences the prologue (an invocation to Apollo), in the midst of such confusion that we

hear hardly a word. Little by little, however, the crowd quiets down, and I catch Louis Gallet's fine lines,

marvellously phrased by Mesdames Bartet, Dudlay, Moreno, and the handsome Fenoux as Apollo.

The real interest of the public is only aroused, however, when THE ERYNNIES begins. This powerful

adaptation from the tragedy of AEschylus is THE CHEF D'OEUVRE of Leconte de Lisle. The silence is now

complete. One feels in the air that the moment so long and so anxiously awaited has come, that a great event

is about to take place. Every eye is fixed on the stage, waiting to see what will appear from behind the dark

arches of the proscenium. A faint, plaintive strain of music floats out on the silence. Demons crawl among the

leafy shadows. Not a light is visible, yet the centre of the stage is in strong relief, shading off into a thousand

fantastic shadows. The audience sits in complete darkness. Then we see the people of Argos, winding toward

us from among the trees, lamenting, as they have done each day for ten years, the long absence of their sons

and their king. The old men no longer dare to consult the oracles, fearing to learn that all is lost. The beauty

of this lament roused the first murmur of applause, each word, each syllable, chiming out across that vast

Now it is the sentinel, who from his watchtower has caught the first glimpse of the returning army. We hear

him dashing like a torrent down the turret stair; at the doorway, his garments blown by the wind, his body

bending forward in a splendid pose of joy and exultation, he announces in a voice of thunder the arrival of the

So completely are the twenty thousand spectators under the spell of the drama that at this news one can feel a

thrill pass over the throng, whom the splendid verses hold palpitating under their charm, awaiting only the

From that moment the performance is one long triumph. Clytemnestra (Madame Lerou) comes with her suite

to receive the king (MounetSully), the conqueror! I never realized before all the perfection that training can

give the speaking voice. Each syllable seemed to ring out with a belllike clearness. As she gradually rose in

the last act to the scene with Orestes, I understood the use of the great wall behind the actors. It increased the

power of the voices and lent them a sonority difficult to believe. The effect was overwhelming when, unable

MounetSully surpassed himself. Paul Mounet gave us the complete illusion of a monster thirsting for blood,

even his mother's! When striking her as she struck his father, he answers her despairing query, "Thou wouldst

not slay thy mother?" "Woman, thou hast ceased to be a mother!" Dudlay (as Cassandra) reaches a splendid

climax when she prophesies the misfortune hanging over her family, which she is powerless to avert.

It is impossible in feeble prose to give any idea of the impression those lines produce in the stupendous

theatre, packed to its utmost limits the wild night, with a storm in the air, a stage which seems like a

clearing in some forest inhabited by Titans, the terrible tragedy of AEschylus following the graceful fete of

After the unavoidable confusion at the beginning, the vast audience listen in profound silence to an

expression of pure art. They are no longer actors we hear, but demigods. With voices of the storm,

possessed by some divine afflatus, thundering out verses of fire carried out of themselves in a whirlwind of

passion, like antique prophets and Sibyls foretelling the misfortunes of the world!

That night will remain immutably fixed in my memory, if I live to be as old as the theatre itself. We were so

moved, my companion and I, and had seen the crowd so moved, that fearing to efface the impression if we

returned the second night to see ANTIGONE, we came quietly away, pondering over it all, and realizing once

THE historic Ocean House of Newport is a ruin. Flames have laid low the unsightly structure that was at one

time the bestknown hotel in America. Its fiftyodd years of existence, as well as its day, are over. Having

served a purpose, it has departed, together with the generation and habits of life that produced it, into the

limbo where old houses, old customs, and superannuated ideas survive, the memory of the few who like to

There was a certain appropriateness in the manner of its taking off. The proud old structure had doubtless

heard projects of rebuilding discussed by its owners (who for some years had been threatening to tear it

down); wounded doubtless by unflattering truths, the hotel decided that if its days were numbered, an exit

worthy of a leading role was at least possible. "Pull me down, indeed! That is all very well for ordinary

hostleries, but from an establishment of my pretensions, that has received the aristocracy of the country, and

So it turned the matter over and debated within its shaky old brain (Mrs. Skewton fashion) what would be the

most becoming and effective way of retiring from the social whirl. Balls have been overdone; people are no

longer tempted by receptions; a banquet was out of the question. Suddenly the wily building hit on an idea.

"I'll give them a FEU D'ARTIFICE. There hasn't been a firstclass fire here since I burned myself down

fiftythree years ago! That kind of entertainment hasn't been run into the ground like everything else in these

degenerate days! I'll do it in the best and most complete way, and give Newport something to talk about,

Daudet, in his L'IMMORTEL, shows us how some people are born lucky. His "Loisel of the Institute,"

although an insignificant and commonplace man, succeeded all through life in keeping himself before the

public, and getting talked about as a celebrity. He even arranged (to the disgust and envy of his rivals) to die

during a week when no event of importance was occupying public attention. In consequence, reporters, being

short of "copy," owing to a dearth of murders and "first nights," seized on this demise and made his funeral

The truth is, the Ocean House had lived so long in an atmosphere of ostentatious worldliness that, like many

residents of the summer city, it had come to take itself and its "position" seriously, and imagine that the eyes

The air of Newport has always proved fatal to big hotels. One after another they have appeared and failed, the

Ocean House alone dragging out a forlorn existence. As the flames worked their will and the careless crowd

enjoyed the spectacle, one could not help feeling a vague regret for the old place, more for what it represented

than for any intrinsic value of its own. Without greatly stretching a point it might be taken to represent a

social condition, a phase, as it were, in our development. In a certain obscure way, it was an epoch marking

structure. Its building closed the era of primitive Newport, its decline corresponded with the end of the pre

During forty years Newport had a unique existence, unknown to the rest of America, and destined to have a

lasting influence on her ways, an existence now as completely forgotten as the earlier boardinghouse

MATINEE DANSANTE time. * The sixties, seventies, and eighties in Newport were pleasant years that

many of us regret in spite of modern progress. Simple, inexpensive days, when people dined at three (looking

on the newly introduced six o'clock dinners as an English innovation and modern "frill"), and "highteaed"

together dyspeptically off "sally lunns" and "preserves," washed down by coffee and chocolate, which it was

the toilsome duty of a hostess to dispense from a silverladen tray; days when "rockaways" drawn by lean,

longtailed horses and driven by mustached darkies were, if not the rule, far from being an exception.

"Dutch treat" picnics, another archaic amusement, flourished then, directed by a famous organizer at his farm,

each guest being told what share of the eatables it was his duty to provide, an edict from which there was no

Sport was little known then, young men passing their afternoons tooling solemnly up and down Bellevue

This was the epoch when the Town and Country Club was young and full of vigor. We met at each other's

houses or at historic sites to hear papers read on serious subjects. One particular afternoon is vivid in my

memory. We had all driven out to a point on the shore beyond the Third Beach, where the Norsemen were

supposed to have landed during their apocryphal visit to this continent. It had been a hot drive, but when we

stopped, a keen wind was blowing in from the sea. During a pause in the prolix address that followed, a

coachman's voice was heard to mutter, "If he jaws much longer all the horses will be foundered," which

Newport during the prepalatial era affected culture, and a whiff of Boston pervaded the air, much of which

was tiresome, yet with an undercurrent of charm and refinement. Those who had the privilege of knowing

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, will remember the pleasant "teas" and sparkling conversation she offered her guests

in the unpretending cottage where the beauty of the daughter was as brilliant as the mother's wit.

Two estates on Bellevue Avenue are now without the hostesses who, in those days, showed the world what

great ladies America could produce. It was the foreignborn husband of one of these women who gave

Newport its first lessons in luxurious living. Until then Americans had travelled abroad and seen elaborately

served meals and properly appointed stables without the ambition of copying such things at home. Colonial

and revolutionary state had died out, and modern extravagance had not yet appeared. In the interregnum

In France, under Louis Philippe, and in England, during Victoria's youth, taste reached an ebb tide; in neither

of those countries, however, did the general standard fall so low as here. It was owing to the SAVOIR FAIRE

of one man that Newporters and New York first saw at home what they had admired abroad, liveried

servants in sufficient numbers, dinners served A LA RUSSE, and breeched and booted grooms on

Englishbuilt traps, innovations quickly followed by his neighbors, for the most marked characteristic of the

When, during the war of the secession, our Naval Academy was removed from Annapolis and installed in the

empty Atlantic House (corner of Bellevue Avenue and Pelham Street), hotel life had already begun to

decline; but the Ocean House, which was considered a vast enterprise at that time, inherited from the older

hotels the custom of giving Saturday evening "hops," the cottagers arriving at these informal entertainments

toward nine o'clock and promenading up and down the corridors or dancing in the parlor, to the admiration of

a public collected to enjoy the spectacle. At eleven the doors of the dining room opened, and a line of

welldrilled darkies passed ices and lemonade. By halfpast eleven (the hour at which we now arrive at a

One remembers with a shudder the military manoeuvres that attended hotel meals in those days, the marching

and countermarching, your dinner cooling while the head waiter reviewed his men. That idiotic custom has

been abandoned, like many better and worse. Next to the American ability to catch on comes the facility with

In this peculiarity the history of Newport has been an epitome of the country, every form of amusement being

in turn taken up, run into the ground, and then abandoned. At one time it was the fashion to drive to Fort

Adams of an afternoon and circle round and round the little green to the sounds of a military band; then, for

no visible reason, people took to driving on the Third Beach, an inaccessible and lonely point which for two

I blush to recall it, but at that time most of the turnouts were hired hacks. Next, Graves Point, on the Ocean

Drive, became the popular meetingplace. Then society took to attending polo of an afternoon, a sport just

introduced from India. This era corresponded with the opening of the Casino (the old readingroom dating

from 1854). For several years every one crowded during hot August mornings onto the airless lawns and

piazzas of the new establishment. It seems on looking back as if we must have been more fond of seeing each

other in those days than we are now. To ride up and down a beach and bow filled our souls with joy, and the

"cake walk" was an essential part of every ball, the guests parading in pairs round and round the room

between the dances instead of sitting quietly "out." The opening promenade at the New York Charity Ball is a

The disappearance of the Ocean House "hops" marked the last stage in hotel life. Since then betterclass

watering places all over the country have slowly but surely followed Newport's lead. The closed

caravansaries of Bar Harbor and elsewhere bear silent testimony to the fact that refined Americans are at last

awakening to the charms of home life during their holidays, and are discarding, as fast as finances will

permit, the pernicious herding system. In consequence the hotel has ceased to be, what it undoubtedly was

Only a few charred rafters remain of the Ocean House. A few talkative old duffers like myself alone survive

the day it represents. Changing social conditions have gradually placed both on the retired list. A new and

palatial Newport has replaced the simpler city. Let us not waste too much time regretting the past, or be too

sure that it was better than the present. It is quite possible, if the old times we are writing so fondly about

should return, we might discover that the same thing was true of them as a ragged urchin asserted the other

NEAR the centre of that verdant triangle formed by Saint Cloud, Versailles, and Saint Germain lies the

village of MarlyleRoy, high up on a slope above the lazy Seine an entrancing corner of the earth, much

affected formerly by French crowned heads, and by the "Sun King" in particular, who in his old age grew

tired of Versailles and built here one of his many villas (the rival in its day of the Trianons), and proceeded to

amuse himself therein with the same solemnity which had already made vice at Versailles more boresome

Two centuries and four revolutions have swept away all trace of this kingly caprice and the art treasures it

contained. Alone, the marble horses of Coustou, transported later to the Champs Elysees, remain to attest the

The quaint village of Marly, clustered around its church, stands, however with the faculty that insignificant

things have of remaining unchanged as it did when the most polished court of Europe rode through it to and

from the hunt. On the outskirts of this village are now two forged and gilded gateways through which the

There seems a certain poetical justice in the fact that Alexandre Dumas FILS and Victorien Sardou, the two

giants of modern drama, should have divided between them the inheritance of Louis XIV., its greatest patron.

One of the gates is closed and mossgrown. Its owner lies in PerelaChaise. At the other I ring, and am

soon walking up the famous avenue bordered by colossal sphinxes presented to Sardou by the late Khedive.

The big stone brutes, connected in one's mind with heat and sandy wastes, look oddly out of place here in this

green wilderness a bite, as it were, out of the forest which, under different names, lies like a mantle over the

Five minutes later I am being shown through a suite of antique salons, in the last of which sits the great

playwright. How striking the likeness is to Voltaire, the same delicate face, lit by a half cordial, half

mocking smile; the same fragile body and indomitable spirit. The illusion is enhanced by our surroundings,

for the mellow splendor of the room where we stand might have served as a background for the Sage of

Wherever one looks, works of eighteenthcentury art meet the eye. The walls are hung with Gobelin

tapestries that fairly take one's breath away, so exquisite is their design and their preservation. They represent

a marble colonnade, each column of which is wreathed with flowers and connected to its neighbor with

Between them are bits of delicate landscape, with here and there a group of figures dancing or picnicking in

the shadow of tall trees or under fantastical porticos. The furniture of the room is no less marvellous than its

hangings. One turns from a harpsichord of vernismartin to the clock, a relic from Louis XIV.'s bedroom in

Versailles; on to the bricabrac of old Saxe or Sevres in admiring wonder. My host drifts into his showman

The pleasures of the collector are apparently divided into three phases, without counting the rapture of the

hunt. First, the delight a true amateur takes in living among rare and beautiful things. Second, the satisfaction

of showing one's treasures to less fortunate mortals, and last, but perhaps keenest of all, the pride which

comes from the fact that one has been clever enough to acquire objects which other people want, at prices

below their market value. Sardou evidently enjoys these three sensations vividly. That he lives with and loves

his possessions is evident, and the smile with which he calls your attention to one piece after another, and

mentions what they cost him, attests that the two other joys are not unknown to him. He is old enough to

remember the golden age when really good things were to be picked up for modest sums, before every

parvenu considered it necessary to turn his house into a museum, and factories existed for the production of

In calling attention to a set of carved and gilded furniture, covered in Beauvais tapestry, such as sold recently

in Paris at the Valencay sale Talleyrand collection for sixty thousand dollars, Sardou mentions with a

laugh that he got his fifteen pieces for fifteen hundred dollars, the year after the war, from an old chateau

back of Cannes! One unique piece of tapestry had cost him less than onetenth of that sum. He discovered it

in a peasant's stable under a twofoot layer of straw and earth, where it had probably been hidden a hundred

The mention of Cannes sets Sardou off on another train of thought. His family for three generations have

lived there. Before that they were Sardinian fishermen. His great grandfather, he imagines, was driven by

some tempest to the shore near Cannes and settled where he found himself. Hence the name! For in the patois

The sun is off the front of the house by this time, so we migrate to a shady corner of the lawn for our

APERITIF, the inevitable vermouth or "bitters" which Frenchmen take at five o'clock. Here another surprise

awaits the visitor, who has not realized, perhaps, to what high ground the crawling local train has brought

him. At our feet, far below the lawn and shade trees that encircle the chateau, lies the Seine, twisting away

toward Saint Germain, whose terrace and dismantled palace stand outlined against the sky. To our right is the

plain of Saint Denis, the cathedral in its midst looking like an operaglass on a green table. Further still to the

right, as one turns the corner of the terrace, lies Paris, a white line on the horizon, broken by the mass of the

Arc de Triomphe, the roof of the Opera, and the Eiffel Tower, resplendent in a fresh coat of yellow lacquer!

The ground where we stand was occupied by the feudal castle of Les Sires de Marly; although all traces of

that stronghold disappeared centuries ago, the present owner of the land points out with pride that the

extraordinary beauty of the trees around his house is owing to the fact that their roots reach deep down to the

The little chateau itself, built during the reign of Louis XIV. for the GRANDVENEUR of the forest of

Marly, is intensely French in type, a long, low building on a stone terrace, with no trace of ornament about

its white facade or on its slanting roof. Inside, all the rooms are "front," communicating with each other EN

SUITE, and open into a corridor running the length of the building at the back, which, in turn, opens on a

stone court. Two lateral wings at right angles to the main building form the sides of this courtyard, and

contain LES COMMUNS, the kitchen, laundry, servants' rooms, and the other annexes of a large

establishment. This arrangement for a summer house is for some reason neglected by our American

architects. I can recall only one home in America built on this plan. It is Giraud Foster's beautiful villa at

Lenox. You may visit five hundred French chateaux and not find one that differs materially from this plan.

The American idea seems on the contrary to be a square house with a room in each corner, and all the

servants' quarters stowed away in a basement. Cottage and palace go on reproducing that foolish and

After an hour's chat over our drinks, during host has rippled on from one subject to another with the lightness

of touch of a born talker, we get on to the subject of the grounds, and his plans for their improvement.

Good luck has placed in Sardou's hands an old map of the gardens as they existed in the time of Louis XV.,

and several prints of the chateau dating from about the same epoch have found their way into his portfolios.

The grounds are, under his care, slowly resuming the appearance of former days. Old avenues reopen, statues

reappear on the disused pedestals, fountains play again, and clipped hedges once more line out the terraced

In order to explain how complete this work will be in time, Sardou hurries me off to inspect another part of

his collection. Down past the stables, in an unused corner of the grounds, long sheds have been erected, under

which is stored the debris of a dozen palaces, an assortment of eighteenth century art that could not be

One shed shelters an entire semicircle of TREILLAGE, pure Louis XV., an exquisite example of a lost art.

Columns, domes, panels, are packed away in straw awaiting resurrection in some corner hereafter to be

chosen. A dozen seats in rose colored marble from Fontainebleau are huddled together near by in company

with a row of gigantic marble masques brought originally from Italy to decorate Fouquet's fountains at his

chateau of Vaux in the short day of its glory. Just how this latter find is to be utilized their owner has not yet

decided. The problem, however, to judge from his manner, is as important to the great playwright as the plot

That the blood of an antiquarian runs in Sardou's veins is evident in the subdued excitement with which he

shows you his possessions statues from Versailles, forged gates and balconies from Saint Cloud, the carved

and gilded woodwork for a dozen rooms culled from the four corners of France. Like the true dramatist, he

has, however, kept his finest effect for the last. In the centre of a circular rose garden near by stands, alone in

its beauty, a column from the facade of the Tuileries, as perfect from base to flowercrowned capital as when

Years ago Sardou befriended a young stone mason, who through this timely aid prospered, and, becoming

later a rich builder, received in 1882 from the city of Paris the contract to tear down the burned ruins of the

Tuileries. While inspecting the palace before beginning the work of demolition, he discovered one column

that had by a curious chance escaped both the flames of the Commune and the patriotic ardor of 1793, which

effaced all royal emblems from church and palace alike. Remembering his benefactor's love for antiquities

with historical associations, the grateful contractor appeared one day at Marly with this column on a dray, and

insisted on erecting it where it now stands, pointing out to Sardou with pride the crowned "H," of Henri

Quatre, and the entwined "M. M." of Marie de Medicis, topped by the Florentine lily in the flutings of the

A question of mine on Sardou's manner of working led to our abandoning the gardens and mounting to the

top floor of the chateau, where his enormous library and collection of prints are stored in a series of little

rooms or alcoves, lighted from the top and opening on a corridor which runs the length of the building. In

each room stands a writingtable and a chair; around the walls from floor to ceiling and in huge portfolios are

arranged his books and engravings according to their subject. The Empire alcove, for instance, contains

nothing but publications and pictures relating to that epoch. Roman and Greek history have their alcoves, as

have mediaeval history and the reigns of the different Louis. Nothing could well be conceived more

conducive to study than this arrangement, and it makes one realize how honest was the master's reply when

Our conversation, as was fated, soon turned to the enormous success of ROBESPIERRE in London a

It is characteristic of the French disposition that neither the author nor any member of his family could

summon courage to undertake the prodigious journey from Paris to London in order to see the first

performance. Even Sardou's business agent, M. Roget, did not get further than Calais, where his courage gave

out. "The sea was so terrible!" Both those gentlemen, however, took it quite as a matter of course that

Sardou's American agent should make a threethousandmile journey to be present at the first night.

The fact that the French author resisted Sir Henry Irving's pressing invitations to visit him in no way indicates

a lack of interest in the success of the play. I had just arrived from London, and so had to go into every detail

of the performance, a rather delicate task, as I had been discouraged with the acting of both Miss Terry and

Irving, who have neither of them the age, voice, nor temperament to represent either the revolutionary tyrant

or the woman he betrayed. As the staging had been excellent, I enlarged on that side of the subject, but when

pressed into a corner by the author, had to acknowledge that in the scene where Robespierre, alone at

midnight in the Conciergerie, sees the phantoms of his victims advance from the surrounding shadows and

form a menacing circle around him, Irving had used his poor voice with so little skill that there was little left

for the splendid climax, when, in trying to escape from his ghastly visitors, Robespierre finds himself face to

face with Marie Antoinette, and with a wild cry, half of horror, half of remorse, falls back insensible.

In spite of previous good resolutions, I must have given the author the impression that Sir Henry spoke too

loud at the beginning of this scene and was in consequence inadequate at the end.

"What!" cried Sardou. "He raised his voice in that act! Why, it's a scene to be played with the soft pedal

down! This is the way it should be done!" Dropping into a chair in the middle of the room my host began

miming the gestures and expression of Robespierre as the phantoms (which, after all, are but the figments of

an overwrought brain) gather around him. Gradually he slipped to the floor, hiding his face with his

upraised elbow, whispering and sobbing, but never raising his voice until, staggering toward the portal to

escape, he meets the Queen face to face. Then the whole force of his voice came out in one awful cry that

With a careless laugh, Sardou resumed his shabby velvet cap, which had fallen to the floor, and answered:

"Oh, it's nothing! I only wanted to prove to you that the scene was not a fatiguing one for the voice if played

properly. I'm no actor and could not teach, but any one ought to know enough not to shout in that scene!"

This with some bitterness, as news had arrived that Irving's voice had given out the night before, and he had

been replaced by his halfbaked son in the title role, a change hardly calculated to increase either the

Certain ominous shadows which, like Robespierre's visions, had been for some time gathering in the corners

of the room warned me that the hour had come for my trip back to Paris. Declining reluctantly an invitation to

take potluck with my host, I was soon in the Avenue of the Sphinx again. As we strolled along, talking of the

past and its charm, a couple of men passed us, carrying a piece of furniture rolled in burlaps.

"I'm sorry you won't stop and inspect it," answered Sardou with a twinkle in his eye. "It's something I bought

THE dinner had been unusually long and the summer evening warm. During the wait before the dancing

began I must have dropped asleep in the dark corner of the piazza where I had installed myself, to smoke my

cigar, away from the other men and their tiresome chatter of golf and racing. Through the open window

groups of women could be seen in the ballroom, and the murmur of their conversation floated out, mingling

Suddenly, in that casual way peculiar to dreams, I found myself conversing with a solemn young Turk,

"Pardon, Effendi," he was murmuring. "Is this an American ball? I was asked at nine o'clock; it is now past

"None," I answered. "When a hostess puts nine o'clock on her card of invitation she expects her guests at

As we were speaking, our host rose. The men, reluctantly throwing away their cigars, began to enter the

ballroom through the open windows. On their approach the groups of women broke up, the men joining the

girls where they sat, or inviting them out to the lanternlit piazza, where the couples retired to dim,

"Are you sure I have not made a mistake?" asked my interlocutor, with a faint quiver of the eyelids. "It is my

I hastened to reassure him and explain that he was in an exclusive and reserved society.

"Indeed," he murmured incredulously. "When I was passing through New York last winter a lady was pointed

out to me as the owner of marvellous jewels and vast wealth, but with absolutely no social position. My

"It's foolish, of course, but the handsome woman with the crown on sitting in the centre of that circle, looks

"It's the same lady," I answered, wearily. "You are speaking of last year. No one could be induced to call on

"They have doubtless done some noble action, or the reports about the husband have been proved false?"

"Nothing of the kind has taken place. She's a success, and no one asks any questions! In spite of that, you are

in a society where the standard of conduct is held higher than in any country of Europe, by a race of women

more virtuous, in all probability, than has yet been seen. There is not a man present," I added, "who would

presume to take, or a woman who would permit, a liberty so slight even as the resting of a youth's arm across

While I was speaking, an invisible orchestra began to sigh out the first passionate bars of a waltz. A dozen

couples rose, the men clasping in their arms the slender matrons, whose smiling faces sank to their partners'

shoulders. A blond mustache brushed the forehead of a girl as she swept by us to the rhythm of the music,

"This, you must understand," I continued, hastily, "is quite another matter. Those people are waltzing. It is

considered perfectly proper, when the musicians over there play certain measures, for men to take apparent

liberties. Our women are infinitely selfrespecting, and a man who put his arm around a woman (in public)

while a different measure was being played, or when there was no music, would be ostracized from polite

"I am beginning to understand," replied the Turk. "The husbands and brothers of these women guard them

very carefully. Those men I see out there in the dark are doubtless with their wives and sisters, protecting

"Of course you're not right," I snapped out, beginning to lose my temper at his obtuseness. "No husband

would dream of talking to his wife in public, or of sitting with her in a corner. Every one would be laughing

at them. Nor could a sister be induced to remain away from the ballroom with her brother. Those girls are

`sitting out' with young men they like, indulging in a little innocent flirtation."

"An American custom rather difficult to explain. It may, however, be roughly defined as the art of leading a

"Women flirt with friends or acquaintances, never with members of their family?"

"The husbands are those dejected individuals wandering aimlessly about over there like lost souls. They are

mostly rich men, who, having married beautiful girls for love, wear themselves out maintaining elaborate and

costly establishments for them. In return for his labor a husband, however, enjoys but little of his wife's

society, for a really fashionable woman can rarely be induced to go home until she has collapsed with fatigue.

In consequence, she contributes little but `nerves' and temper to the household. Her sweetest smiles, like her

freshest toilets, are kept for the public. The husband is the last person considered in an American household.

If you doubt what I say, look behind you. There is a newly married man speaking with his wife, and trying to

persuade her to leave before the cotillion begins. Notice his apologetic air! He knows he is interrupting a

tender conversation and taking an unwarrantable liberty. Nothing short of extreme fatigue would drive him to

such an extremity. The poor millionnaire has hardly left his desk in Wall Street during the week, and only

arrived this evening in time to dress for dinner. He would give a fair slice of his income for a night's rest. See!

He has failed, and is lighting another cigar, preparing, with a sigh, for a long wait. It will be three before my

After a silence of some minutes, during which he appeared to be turning these remarks over in his mind, the

young Oriental resumed: "The single men who absorb so much of your women's time and attention are

I was obliged to confess that this was not the case; that, on the contrary, the dancing bachelors were for the

most part impecunious youths of absolutely no importance, asked by the hostess to fill in, and so lightly

considered that a woman did not always recognize in the street her guests of the evening before.

At this moment my neighbor's expression changed from bewilderment to admiration, as a young and very

lovely matron threw herself, panting, into a low chair at his side. Her decollete was so daring that the doubts

of half an hour before were evidently rising afresh in his mind. Hastily resuming my task of mentor, I

explained that a decollete corsage was an absolute rule for evening gatherings. A woman who appeared in a

high bodice or with her neck veiled would be considered lacking in politeness to her hostess as much if she

"With us, women go into the world to shine and charm. It is only natural they should use all the weapons

"Very good!" exclaimed the astonished Ottoman. "But where will all this end? You began by allowing your

women to appear in public with their faces unveiled, then you suppressed the fichu and the collarette, and

"Ah!" I answered, laughing, "the tendency of civilization is to simplify; many things may yet disappear."

"I understand perfectly. You have no prejudice against women wearing in public toilets that we consider

fitted only for strict intimacy. In that case your ladies may walk about the streets in these costumes?"

"Not at all!" I cried. "It would provoke a scandal if a woman were to be seen during the daytime in such

attire, either at home or abroad. The police and the law courts would interfere. Evening dress is intended only

for reunions in private houses, or at most, to be worn at entertainments where the company is carefully

selected and the men asked from lists prepared by the ladies themselves. No lady would wear a ball costume

or her jewels in a building where the general public was admitted. In London great ladies dine at restaurants

in full evening dress, but we Americans, like the French, consider that vulgar."

"Yet, last winter," he said, "when passing through New York, I went to a great theatre, where there were an

orchestra and many singing people. Were not those respectable women I saw in the boxes? There were no

MOUCHARABIES to screen them from the eyes of the public. Were all the men in that building asked by

special invitation? That could hardly be possible, for I paid an entrance fee at the door. From where I sat I

could see that, as each lady entered her box, operaglasses were fixed on her, and her `points,' as you say,

discussed by the crowd of men in the corridors, who, apparently, belonged to quite the middle class."

"My poor, innocent Padischa, you do not understand at all. That was the opera, which makes all the

difference. The husbands of those women pay enormous prices, expressly that their wives may exhibit

themselves in public, decked in jewels and suggestive toilets. You could buy a whole harem of fair

Circassians for what one of those little square boxes costs. A lady whose entrance caused no sensation would

feel bitterly disappointed. As a rule, she knows little about music, and cares still less, unless some singer is

performing who is paid a fabulous price, which gives his notes a peculiar charm. With us most things are

valued by the money they have cost. Ladies attend the opera simply and solely to see their friends and be

"It grieves me to see that you are forming a poor opinion of our woman kind, for they are more charming and

modest than any foreign women. A girl or matron who exhibits more of her shoulders than you, with your

Eastern ideas, think quite proper, would sooner expire than show an inch above her ankle. We have our way

"Now I know you are joking," he replied, with a slight show of temper, "or trying to mystify me, for only this

morning I was on the beach watching the bathing, and I saw a number of ladies in quite short skirts up to

their knees, in fact with the thinnest covering on their shapely extremities. Were those women above

"Absolutely," I assured him, feeling inclined to tear my hair at such stupidity. "Can't you see the difference?

That was in daylight. Our customs allow a woman to show her feet, and even a little more, in the morning. It

would be considered the acme of indecency to let those beauties be seen at a ball. The law allows a woman to

uncover her neck and shoulders at a ball, but she would be arrested if she appeared decollete on the beach of

A long silence followed, broken only by the music and laughter from the ballroom. I could see my dazed

Mohammedan remove his fez and pass an agitated hand through his dark hair; then he turned, and saluting

"It is very kind of you to have taken so much trouble with me. I do not doubt that what you have said is full

of the wisdom and consistency of a new civilization, which I fail to appreciate." Then, with a sigh, he added:

"It will be better for me to return to my own country, where there are fewer exceptions to rules."

With a profound salaam the gentle youth disappeared into the surrounding darkness, leaving me rubbing my

eyes and asking myself if, after all, the dreamland Oriental was not about right. Custom makes many

inconsistencies appear so logical that they no longer cause us either surprise or emotion. But can we explain

AFTER witnessing the performance given by the Comedie Francaise in the antique theatre at Orange, we

determined my companion and I if ever another opportunity of the kind offered, to attend, be the material

The theatrical "stars" in their courses proved favorable to the accomplishment of this vow. Before the year

ended it was whispered to us that the "Cadets de Gascogne" were planning a tram through the Cevennes

Mountains and their native Languedoc a sort of lay pilgrimage to famous historic and literary shrines, a

voyage to be enlivened by much crowning of busts and reciting of verses in the open air, and incidentally, by

the eating of Gascony dishes and the degustation of delicate local wines; the whole to culminate with a

representation in the arena at Beziers of DEJANIRE, Louis Gallet's and Saint Saens's latest work, under the

A tempting programme, was it not, in these days of cockney tours and "Cook" couriers? At any rate, one that

we, with plenty of time on our hands and a weakness for outoftheway corners and untrodden paths, found

Rostand, in CYRANO DE BERGERAC, has shown us the "Cadets" of Moliere's time, a fighting, rhyming,

devilmaycare band, who wore their hearts on their sleeves and chips on their stalwart shoulders; much

such a brotherhood, in short, as we love to imagine that Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, Greene, and their

intimates formed when they met at the "Ship" to celebrate a success or drink a health to the drama.

The men who compose the present society (which has now for many years borne a name only recently made

famous by M. Rostand's genius) come delightfully near realizing the happy conditions of other days, and

less the fighting form as joyous and picturesque a company as their historic elders. They are for the most

part Southernborn youths, whose interests and ambitions centre around the stage, devotees at the altar of

Melpomene, ardent lovers of letters and kindred arts, and proud of the debt that literary France owes to

It is the pleasant custom of this coterie to meet on winter evenings in unfrequented CAFES, transformed by

them for the time into clubs, where they recite newmade verses, discuss books and plays, enunciate

paradoxes that make the very waiters shudder, and, between their "bocks," plan vast revolutions in the world

As the pursuit of "letters" is, if anything, less lucrative in France than in other countries, the question of next

day's dinner is also much discussed among these budding Molieres, who are often forced to learn early in

their careers, when meals have been meagre, to satisfy themselves with rich rhymes and drink their fill of

From time to time older and more successful members of the corporation stray back into the circle, laying

aside their laurel crowns and Olympian pose, in the society of the new comers to Bohemia. These honorary

members enjoy nothing more when occasion offers than to escape from the toils of greatness and join the

"Cadets" in their summer journeys to and fro in France, trips which are made to combine the pleasures of an

outing with the aims of a literary campaign. It was an invitation to join one of these tramps that tempted my

friend and me away from Paris at the season when that city is at its best. Being unable, on account of other

engagements, to start with the cohort from the capital, we made a dash for it and caught them up at

Carcassonne during the fetes that the little Languedoc city was offering to its guests.

After having seen Aigues Mortes, it was difficult to believe that any other place in Europe could suggest

more vividly the days of military feudalism. St. Louis's tiny city is, however, surpassed by Carcassonne!

Thanks to twenty years of studious restoration by Viollet le Duc, this antique jewel shines in its setting of

slope and plain as perfect today (seen from the distance) as when the Crusaders started from its crenelated

gates for the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre. The acropolis of Carcassonne is crowned with Gothic

battlements, the golden polygon of whose walls, rising from Roman foundations and layers of ruddy Visigoth

brick to the stately marvel of its fifty towers, forms a whole that few can view unmoved.

We found the Cadets lunching on the platform of the great western keep, while a historic pageant organized

in their honor was winding through the steep mediaeval streets a cavalcade of archers, men at arms, and

manycolored troubadours, who, after effecting a triumphal entrance to the town over lowered drawbridges,

mounted to unfurl their banner on our tower. As the gaudy standard unfolded on the evening air,

MounetSully's incomparable voice breathed the very soul of the "Burgraves" across the silent plain and

down through the echoing corridors below. While we were still under the impression of the stirring lines, he

LE SOIR TOMBE. . . . L'HEURE DOUCE QUI S'ELOIGNE SANS SECOUSSE, POSE A PEINE SUR LA

Night came on ere the singing and reciting ended, a balmy Southern evening, lit by a thousand fires from

tower and battlement and moat, the old walls glowing red against the violet sky.

Picture this scene to yourself, reader mine, and you will understand the enthusiasm of the artists and writers

in our clan. It needed but little imagination then to reconstruct the past and fancy one's self back in the days

Sleep that night was filled with a strange phantasmagoria of crenelated chateaux and armored knights, until

the bright Provencal sunlight and the call for a hurried departure dispelled such illusions. By noon we were

far away from Carcassonne, mounting the rocky slopes of the Cevennes amid a wild and noble landscape; the

towering cliffs of the "Causses," zebraed by zigzag paths, lay below us, disclosing glimpses of fertile valley

One asks one's self in wonder why these enchanting regions are so unknown. EN ROUTE our companions

were like children fresh from school, taking haphazard meals at the local inns and clambering gayly into any

conveyance that came to hand. As our way led us through the Cevennes country, another charm gradually

"I imagine that Citheron must look like this," murmured Catulle Mendes, as we stood looking down from a

sunbaked eminence, "with the Gulf of Corinth there where you see that gleam of water." As he spoke he

began declaiming the passage from Sophocles's OEDIPUS THE KING descriptive if that classic scene.

Two thousand feet below lay Ispanhac in a verdant valley, the River Tarn gleaming amid the cultivated fields

like a cimeter thrown on a Turkish carpet. Our descent was an avalanche of laughing, singing "Cadets," who

rolled in the freshcut grass and chased each other through the ripening vineyards, shouting lines from

tragedies to groups of openmouthed farmhands, and invading the tiny inns on the road with song and

tumult. As we neared our goal its entire population, headed by the cure, came out to meet us and offer the

In the marketplace, one of our number, inspired by the antique solemnity of the surroundings, burst into the

noble lines of Hugo's DEVANT DIEU, before which the awestruck population uncovered and crossed

Another scene recurs vividly to my memory. We were at St. Enimie. I had opened my window to breathe the

night air after the heat and dust of the day and watch the moonlight on the quaint bridge at my feet. Suddenly

from out the shadows there rose (like sounds in a dream) the exquisite tone of Sylvain's voice, alternating

with the baritone of d'Esparbes. They were seated at the water's edge, intoxicated by the beauty of the scene

The next day was passed on the Tarn, our ten little boats following each other single file on the narrow river,

winding around the feet of mighty cliffs, or wandering out into sunny pasture lands where solitary peasants,

interrupted in their labors, listened in astonishment to the chorus thundered from the passing boats, and

Space is lacking to give more than a suggestion of those days, passed in every known conveyance from the

antique diligence to the hissing trolley, in company with men who seemed to have left their cares and their

Our last stop before arriving at Beziers was at La Case, where luncheon was served in the great hall of the

chateau. Armand Sylvestre presided at the repast; his verses alternated with the singings of Emma Calve, who

had come from her neighboring chateau to greet her old friends and compatriots, the "Cadets."

As the meal terminated, more than one among the guests, I imagine, felt his heart heavy with the idea that

tomorrow would end this pleasant ramble and send him back to the realities of life and the drudgery of daily

The morning of the great day dawned cloudless and cool. A laughing, manycolored throng early invaded the

arena, the women's gay toilets lending it some resemblance to a parterre of fantastic flowers. Before the bell

sounded its three strokes that announced the representation, over ten thousand spectators had taken their

places and were studying the gigantic stage and its four thousand yards of painted canvas. In the foreground a

cluster of Greek palaces and temples surround a marketplace; higher up and further back the city walls,

manned by costumed sentinels, rise against mountains so happily painted that their outlines blend with

nature's own handiwork in the distance, a worthy setting for a stately drama and the valiant company of

Three hundred hidden musicians, divided into wind and chord orchestras, accompany a chorus of two

As the third stroke dies away, the Muse, Mademoiselle Rabuteau, enters and declaims the salutation

addressed by Louis Gallet to the City of Beziers. At its conclusion the tragedy begins.

This is not the place to describe or criticise at length so new an attempt at classic restoration. The author

follows the admirable fable of antiquity with a directness and simplicity worthy of his Greek model. The

story of Dejanira and Hercules is too familiar to be repeated here. The hero's infidelity and the passion of a

neglected woman are related through five acts logically and forcibly, with the noble music of Saint Saens as

We watch the growing affection of the demigod for the gentle Iole. We sympathize with jealous, desperate

Dejanira when in a last attempt to gain back the love of Hercules she persuades the unsuspecting Iole to offer

him a tunic steeped in Nessus's blood, which Dejanira has been told by Centaur will when warmed in the sun

At the opening of the fifth act we witness the nuptial fetes. Religious dances and processions circle around

the pyre laid for a marriage sacrifice. Dejanira, hidden in the throng, watches in an agony of hope for the

Hercules accepts the fatal garment from the hands of his bride and calls upon the sungod to ignite the altars.

The pyre flames, the heat warms the clinging tunic, which wraps Hercules in its folds of torture. Writhing in

agony, he flings himself upon the burning pyramid, followed by Dejanira, who, in despair, sees too late that

No feeble prose, no characters of black or white, can do justice to the closing scenes of this performance. The

roar of the chorus, the thunder of the actors' voices, the impression of reality left on the breathless spectators

by the openair reality of the scene, the ardent sun, the rustling wind, the play of light and shade across the

stage, the invocation of Hercules addressed to the real heavens, not to a painted firmament, combined an

At the farewell banquet in the arena after the performance, Georges Leygues, the captain of the Cadets, in

answer to a speech from the Prefect, replied: "You ask about our aims and purposes and speak in admiration

"Our aims are to vivify the traditions and language of our native land, and the memory of a glorious ancestry,

to foster the love of our little province at the same time as patriotism for the greater country. We are striving

for a decentralization of art, for the elevation of the stage; but above all, we preach a gospel of gayety and

healthy laughter, the science of remaining young at heart, would teach pluck and good humor in the weary

struggle of existence, characteristics that have marked our countrymen through history! We have borrowed a

motto from Lope de Vega (that Gascon of another race), and inscribe `PAR LA LANGUA ET PAR L'EPEE'

CLAUDE FROLLO, holding the first printed book he had seen in one hand, and pointing with the other to

the gigantic mass of Notre Dame, dark against the sunset, prophesied "CECI TUERA CELA." One might

today paraphrase the sentence which Victor Hugo put into his archdeacon's mouth, and pointing to the

elaborately appointed dinnertables of our generation, assert that the Dinner was killing the Drama.

New York undoubtedly possesses at this moment more and better constructed theatres, in proportion to its

population, than any other city on the globe, and, with the single exception of Paris, more money is probably

spent at the theatre by our people than in any other metropolis. Yet curiously enough, each decade, each

season widens the breach between our discriminating public and the stage. The theatre, instead of keeping

abreast with the intellectual movement of our country, has for the last thirty years been slowly but steadily

declining, until at this moment there is hardly a company playing in legitimate comedy, tragedy, or the classic

In spite of the fact that we are a nation in full literary production, boasting authors who rank with the greatest

of other countries, there is hardly one poet or prosewriter to day, of recognized ability, who works for the

stage, nor can we count more than one or two highclass comedies or lyric dramas of American origin.

It is not my intention here to criticise the contemporary stage, although the condition of the drama in America

is so unique and so different from its situation in other countries that it might well attract the attention of

inquiring minds; but rather to glance at the social causes which have produced this curious state of affairs,

and the strained relations existing between our elite (here the word is used in its widest and most elevated

There can be little doubt that the deterioration in the class of plays produced at our theatres has been brought

about by changes in our social conditions. The pernicious "star" system, the difficulty of keeping stock

companies together, the rarity of histrionic ability among Americans are explanations which have at different

times been offered to account for these phenomena. Foremost, however, among the causes should be placed

an exceedingly simple and prosaic fact which seems to have escaped notice. I refer to the displacement of the

Forty years ago dinner was still a simple affair, taken at hours varying from three to five o'clock, and uniting

few but the members of a family, holidays and fetes being the rare occasions when guests were asked. There

was probably not a hotel in this country at that time where a dinner was served later than three o'clock, and

Delmonico's, newly installed in Mr. Moses Grinnell's house, corner of Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue,

was the only establishment of its kind in America, and the one restaurant in New York where ladies could be

taken to dine. In those tranquil days when dinner parties were few and dances a rarity, theatregoing was the

one ripple on the quiet stream of home life. Wallack's, at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Broadway,

Booth's in Twentythird Street, and Fechter's in Fourteenth Street were the homes of good comedy and

Along about 1870 the more aristocraticallyminded New Yorkers took to dining at six or sixthirty o'clock;

since then each decade has seen the dinner recede further into the night, until it is a common occurrence now

to sit down to that repast at eight or even nine o'clock. Not only has the hour changed, but the meal itself has

undergone a radical transformation, in keeping with the general increase of luxurious living, becoming a

serious although hurried function. In consequence, to go to the theatre and be present at the rising of the

curtain means, for the majority possessing sufficient means to go often to the play and culture enough to be

discriminating, the disarrangement of the entire machinery of a household as well as the habits of its inmates.

In addition to this, dozens of sumptuous establishments have sprung up where the pleasure of eating is

supplemented by allurements to the eye and ear. Fine orchestras play nightly, the air is laden with the

perfume of flowers, a scenic perspective of palm garden and marble corridor flatters the senses. The

temptation, to a man wearied by a day of business or sport, to abandon the idea of going to a theatre, and

linger instead over his cigar amid these attractive surroundings, is almost irresistible.

If, however, tempted by some success, he hurries his guests away from their meal, they are in no condition to

appreciate a serious performance. The pressure has been too high all day for the overworked man and his

ENERVEE wife to desire any but the lightest tomfoolery in an entertainment. People engaged in the lethargic

process of digestion are not good critics of either elevated poetry or delicate interpretation, and in

Managers were quick to perceive that their productions were no longer taken seriously, and that it was a

waste of time and money to offer highclass entertainments to audiences whom any nonsense would attract.

When a play like THE SWELL MISS FITZWELL will pack a New York house for months, and then float a

company on the high tide of success across the continent, it would be folly to produce anything better. New

York influences the taste of the country; it is in New York really that the standard has been lowered.

In answer to these remarks, the question will doubtless be raised, "Are not the influences which it is asserted

are killing the drama in America at work in England or on the Continent, where people also dine late and

Yes, and no! People abroad dine as well, undoubtedly; as elaborately? Certainly not! With the exception of

the English (and even among them dinnergiving has never become so universal as with us), no other people

entertain for the pleasure of hospitality. On the Continent, a dinnerparty is always an "axegrinding"

function. A family who asked people to dine without having a distinct end in view for such an outlay would

be looked upon by their friends and relatives as little short of lunatics. Diplomatists are allowed certain sums

by their governments for entertaining, and are formally dined in return by their guests. A great French lady

who is asked to dine out twice a week considers herself fortunate; a New York woman of equal position

hardly dines at home from December 1 to April 15, unless she is receiving friends at her own table.

Parisian ladies rarely go to restaurants. In London there are not more than three or four places where ladies

can be taken to dine, while in this city there are hundreds; our people have caught the habit of dining away

from home, a custom singularly in keeping with the American temperament; for, although it costs more, it is

The reason why foreigners do not entertain at dinner is because they have found other and more satisfactory

ways of spending their money. This leaves people abroad with a number of evenings on their hands,

unoccupied hours that are generally passed at the theatre. Only the other day a diplomatist said to me, "I am

surprised to see how small a place the theatre occupies in your thoughts and conversation. With us it is the

From one cause or another, not only the wealthy, but the thoughtful and cultivated among us, go less each

year to the theatre. The abstinence of this class is the most significant, for wellread, refined, fastidious

citizens are the pride of a community, and their influence for good is far reaching. Of this elite New York

has more than its share, but you will not meet them at the play, unless Duse or Jefferson, Bernhardt or

Coquelin is performing. The best only tempts such minds. It was by the encouragement of this class that

Booth was enabled to give HAMLET one hundred consecutive evenings, and Fechter was induced to linger

In comparison with the verdicts of such people, the opinions of fashionable sets are of little importance. The

latter long ago gave up going to the play in New York, except during two short seasons, one in the autumn,

"before things get going," and again in the spring, after the season is over, before they flit abroad or to the

country. During these periods "smart" people generally attend in bands called "theatre parties," an infliction

unknown outside of this country, an arrangement above all others calculated to bring the stage into contempt,

as such parties seldom arrive before the middle of the second act, take ten minutes to get seated, and then chat

The theatre, having ceased to form an integral part of our social life, has come to be the pastime of people

with nothing better to do, the floating population of our hotels, the shopgirl and her young man enjoying

an evening out. The plays produced by the gentlemen who, I am told, control the stage in this country for the

moment, are adapted to the requirements of an audience that, having no particular standard from which to

judge the literary merits of a play, the training, accent, or talent of the actors, are perfectly contented so long

as they are amused. To get a laugh, at any price, has become the ambition of most actors and the dream of

A young actress in a company that played an American translation of MME. SANS GENE all over this

continent asked me recently what I thought of their performance. I said I thought it "a burlesque of the

original!" "If you thought it a burlesque here in town," she answered, "it's well you didn't see us on the road.

If one of my readers doubts the assertion that the better classes have ceased to attend our theatres, except on

rare occasions, let him inquire about, among the men and women whose opinions he values and respects, how

many of last winter's plays they considered intellectual treats, or what piece tempted them to leave their cosy

dinnertables a second time. It is surprising to find the number who will answer in reply to a question about

the merits of a play EN VOGUE, "I have not seen it. In fact I rarely go to a theatre unless I am in London or

Little by little we have taken to turning in a vicious and evernarrowing circle. The poorer the plays, the less

clever people will make the effort necessary to see them, and the less such elite attend, the poorer the plays

That this state of affairs is going to last, however, I do not believe. The darkest hour is ever the last before the

dawn. As it would he difficult for the performances in most of our theatres to fall any lower in the scale of

frivolity or inanity, we may hope for a reaction that will be deep and far reaching. At present we are like

people dying of starvation because they do not know how to combine the flour and water and yeast before

them into wholesome bread. The materials for a brilliant and distinctly national stage undoubtedly exist in

this country. We have men and women who would soon develop into great actors if they received any

encouragement to devote themselves to a higher class of work, and certainly our great city does not possess

The great dinnergiving mania will eat itself out; and managers, feeling once more that they can count on

discriminating audiences, will no longer dare to give garbled versions of French farces or feeble dramas as

compiled from English novels, but, turning to our own poets and writers, will ask them to contribute towards

When, finally, one of our poets gives us a lyric drama like CYRANO DE BERGERAC, the attractions of the

dinnertable will no longer be strong enough to keep clever people away from the theatre, and the following

BANKER (to Crushed Tragedian). No, I haven't seen you act. I have not been inside a theatre for two

MOST of the historic cities of Europe have a distinct local color, a temperament, if one may be allowed the

expression, of their own. The austere calm of Bruges or Ghent, the sensuous beauty of Naples, attract

different natures. Florence has passionate devotees, who are insensible to the artistic grace of Venice or the

stately quiet of Versailles. In Cairo one experiences an exquisite BIEN ETRE, a mindless, ambitionless

contentment which, without being languor, soothes the nerves and tempts to indolent lotuseating. Like a

great hive, Rome depends on the memories that circle around her, storing, like bees, the centuries with their

honey. Each of these cities must therefore leave many people unmoved, who after a passing visit, wander

Paris alone seems to possess the charm that bewitches all conditions, all ages, all degrees. To hold the

frivolous minded she paints her face and dances, leading them a round of folly, exhaustive alike to health

and purse. For the student she assumes another mien, smiling encouragement, and urging him upward

towards the highest standards, while posing as his model. She takes the dreaming lover of the past gently by

the hand, and leading him into quiet streets and squares where she has stored away a wealth of hidden

Paris is no less adored by the vacantminded, to whom neither art nor pleasure nor study appeal. Her caprices

in fashion are received by the wives and daughters of the universe as laws, and obeyed with an unwavering

faith, a mute obedience that few religions have commanded. Women who yawn through Italy and the East

have, when one meets them in the French capital, the intense manner, the air of separation from things

mundane, that is observable in pilgrims approaching the shrine of their deity. Mohammedans at Mecca must

have some such look. In Paris women find themselves in the presence of those high priests whom they have

long worshipped from a distance. It is useless to mention other subjects to the devotee, for they will not fix

When visiting other cities one feels that they are like honest married women, living quiet family lives,

surrounded by their children. The French Aspasia, on the contrary, has never been true to any vow, but has, at

the dictate of her passions, changed from royal and imperial to republican lovers, and back again, ruled by no

laws but her caprices, and discarding each favorite in turn with insults when she has wearied of him. Yet

sovereigns are her slaves, and leave their lands to linger in her presence; and rich strangers from the four

corners of the earth come to throw their fortunes at her feet and bask a moment in her smiles.

Like her classic prototype, Paris is also the companion of the philosophers and leads the arts in her train. Her

palaces are the meetingplaces of the poets, the sculptors, the dramatists, and the painters, who are never

weary of celebrating her perfections, nor of working for her adornment and amusement.

Those who live in the circle of her influence are caught up in a whirlwind of artistic production, and consume

their brains and bodies in the vain hope of pleasing their idol and attracting her attention. To be loved by

Paris is an ordeal that few natures can stand, for she wrings the lifeblood from her devotees and then casts

them aside into oblivion. Paris, said one of her greatest writers, "AIME A BRISER SES IDOLES!" As

Ulysses and his companions fell, in other days, a prey to the allurements of Circe, so our powerful young

nation has fallen more than any other under the influence of the French siren, and brings her a yearly tribute

of gold which she receives with avidity, although in her heart there is little fondness for the giver.

Americans who were in Paris two years ago had an excellent opportunity of judging the sincerity of Parisian

affection, and of sounding the depth and unselfishness of the love that this fickle city gives us in return for

our homage. Not for one moment did she hesitate, but threw the whole weight of her influence and wit into

the scale for Spain. If there is not at this moment a European alliance against America it is not from any lack

The stand taken by LA VILLA LUMIERE in that crisis caused many naive Americans, who believed that

their weakness for the French capital was returned, a painful surprise. They imagined in the simplicity of their

innocent hearts that she loved them for themselves, and have awakened, like other rich lovers, to the

humiliating knowledge that a penniless neighbor was receiving the caresses that Croesus paid for. Not only

did the entire Parisian press teem at that moment with covert insults directed towards us, but in society, at the

clubs and tables of the aristocracy, it was impossible for an American to appear with selfrespect, so

persistently were our actions and our reasons for undertaking that war misunderstood and misrepresented. In

the conversation of the salons and in the daily papers it was assumed that the Spanish were a race of noble

patriots, fighting in the defence of a loved and loyal colony, while we were a horde of blatant cowards, who

had long fermented a revolution in Cuba in order to appropriate that coveted island.

When the Spanish authorities allowed an American ship (surprised in one of her ports by the declaration of

war) to depart unharmed, the fact was magnified into an act of almost ideal generosity; on the other hand,

when we decided not to permit privateering, that announcement was received with derisive laughter as a

pretentious pose to cover hidden interests. There is reason to believe, however, that this feeling in favor of

Spain goes little further than the press and the aristocratic circles so dear to the American "climber"; the real

heart of the French nation is as true to us as when a century ago she spent blood and treasure in our cause. It

is the inconstant capital alone that, false to her role of liberator, has sided with the tyrant.

Yet when I wander through her shady parks or lean over her monumental quays, drinking in the beauty of the

first spring days, intoxicated by the perfume of the flowers that the night showers have kissed into bloom; or

linger of an evening over my coffee, with the brilliant life of the boulevards passing like a carnival procession

before my eyes; when I sit in her theatres, enthralled by the genius of her actors and playwrights, or stand

bewildered before the ten thousand paintings and statues of the Salon, I feel inclined, like a betrayed lover, to

pardon my faithless mistress: she is too lovely to remain long angry with her. You realize she is false and will

betray you again, laughing at you, insulting your weakness; but when she smiles all faults are forgotten; the

ardor of her kisses blinds you to her inconstancy; she pours out a draught that no other hands can brew, and

clasps you in arms so fair that life outside those fragile barriers seems stale and unprofitable.

IN early days of steam navigation on the Mississippi, the river captains, it is said, had the playful habit, when

pressed for time or enjoying a "spurt" with a rival, of running their engines with a darky seated on the

One's first home impression after a season of lazy Continental travelling and visiting in somnolent English

country houses, is that an emblematical Ethiopian should be quartered on our national arms.

Zola tells us in NOUVELLE CAMPAGNE that his vivid impressions are all received during the first

twentyfour hours in a new surrounding, the mind, like a photographic film, quickly losing its sensibility.

This fleeting receptiveness makes returning Americans painfully conscious of nerves in the home

The habit of laying such faults to the climate is but a poor excuse. Our grandparents and their parents lived

peaceful lives beneath these same skies, undisturbed by the morbid influences that are supposed to key us to

There was an Indian summer languor in the air as we steamed up the bay last October, that apparently invited

repose; yet no sooner had we set foot on our native dock, and taken one good whiff of home air, than all our

acquired calm disappeared. People who ten days before would have sat (at a journey's end) contentedly in a

waitingroom, while their luggage was being sorted by leisurely officials, now hustle nervously about,

nagging the customhouse officers and egging on the porters, as though the saving of the next half hour were

Considering how extravagant we Americans are in other ways it seems curious that we should be so

economical of time! It was useless to struggle against the current, however, or to attempt to hold one's self

back. Before ten minutes on shore had passed, the old, familiar, unpleasant sensation of being in a hurry took

possession of me! It was irresistible and allpervading; from the movements of the crowds in the streets to

the whistle of the harbor tugs, everything breathed of haste. The very dogs had apparently no time to loiter,

The transit from dock to hotel was like a visit to a new circle in the INFERNO, where trains rumble eternally

overhead, and cable cars glide and block around a palefaced throng of the damned, who are forced, in

A curious curse has fallen upon our people; an "influence" is at work which forces us to attempt in an hour

just twice as much as can be accomplished in sixty minutes. "Do as well as you can," whispers the

"influence," "but do it quickly!" That motto might be engraved upon the fronts of our homes and business

It is on account of this new standard that rapidity in a transaction on the Street is appreciated more than

correctness of detail. A broker today will take more credit for having received and executed an order for

Chicago and returned an answer within six minutes, than for any amount of careful work. The order may

have been ill executed and the details mixed, but there will have been celerity of execution to boast of

The young man who expects to succeed in business today must be a "hustler," have a snapshot style in

conversation, patronize rapid transit vehicles, understand shorthand, and eat at "breathless breakfasts."

Being taken recently to one of these establishments for "quick lunch," as I believe the correct phrase is, to eat

buckwheat cakes (and very good they were), I had an opportunity of studying the ways of the modern

It is his habit upon entering to dash for the billoffare, and give an order (if he is adroit enough to catch one

of the maids on the fly) before removing either coat or hat. At least fifteen seconds may be economized in

this way. Once seated, the luncher falls to on anything at hand; bread, cold slaw, crackers, or catsup. When

the dish ordered arrives, he gets his fork into it as it appears over his shoulder, and has cleaned the plate

before the sauce makes its appearance, so that is eaten by itself or with bread.

Cups of coffee or tea go down in two swallows. Little piles of cakes are cut in quarters and disappear in four

mouthfuls, much after the fashion of children down the ogre's throat in the mechanical toy, mastication being

A really accomplished luncher can assimilate his last quarter of cakes, wiggle into his coat, and pay his check

at the desk at the same moment. The next, he is down the block in pursuit of a receding trolley.

To any one fresh from the Continent, where the entire machinery of trade comes to a standstill from eleven

to one o'clock, that DEJEUNER may be taken in somnolent tranquillity, the nervous tension pervading a

restaurant here is prodigious, and what is worse catching! During recent visits to the business centres of our

city, I find that the idea of eating is repugnant. It seems to be wrong to waste time on anything so

unproductive. Last week a friend offered me a "luncheon tablet" from a box on his desk. "It's as good as a

The proprietor of one downtown restaurant has the stock quotations exhibited on a blackboard at the end

of his room; in this way his patrons can keep in touch with the "Street" as they hurriedly stoke up.

A parlor car, toward a journey's end, is another excellent place to observe our native ways. Coming from

Washington the other day my fellowpassengers began to show signs of restlessness near Newark. Books and

papers were thrown aside; a general "uprising, unveiling" followed, accompanied by our objectionable

custom of having our clothes brushed in each other's faces. By the time Jersey City appeared on the horizon,

every man, woman, and child in that car was jammed, baggage in hand, into the stuffy little passage which

precedes the entrance, swaying and staggering about while the train backed and delayed.

The explanation of this is quite simple. The "influence" was at work, preventing those people from acting like

other civilized mortals, and remaining seated until their train had come to a standstill.

Being fresh from the "other side," and retaining some of my acquired calm, I sat in my chair! The surprise on

the faces of the other passengers warned me, however, that it would not be safe to carry this pose too far. The

porter, puzzled by the unaccustomed sight, touched me kindly on the shoulder, and asked if I "felt sick"! So

now, to avoid all affectation of superiority, I struggled into my greatcoat, regardless of eighty degrees

temperature in the car, and meekly joined the standing army of martyrs, to hurry, scampering with them from

the stillmoving car to the boat, and on to the trolley before the craft had been moored to its landing pier.

In Paris, on taking an omnibus, you are given a number and the right to the first vacant seat. When the places

in a "bus" are all occupied it receives no further occupants. Imagine a traction line attempting such a reform

here! There would be a riot, and the conductors hanged to the nearest trolleypoles in an hour!

To prevent a citizen from crowding into an overfull vehicle, and stamping on its occupants in the process,

would be to infringe one of his dearest privileges, not to mention his chance of riding free.

A small boy of my acquaintance tells me he rarely finds it necessary to pay in a New York car. The

conductors are too hurried and too preoccupied pocketing their share of the receipts to keep count. "When he

Of all the individuals, however, in the community, our idle class suffer the most acutely from lack of time,

From the moment a man of leisure, or his wife, wakens in the morning until they drop into a fitful slumber at

night, their day is an agitated chase. No matter where or when you meet them, they are always on the wing.

"Am I late again?" gasped a thin little woman to me the other evening, as she hurried into the drawingroom,

where she had kept her guests and dinner waiting. "I've been so driven all day, I'm a wreck!" A glance at her

hatchetfaced husband revealed the fact that he, too, was chasing after a stray halfhour lost somewhere in

his youth. His color and most of his hair had gone in its pursuit, while his hands had acquired a twitch, as

Go and ask that lady for a cup of tea at twilight; ten to one she will receive you with her hat on, explaining

that she has not had time to take it off since breakfast. If she writes to you, her notes are signed, "In great

haste," or "In a tearing hurry." She is out of her house by halfpast eight on most mornings, yet when calling

she sits on the edge of her chair, and assures you that she has not a moment to stay, "has only run in," etc.

Just what drives her so hard is a mystery, for beyond a vague charity meeting or two and some calls, she

accomplishes little. Although wealthy and childless, with no cares and few worries, she succumbs to nervous

Listen to a compatriot's account of his European trip! He will certainly tell you how short the ocean crossing

was, giving hours and minutes with zest, as though he had got ahead of Father Time in a transaction. Then

I know a lady lying ill today because she would hurry herself and her children, in six weeks last summer,

through a Continental tour that should have occupied three months. She had no particular reason for hurrying;

indeed, she got ahead of her schedule, and had to wait in Paris for the steamer; a detail, however, that in no

way diminished madame's pleasure in having done so much during her holiday. This same lady deplores lack

of leisure hours, yet if she finds by her engagement book that there is a free week ahead, she will run to

To realize how our upper ten scramble through existence, one must also contrast their fidgety way of feeding

with the bovine calm in which a German absorbs his nourishment and the hours Italians can pass over their

There is an impression that the fashion for quickly served dinners came to us from England. If this is true

(which I doubt; it fits too nicely with our temperament to have been imported), we owe H.R.H. a debt of

Like all converts, however, we are too zealous. From oysters to fruit, dinners now are a breathless

steeplechase, during which we take our viand hedges and champagne ditches at a dead run, with conversation

pushed at much the same speed. To be silent would be to imply that one was not having a good time, so we

rattle and gobble on toward the fingerbowl winning post, only to find that rest is not there!

As the hostess pilots the ladies away to the drawingroom, she whispers to her spouse, "You won't smoke

long, will you?" So we are mulcted in the enjoyment of even that last resource of weary humanity, the cigar,

and are hustled away from that and our coffee, only to find that our appearance is a signal for a general move.

One of the older ladies rises; the next moment the whole circle, like a flock of frightened birds, are up and

off, crowding each other in the hallway, calling for their carriages, and confusing the unfortunate servants,

Bearing in mind that the guests come as late as they dare, without being absolutely uncivil, that dinners are

served as rapidly as is physically possible, and that the circle breaks up as soon as the meal ends, one asks

one's self in wonder why, if a dinner party is such a bore that it has to be scrambled through, COUTE QUE

It is within the bounds of possibility that people may have reasons for hurrying through their days, and that

The one place, however, where you might expect to find people reposeful and calm is at the theatre. The

labor of the day is then over; they have assembled for an hour or two of relaxation and amusement. Yet it is at

the play that our restlessness is most apparent. Watch an audience (which, be it remarked in passing, has

arrived late) during the last ten minutes of a performance. No sooner do they discover that the end is drawing

near than people begin to struggle into their wraps. By the time the players have lined up before the footlights

Past, indeed, are the unruffled days when a heroine was expected (after the action of a play had ended) to

deliver the closing ENVOI dear to the writers of Queen Anne's day. Thackeray writes:

A comedian who attempted any such abuse of the situation to day would find himself addressing empty

benches. Before he had finished the first line of his epilogue, most of his public would be housed in the rapid

transit cars. No talent, no novelty holds our audiences to the end of a performance.

On the opening night of the opera season this winter, one third of the "boxes" and orchestra stalls were vacant

One overworked matron of my acquaintance has perfected an ingenious and timesaving combination. By

signalling from a window near her opera box to a footman below, she is able to get her carriage at least two

During the last act of an opera like TANNHAUSER or FAUST, in which the inconsiderate composer has

placed a musical gem at the end, this lady is worth watching. After getting into her wraps and overshoes she

stands, hand on the door, at the back of her box, listening to the singers; at a certain moment she hurries to the

window, makes her signal, scurries back, hears Calve pour her soul out in ANGES PURS, ANGES

RADIEUX, yet manages to get down the stairs and into her carriage before the curtain has fallen.

We deplore the prevailing habit of "slouch"; yet if you think of it, this universal hurry is the cause of it. Our

cities are left unsightly, because we cannot spare time to beautify them. Nervous diseases are distressingly

prevalent; still we hurry! hurry!! hurry!!! until, as a diplomatist recently remarked to me, the whole nation

The curious part of the matter is that after several weeks at home, much that was strange at first becomes

quite natural to the traveller, who finds himself thinking with pity of benighted foreigners and their humdrum

What, for instance, would replace for enterprising souls the joy of taking their matutinal car at a flying leap,

or the rapture of being first out of a theatre? What does part of a last act or the "star song" matter in

comparison with five minutes of valuable time to the good? Like the river captains, we propose to run under

BUILDINGS become tombs when the race that constructed them has disappeared. Libraries and manuscripts

are catacombs where most of us might wander in the dark forever, finding no issue. To know dead

generations and their environments through these channels, to feel a love so strong that it calls the past forth

from its windingsheet, and gives it life again, as Christ did Lazarus, is the privilege only of great historians.

France is honoring the memory of such a man at this moment; one who for forty years sought the vital spark

of his country's existence, striving to resuscitate what he called "the great soul of history," as it developed

through successive acts of the vast drama. This employment of his genius is Michelet's title to fame.

In a sombre structure, the tall windows of which look across the Luxembourg trees to the Pantheon, where

her husband's bust has recently been placed, a widow preserves with religious care the souvenirs of this great

Madame Michelet's life is in strange contrast with the ways of the modern spouse who, under pretext of grief,

discards and displaces every reminder of the dead. In our day, when the great art is to forget, an existence

consecrated to a memory is so rare that the world might be the better for knowing that a woman lives who,

young and beautiful, was happy in the society of an old man, whose genius she appreciated and cherished,

who loves him dead as she loved him living. By her care the apartment remains as it stood when he left it, to

die at Hyeres, the furniture, the paintings, the writingtable. No stranger has sat in his chair, no

acquaintance has drunk from his cup. This woman, who was a perfect wife and now fills one's ideal of what a

widow's life should be, has constituted herself the vigilant guardian of her husband's memory. She loves to

talk of the illustrious dead, and tell how he was fond of saying that Virgil and Vico were his parents. Any one

who reads the GEORGICS or THE BIRD will see the truth of this, for he loved all created things, his ardent

spiritism perceiving that the essence which moved the ocean's tides was the same that sang in the robin at the

The author of LA BIBLE DE L'HUMANITE had to a supreme degree the love of country, and possessed the

power of reincarnating with each succeeding cycle of its history. So luminous was his mind, so profound and

farreaching his sympathy, that he understood the obscure workings of the mediaeval mind as clearly as he

appreciated Mirabeau's transcendent genius. He believed that humanity, like Prometheus, was selfmade; that

nations modelled their own destiny during the actions and reactions of history, as each one of us acquires a

personality through the struggles and temptations of existence, by the evolving power every soul carries

Michelet taught that each nation was the hero of its own drama; that great men have not been different from

the rest of their race on the contrary, being the condensation of an epoch, that, no matter what the apparent

eccentricities of a leader may have been, he was the expression of a people's spirit. This discovery that a race

is transformed by its action upon itself and upon the elements it absorbs from without, wipes away at a stroke

the popular belief in "predestined races" or providential "great men" appearing at crucial moments and riding

An historian, if what he writes is to have any value, must know the people, the one great historical factor.

Radicalism in history is the beginning of truth. Guided by this light of his own, Michelet discovered a fresh

factor heretofore unnoticed, that vast fermentation which in France transforms all foreign elements into an

integral part of the country's being. After studying his own land through the thirteen centuries of her growth,

from the chart of Childebert to the will of Louis XVI., Michelet declared that while England is a composite

empire and Germany a region, France is a personality. In consequence he regarded the history of his country

as a long dramatic poem. Here we reach the inner thought of the historian, the secret impulse that guided his

The veritable hero of his splendid Iliad is at first ignorant and obscure, seeking passionately like OEdipus to

know himself. The interest of the piece is absorbing. We can follow the gradual development of his nature as

it becomes more attractive and sympathetic with each advancing age, until, through the hundred acts of the

tragedy, he achieves a soul. For Michelet to write the history of his country was to describe the long evolution

of a hero. He was fond of telling his friends that during the Revolution of July, while he was making his

translation of Vico, this great fact was revealed to him in the blazing vision of a people in revolt. At that

moment the young and unknown author resolved to devote his life, his talents, his gift of clairvoyance, the

magic of his inimitable style and creative genius, to fixing on paper the features seen in his vision.

Conceived and executed in this spirit, his history could be but a stupendous epic, and proves once again the

truth of Aristotle's assertion that there is often greater truth in poetry than in prose.

Seeking in the remote past for the origin of his hero, Michelet pauses first before THE CATHEDRAL. The

poem begins like some mediaeval tale. The first years of his youthful country are devoted to a mystic

religion. Under his ardent hands vast naves rise and belfries touch the clouds. It is but a sad and cramped

development, however; statutes restrain his young ardor and chill his blood. It is not until the boy is behind

the plough in the fields and sunlight that his real life begins a poor, brutish existence, if you will, but still

life. The "Jacques," half man and half beast, of the Middle Ages is the result of a thousand years of suffering.

A woman's voice calls this brute to arms. An enemy is overrunning the land. Joan the virgin "my Joan,"

Michelet calls her whose heart bleeds when blood is shed, frees her country. A shadow, however, soon

obscures this gracious vision from Jacques's eyes. The vast monarchical incubus rises between the people and

their ideal. Our historian turns in disgust from the later French kings. He has neither time nor heart to write

their history, so passes quickly from Louis XI. to the great climax of his drama the Revolution. There we

find his hero, emerging at last from tyranny and oppression. Freedom and happiness are before him. Alas! his

eyes, accustomed to the dim light of dungeons, are dazzled by the sun of liberty; he strikes friend and foe

In the solitary galleries of the "Archives" Michelet communes with the great spirits of that day, Desaix,

Marceau, Kleber, elder sons of the Republic, who whisper many secrets to their pupil as he turns over faded

pages tied with tricolored ribbons, where the cities of France have written their affection for liberty,

loveletters from Jacques to his mistress. Michelet is happy. His long labor is drawing to an end. The great

epic which he has followed as it developed through the centuries is complete. His hero stands hand in hand

before the altar with the spouse of his choice, for whose smile he has toiled and struggled. The poethistorian

sees again in the FETE DE LA FEDERATION the radiant face of his vision, the true face of France, LA

Through all the lyricism of this master's work one feels that he has "lived" history as he wrote it, following

his subject from its obscure genesis to a radiant apotheosis. The faithful companion of Michelet's age has

borne witness to this power which he possessed of projecting himself into another age and living with his

subject. She repeats to those who know her how he trembled in passion and burned with patriotic emotion in

transcribing the crucial pages of his country's history, rejoicing in her successes and depressed by her faults,

like the classic historian who refused with horror to tell the story of his compatriots' defeat at Cannae, saying,

"Do you remember," a friend once asked Madame Michelet, "how, when your husband was writing his

"Ah, yes!" she replied. "That was the week he executed Danton. We were living in the country near Nantes.

The ground was covered with snow. I can see him now, hurrying to and fro under the bare trees, gesticulating

and crying as he walked, `How can I judge them, those great men? How can I judge them?' It was in this way

that he threw his `thousand souls' into the past and lived in sympathy with all men, an apostle of universal

love. After one of these fecund hours he would drop into his chair and murmur, `I am crushed by this work. I

Alas, his aged eyes were destined to read sadder pages than he had ever written, to see years as tragic as the

"Terror." He lived to hear the recital of (having refused to witness) his country's humiliation, and fell one

April morning, in his retirement near Pisa, unconscious under the double shock of invasion and civil war.

Though he recovered later, his horizon remained dark. The patriot suffered to see party spirit and warring

factions rending the nation he had so often called the pilot of humanity's bark, which seemed now to be going

straight on the rocks. "FINIS GALLIAE," murmured the historian, who to the end lived and died with his

Thousands yearly mount the broad steps of the Pantheon to lay their wreaths upon his tomb, and thousands

more in every Gallic schoolroom are daily learning, in the pages of his history, to love FRANCE LA