HUSH!By Julia C. R. Dorr

Anne was walking down the slope of a hill at the time of the first stirring of dawn on a spring morning. She was an old woman, now, her youth lying years behind her; but she had not been one to fall easily into the sere and yellow leaf. Though frail in health, she had kept her manifold interests sharp and lively; pictures gave her pleasure keen as of yore, and there was no critic of literature more quick than she to detect a lapse in taste or art, nor with a readier appreciation of style, originality, or even intention. She was, at last, however, forced to believe that she was growing old. Shewasold, and the days were flying past her with an incredible rapidity. She rebelled with passionate fierceness against the inevitable, approaching end. As bitterly as for herself (she was sixty and past), she resented the fact that John, her husband, stood even nearer the final catastrophe than she; John, whom, though ten years her senior, she had petted and spoiled like a child. Hers had always been the dominant mind. John, older and aging more rapidly than she, had now become absolutely dependent on her, almost for his thoughts. Their marriage was blessed with no children, wherefore all the motherly instincts of the wife had been lavished on the husband. "My very love has made him helpless," thought Anne; "pray God he be called before me."

She walked more quickly, in time with her thoughts, which now wandered along devious pathways through the past. The scenes she recalled were nothing in themselves, no more than most elderly people keep stored in their memories; but to her, who had played the principal parts, they were of the liveliest interest. The day she and John took possession of the house that had been their own ever since was as vivid as yesterday. Nay, more vivid, for she was not at all sure concerning yesterday; she had had a headache, and was stupid, and had slept a good deal; and John dozed in his chair; there was nothing to remember in yesterday.

But that first day in the new house, both so proud, so fond, so full of plans; and it was all over. The plans matured or failed, and they were only two old people, conscious of ever-failing strength, careful of draughts, easily tired—well, no, not so very easily tired after all, at least not Anne, or at least not to-day. It mustbe the early morning, or the spring weather. She had heard of old people who recovered their faculties in a sort of Indian summer, possibly her Indian summer was about to burst into a mature blossoming. She felt so light on her feet, so uplifted as with a wholesome, altogether delightful intoxication. The sensation carried her far back to her childhood, to a first day in the garden after a winter's illness. How she skipped, and ran, and laughed. She was conscious to-day of the same pure joy in living. It was like being a child again. And those sad, querulous days, yesterday, and the days and years before—that was the child's illness; such a long illness, ever-increasing, with but one terrible cure.

But not even that fancy could depress Anne to-day, glorious to-day, this day of ten thousand! She laughed aloud, pretending, as children pretend, that she had, unknowing, drunk of the golden elixir; her eyes should be unclouded, her cheeks flower-fresh, her scant, white locks changed to rings of softest brown; a tall, slim slip of a girl, as John first met her. At the foot of the meadow where she kept tryst with John there used to be a still pool where she preened her feathers while waiting for her gallant. She looked about for a pool, smiling at this vanity in an old woman; but suppose—suppose—?

Of course she was always properly dressed and coifed as became one of her station and fortune, with a certain well-bred deference to the prevailing modes, and she owned to a nice taste in lace and jewels. Jane, her maid, had been very much remiss when she laid out the gown her mistress wore this morning. It must be a new one, by the way, or an old one remodelled; it was not in her usual style, but of a singular cut, stiff, plain, and ungraceful in its prim folds. However, it was white, and white was still Anne's color. And what matters a gown when one is in so high a humor?

The valley below was everywhere covered with a white rime which ran in sparkles as the sun touched it. It should be sharply cold, Anne thought, but she felt no chill. Frost generally passed over the high ground, while it nipped the lower. She hoped it had spared the tender plants in her garden, and the budding peaches. Already the crocuses were in bloom, and the lilacs showed a few timid, scented leaves. Anne was very fond of her garden, and it was one of her grievances against time that she could no longer tend it in person.

She had forgotten why she searched for the pool; she was a little confused, doubtless the effect of yesterday's headache—nothing unpleasant, rather a delightful, dizzy jumbling of thoughts, ideas, remembrances. At any rate, here was the pool, clear and unruffled; new grass was springing on its banks, and here and there woolly brown bosses showed where ferns were sprouting. She would fetch John here one day—if he were able to walk so far. John used to like a pool when his sight was stronger; not in Anne's way; her liking was innocent and sentimental. John would bring his microscope and discover the most wonderful things in water that appeared absolutely pure. Decidedly she must manage to fetch John.

Anne leaned over and looked into the pool. She leaned farther, lower, turned her head this way and that, and then drew back in utter bewilderment. There was no reflection of her face in the water! She was overwhelmed with disappointment. This enchanting rejuvenation, then, was only a dream. She could almost have wept; not quite, for the dream still held her as in an embrace of joyousness. She wondered what her body looked like, lying on its bed while its soul was roaming the fields. She pitied it, the worn, frail, old body, as though it were a thing separate from herself. It had suffered in its fairly long life, and had endured many contrarieties, but there had been more than compensating happinesses, and no great sorrows. She hoped it slept well. John's dear, white head would be lying on the pillow beside it. "Oh," she thought, "I wish I could give my dream to John. Well, it shall be the best dream in the world if John is only to have it at second hand."

In the certainty that she was dreaming, Anne now gave her imagination a free rein. False shame is out of place in a dream. She gambolled like a prisoned kid set free, and sang—softly, lest the dream should be shattered. As the day advanced wild things came out of thewood; squirrels, and other animals so shy by nature that she had only seen them, heretofore, at a distance, stopped beside her and conversed together in their own language. She saw what no naturalist has ever beheld, God's creatures at home and unafraid. She laid her hand on the head of a doe as it drank at a pool, and ran with it feather-footed. She spurned the earth and took long, smooth flights over the undergrowth like a bird sailing on the wing.

Suddenly she became aware of a voice, clear and penetrating, that spoke the name—Anne. A face was before her, vaguely familiar, a face of her childhood.

"Marian!" she cried; "my mother's cousin, Marian."

"You remember me, dear Anne."

"You—you went to India," murmured Anne in a maze; "I thought—mother talked of you to us children—your portrait in the school-room——"

"Yes, I went to the Indies; I died there when you were a little child. You were always much in my mind, for I loved your mother, and you were her favorite. So she did not allow my name to be forgotten? She talked of me to her children, and she kept my portrait."

"Did you say—died!" repeated Anne, who had given an involuntary start at the word. "I wonder if I am really meeting your spirit in a dream? It might be. Why should it not?"

"You certainly are meeting my spirit, which is myself, but not in a dream, dear."

Anne felt a thrill of terror. What if this were not a dream? "Iam not dead?" She looked at Marian with frightened, questioning eyes.

"You must be dead," was the answer, "else how should you be here? Your mother used to write me that you had unusual powers; I never had. You might, as a mortal, possibly see me, but I could not be conscious of you unless you were as real as myself."

Anne stared hard at her companion. "I have, it is true," said she, "imagined I saw spirits, but they were not like you; they were phantoms, ghosts, immaterial." She hesitated, and then took Marian's hand in hers. "This hand is as solid as my own. If I believed you were dead—if I thought I was—dead—myself, oh, it would be appalling!"

"My dear Anne," said Marian, "we are both spirits; we were always spirits, only in the body we were chained spirits. Material or immaterial only means a point of view, not a difference."

"I am no spirit," said Anne. "I am of the earth, and the flesh; all my thoughts are with, and on the earth, and of the earth. As to you, Marian, I don't know. There is an uncertainty in my mind—no, I mean an enlightenment; I don't know what to call it—an apprehension. Marian, do you mind? I thought heaven was a very different place. I should expect something more serious, more solemn. The idea of an everlasting sabbath used to depress me. I have no desire for such a state——"

"Heaven! Heaven! Did you think you were in heaven? Oh, no, this is not heaven. I trust there may be a heaven, and a future life, but this is not heaven. I onlyknowabout this world in which I exist, and that it is immeasurably better than that other world we have both happily left."

"It is all so different from one's dreams," said Anne. "Dreams," she repeated; "dreams. Marian, did you long for those you left behind? Were you lonely without them? Or were you with them, following all their affairs with sympathy and understanding?"

"No," replied Marian, "I knew no more of my loved ones in the past life than they knew of me. That is the worst of it, both now and before; the separation, the waiting. I wish I had had more faith in the old days. I wish my faith were greater now. My dearest ones left me when I was no more than thirty, and I was eighty when I died. It was a long waiting. You were a little child, then, and you must have been well in years when——"

"Don't, don't!" cried Anne; "don't repeat that dreadful word! I am not, I cannot be! And yet I know, and hate the knowledge, that it must come to me very soon, for I am, as you say, an old woman. Let me enjoy this beautiful dream wherein I am still young. But is this youth? When I look at you, Marian, you are not old, but you are not young.My intellect will not conceive it what it is."

"If you would only believe me," said Marian, "that we are both relieved of the burden of the flesh with all its infirmities and limitations. It is that, only that. There can be no pain where there is no flesh to suffer."

"And no sorrow?" asked Anne.

"Sorrow," replied Marian, "that is of the mind, and the mind is part of ourselves."

"Separation is the worst," replied Anne. "Separation." "Suppose," she thought, "that I am really in another existence, where then is my dear, old John, my husband?"

"Marian," she cried out, "I must go home; at once!"

"But my dear," said Marian, "you cannot; as a mortal you could not come here; how then can you now go there? Oh, Anne, there are many loved ones waiting for you here. Many who loved you. We knew you would arrive suddenly; we were warned of that; I came first—it was thought best—to prepare you for the great meeting."

"I tell you," said Anne, sharply, "I am going home. John will miss me. I have been too long away already."

"Your mother, Anne, she is coming," pleaded Marian.

"Not mother, nor father, nor friends beloved can come between John and me. I must see John first. Something may have happened."

She looked about her. "I don't quite know where I am. There should be people about. I see no one to put me on the road."

"Anne," said Marian, "neither you nor I can find that road."

"Oh, come with me," cried Anne, "help me to find John; I must find John."

The two women moved together hand in hand down the hill into the valley.

"I can make out nothing in this bewildering fog," said Anne, peering out from under her hand. "Whenever I seem just about to recognize a familiar place or object, it is to be blotted out by the fog. There was no fog before. Oh, Marian, it should be hereabouts; our house should be here!"

Marian withdrew her hand from Anne's.

"You disturb me," she said; "what you are doing is unlawful. Come away; something mortal might appear. If you will not, Anne, you drive me from you; I dare not stay."

Anne stood alone, trying to pierce with her gaze the fog which grew perceptibly thinner. The elm, and then the shrubbery of her garden began to show darkly, like shadows. She drew closer, for now the house itself loomed up, large and imposing, but in some intangible way different. The walls, the doors, the windows, all were there, all in their appointed places. What, then, was the indefinable change? It used to be considered such a pleasant house, so cheerful, so gay with its hanging creepers, and the bright curtains at the windows. Two years running a bird had nested in the cornice over the porch. But to-day it presented an aspect of gloom that was forbidding in the extreme. It gave the impression of a house to be avoided, a place where wrong things had happened, or might happen. Anne, now that she was so near that a word spoken aloud would reach her husband's ear, and she had only to lift the knocker and enter her own door, shrank back with an odd reluctance. She would walk round to the study first, and look through the window. Perhaps John would be there, reading, or writing a letter, and, without doubt, wondering what had become of his wife. The blinds were closed. How like John not to think of opening them. With all the blinds down like that, people would think there was a death——

John was sitting by the table, leaning forward, apparently asleep. He was so still, so quiet. Oh, if anything had happened to John! No; he raised his head as though he heard someone call, looking straight in his wife's eyes. Why did he not speak? What ailed him to look like that? Anne remembered that she was behind the closed blinds. His eyes had a strained look as though he almost saw her.

"John! John!" she cried.

The old man shivered and looked vaguely round him. Anne noticed that he had no fire. The hoar-frost of the morning, that looked so beautiful, he would feel that; he was very sensitive to changes of temperature and weather. His clothes, too, looked thinner than he was in the habitof wearing—and with a great black patch on one sleeve! Anne must see to this at once. John was less fit than ever to take care of himself. He looked so feeble, so old, so much older than she had thought. Ah, what would John do without her? Her heart yearned over him with the tender compassion of the strong for the weak, the deep affection that belongs to the habit of a lifetime—stronger than the love of youth.

"John, John, my husband!"

Again he turned his face toward the window, a leaden gray face. Slow tears ran down his furrowed cheeks and fell on his breast.

"Oh, what is it? Oh, my poor old husband!"

Anne flew to the closed door and snatched at the knocker. Her hands closed on vacancy. Her own house, her home, John's home, and she could not get in! Back she ran to the window. He was still there, his head lying on his clenched hands. As though from a long distance, thin and faint, his voice came to Anne, broken with weeping. He was calling on her name—"Anne, Anne!"

"Oh, my dear old husband, do you miss me so sorely? John, John, open the window and let me in!"

He moved, as though in answer, but sank back again with a weary shake of his head. Anne lifted her arms and struck at the wall. That it should prove "such stuff as dreams are made on" gave her no surprise. She was beside John; nothing else was of importance. A shadowy serving-maid opened a door, looked wildly round, shuddered, and fled. John seemed conscious of her presence; oh, why not, then, of Anne's?

She knelt beside him, she laid her hands on his, she murmured all the foolish endearing phrases that were their own; but he saw nothing, he heard nothing.

"Oh, my dear old husband," she said; "husband of my youth and of my old age; we are one; we cannot be parted. I will not leave you. I shall wait beside you."

John turned with seeing eyes. "Anne!" he cried, with a loud voice, as his head fell on her breast.

Together they passed out of the house, paying no heed to what was left behind, nor to the terrified call of the serving-maid, "Help, help, master is dead!"

O hush thee, Earth! Fold thou thy weary palms!The sunset glory fadeth in the west;The purple splendor leaves the mountain's crest;Gray twilight comes as one who beareth alms,Darkness and silence and delicious calms.Take thou the gift, O Earth! on Night's soft breastLay thy tired head and sink to dreamless rest,Lulled by the music of her evening psalms.Cool darkness, silence, and the holy stars,Long shadows when the pale moon soars on high,One far, lone nightbird singing from the hill,And utter rest from Day's discordant jars;O soul of mine! when the long night draws nighWill such deep peace thine inmost being fill?

O hush thee, Earth! Fold thou thy weary palms!

The sunset glory fadeth in the west;

The purple splendor leaves the mountain's crest;

Gray twilight comes as one who beareth alms,

Darkness and silence and delicious calms.

Take thou the gift, O Earth! on Night's soft breast

Lay thy tired head and sink to dreamless rest,

Lulled by the music of her evening psalms.

Cool darkness, silence, and the holy stars,

Long shadows when the pale moon soars on high,

One far, lone nightbird singing from the hill,

And utter rest from Day's discordant jars;

O soul of mine! when the long night draws nigh

Will such deep peace thine inmost being fill?

It is more than a full generation, it is going on for half a century, since Thackeray, lecturing on Charity and Honor, in New York, paid the street-manners of the city the pretty compliment that all readers ought to remember:

American Urbanities

I will tell you when I have been put in mind of the courteous gallantry of the noble knight, Sir Roger de Coverley, of Coverley Manor, of the noble Hidalgo Don Quixote of la Mancha: here, in your own omnibus-carriages and railway-cars, when I have seen a woman step in, handsome or not, well-dressed or not, and a workman in hob-nailed shoes, or a dandy in the height of the fashion, rise up and give her his place.

"Omnibus-carriages" have given way altogether to the horse-car; and the horse-car has ceded to the elevated train, to the cable-car, to the under-ground trolley. These vehicles subsist, but in what one of them could the admiring tourist see repeated as a rule what was, without question, the rule in 1852?

"The age of chivalry is gone" from the public conveyances of New York. Apparently it has gone farther from New York than from any other American city. At least that is the conclusion to which a New Yorker is reluctantly driven who has occasion to visit other American cities. The boorishness of New York is now what impresses the British tourist. Stevenson made his first appearance in New York a matter of seventeen years after Thackeray's last appearance, and he in turn recorded his observation. It was that he was received in casual places where he was personally unknown with a surprising mixture of "rudeness and kindness." But what struck him first, struck him in the face, so to say, was the rudeness. The healing kindness came after, and the final conclusion was that New Yorkers (he was careful not to say Americans) were well-meaning and kind-hearted people who had no manners. The good intentions and the kind hearts may be questioned by any spectator of the scramble at a station of any one of the elevated roads during the crowded hours, where male creatures may be seen using the superior strength of their sex to arrive at seats in advance of women. Even where this is not put too grossly in evidence, it is plain to the spectator of the scramble that the age of chivalry is gone.

The travelling New Yorker becomes aware that this is largely local. A Southern newspaper man, writing from New York to his paper, not long ago, noted its manners with even a touch of horror. "When I saw a man sitting in a car in which a woman was standing," he says, "I knew that I was far from home." A very recent British observer, the clever author of "The Land of The Dollar," proceeding from New York to Philadelphia, recorded his refreshment at happening upon an American town where the inhabitants were not too busy, when the stranger thanked them for a piece of information, to answer "You're very welcome."

When the New Yorker goes abroad at home, he finds unwelcome confirmation of the suggestion that his own city is the most unmannerly of all. The New Englander has undoubtedly a way, as Anthony Trollope noted, of giving you a piece of information as if he were making you a present of a dollar. But for all that, the sensitive stranger finds himself much less rasped at the end of a day in Boston, than at the end of a day in New York. As you go Southward, the level of manners rises in proportion almost to the respective stages of social culture reached in the colonial times, when Josiah Quincy found in Charleston a degree of "civility" and "elegance" such as the good Bostonian recorded that he had never seen, nor expected to see, on this side of the Atlantic. One is driven, in view of the Southern courtesy, to wonder whether there may not be something in Goethe's defence of the duello, to the effect that it is more desirable that there should be some security in the community against a rude act than that all men should be secure of dying in their beds.

But this explanation does not account for the fact that in whatever direction the New Yorker goes from home he finds better manners of the road, manners of the street-car,manners of the elevator, than those he left. Western cities, unless they be Southwestern also, have not the soothing softness and deference of Southern manners, but there is in these a recognition on the part of the human brother whom you casually encounter, of your human brotherhood which you are by no means so sure of eliciting from the casual and promiscuous New Yorker. The Chicagoan will tell you in detail what you want to know, even though, as Mr. Julian Ralph has remarked, he makes you trot alongside of him on the sidewalk while he is telling it. And in an elevator in which there is a woman, the Chicagoan hats are as promptly and automatically doffed as the Bostonese, while in this regard it is New York and not Philadelphia that is the Quaker city.

"Ethnic" explanations of the bad manners of New York will occur to many readers, which "it may be interesting not to state." These mostly fall to the ground before the appalling fact that Chicago is better-mannered. The elevated roads are great demoralizers. It is barely that primitive human decency escapes from the "Sauve qui peut" and "Devil take the hindmost" of that mode of transit, to say nothing of the fine flower of courtesy. Let us hope it is all the doing of the elevated roads.

The Public Manners of Women

It is painful to have to say that inquiry among males for an explanation of the degeneration just mentioned reveals yet another lamentable decline in chivalry. For it is a fact that the current masculine hypothesis attributes it to the women themselves. This is a reversion to a state of things which prevailed long before the age of chivalry had come. The scandalous behavior of Adam, in devolving upon the partner and fragment of his bosom the responsibility for his indulgence in the "malum prohibitum" of Eden, has been frequently cited in assemblages of Woman in proof of the innate and essential unchivalrousness of Man. It is there regarded as, to say the least of it, real mean.

The citation may not appear germane to an appeal for merely equal rights, which is the professed object of the "woman-women," but it is surely pertinent to the male contention that woman would get more by throwing herself upon the mercy of man than by appealing to his justice. If we take a more modern view of the origin of the relations of the sexes, it is evident that only that minimum of courtly consideration for the weaker vessel which was needful for the preservation of the species was to be expected from a gentleman whose habits had only just ceased to be arboreal, and that the age of chivalry must have been a very long time in coming.

It is, all the same, a fact that, when a son of Adam of the younger generation is asked how, in a public conveyance, he can retain both his seat and his equanimity while a daughter of Eve is standing, he is apt to recur to the third chapter of Genesis, and to put the blame on "the woman thou gavest to be with me." "You don't even get thanked for it," he will say. His father, and much more his grandfather, would have been ashamed to offer that excuse. It would have been ruled out as invalid, even if accurate; and the heir of all the ages who makes it does not put it to the proof often enough to know whether it is accurate or not.

But it must be owned that there is too much truth in it. Woman's inhumanity to man is a good deal in evidence. The late Senator Morton, of Indiana, was, it will be remembered, an invalid and a cripple. He came into a company at the capital one day in a state of great indignation because, in a street-car crowded with young women, not one had offered him a seat, and he had been compelled to make the journey painfully and precariously supported upon his crutches. The like of this may very often be seen. Humanity, consideration for weakness and helplessness, is the root of which chivalry is the fine flower. The Senator's experience was not unique, was not even exceptional. It is a startling proposition that man's inhumanity to man is less than woman's, but the time seems to give it some proof. At any rate, a man evidently disabled would not be allowed to stand in a public conveyance in which able-bodied men were seated, even in the most unchivalrous part of our country, which I have given some reasons for believing to be the city of New York. And, if that be true, it seems that the assumption of the right of an able-bodied woman to remain seated while a disabled man is standing is an assumption that the claims of chivalry are superior to those of humanity. On the other hand, it may fairly be said that the selfishness of women with regard to the wayfaring man is more thoughtless and perfunctory than the selfishness of men with regard to the wayfaringwoman. In this country, at least, this latter is in all cases felt to be a violation of propriety and decency. The native American feels himself to be both on his defence and without defence, when he is arraigned for it. This was illustrated one day in a car of the New York elevated road, in which a middle-aged woman was standing in front of a young man who was sitting. Fixing him with her glittering eye, she said, calmly but firmly, "Get up, young man, I want that seat." The conscience-stricken youth rose meekly and automatically at the summons, and left his seat the spoil of the Amazonian bow and spear.

However it may be with woman's inhumanity to man, there can be no question about her inhumanity to woman. It does "make countless thousands mourn." And this not alone in the familiar sense in which

Every fault a tear may claim,Except an erring sister's shame.

Every fault a tear may claim,

Except an erring sister's shame.

Whatever male has assisted at a function at which males are not supposed to assist, and at which the admixture of males is so small as to be negligible, has seen sights as astonishing in their way as the sights witnessed by the rash males who, at the peril of their lives, smuggled themselves into those antique mysteries from which they were expressly excluded. Nowhere in the gatherings of men does shameless selfishness find so crude an expression as, say, at a crowded matinée. It could not be exhibited at a prize-fight, for the exhibitor would subject himself to prompt personal assault. But the female bully is without fear as without shame. She elbows her way through and past her timid sisters, takes tranquil possession of the standing-places they have reserved by occupation, and scatters them to flight as the fierce hawk the pavid doves. Of course the bullies are a small minority, but one hawk suffices to flutter the most populous dove-cote, and to characterize the assemblage which it dominates. The young man who excuses his own bad manners by blaming "the woman" only emphasizes his want of chivalry; but the validity of his plea is more deniable than its accuracy.

The English Voice on the American Stage

In the play of "Pudd'nhead Wilson," made out of Mark Twain's book by Frank Mayo, the evil genius combines in his veins the bad blood and craven instincts of two races. Therôlewas given, when first presented, a remarkable impersonation in which there was a subtle mingling of a white man's presumption and a negro's animalism. But the creator of the part was the brother of a leading English poet! An American actor essayed therôlein the second season with decidedly less success. In "The Heart of Maryland," a strenuous developing of Civil War emotions and events, the fate of the hero, a soldier whose devotion to the North alienates him from father and sweetheart, was given in both its first two seasons to actors of good schooling indeed, but distinctly English. The "leading juvenile," supposedly a Confederate officer with all a Southron's manner of speech, was also most pronouncedly a Briton in tongue, build, and carriage. In that exciting coil about a lovable spy—"Secret Service"—not exactly the villain, but the chief meddler with the hero's plans, was on the programme a Virginia gentleman, but on the stage entirely British.

Multiplying examples is unnecessary; there is enough food for reflection in these three recent plays. They are all marked with particular Americanism, and a prominent share of that Americanism is entrusted to actors foreign-born and foreign-bred.

We are so used here to accepting certain mannerisms of speech as indigenous to, and proper to, the theatre, and so many of our actors follow British pronunciation and inflection, that we hardly see the extent to which the natively English voice prevails on our stage. Once the thing gets on one's nerves, however, it is most noticeable. Indeed, the presence of English actors on the American stage is so pervasive of everything, from farce-comedy to society-tragedy, that they fairly invest our national drama.

Now of all insularities the most abominable, the one most to be shunned by this country is artistic insularity. It is an excellent cosmopolitanism that gives our patronage so generously to the greatest foreign stars, although it is bald snobbery that often leads us to favor mediocre importations over native genius. But it is surely carrying our worldliness too far when we accept and approve the hopeless incapacity of foreigners to enactrôlesdemanding American local color. This may substantiate our proverbial patience, but it deals hard with our boasted sense of the incongruous. So much have unlike environments in a hundred years differentiatedthe two races that an English impersonation of an American character can never be acceptable to real criticism.

The reason for the sway of English actors over our stage is not far to seek. It is not that the best of them can act better than our best, for we have in our little day produced a very few of the greatest actors, tragic and comic. And we still have an excellent array of the plebs of the stage. It is the middle class—which is ever the grand average and backbone of any organization—that is not satisfactory and must draw on foreign aid. The average middle-class actor in England supplies the demand, for he is far above our similar caste in training and finish, and for good reason. In England the stage is taken more seriously than here, at least by the players. There an actor enters upon his career with the same desire for the thoroughness that comes from humble beginnings and complete experience as anyone entering upon any other profession. He may cherish vague hopes of greatness—as every American lawyer hopes to be President—but he is content if his lot is cast in respectable places, where the labor is agreeable and the compensation decent. The result is an army of thoroughly drilled actors that can do almost anything well, though they may do nothing brilliantly.

In the United States, however, where opinion still maligns the business of the actor, he is likely to look on his career as a mere trade or as a too, too high art. Our actor is either one whose ambitions lead him to hitch his wagon to a star and scorn all sublunary things, or one stolidly content to please—not the aristocratic groundlings, but the skylings. Of these two sorts of actor, the former thinks a legitimate minor part too far beneath him to justify serious preparation, the latter thinks it too far above him. There is, consequently, an inadequate list of native actors sufficiently prepared in technic to do well anything that comes to hand. The tendency, too, of an American actor, having hit upon a success in one kind of character, to make an exclusive specialty of it and devote a lifetime to one range of parts, is both due to the besetting commercialism of our stage and responsible for much of its lack of versatility. The manager, finding no well-equipped, highly adaptable rank-and-file at home, turns naturally to the one source of unfailing supply—England.

In the few stock companies that survive the oldrégime, the English voice is particularly prevalent. For the English origin of these actors essaying Americanrôlesis discoverable by the voice almost more than by the bearing. Though we of the United States and they of the United Kingdom approximate considerably in language, we are radically different in speech. The British actor rather modifies than accentuates the arpeggios of Piccadilly, but it is only a long life in America and a plasticity uncommon in his race that can disguise him. His curious scale-singing is an unfailing wonder to the American. In the American play it can never be anything but a hopeless incongruity.

Venetian Balcony. Close of Fifteenth Century: Modern Arcade.

This is set forth in a monograph, the title of which may be translated and abbreviated thus: Drawings of the house of the brothers Bagatti Valsecchi in Milan at No. 7 Via di Santo Spirito. One very general, very abstract, very little detailed ground-plan explains what the house is, considered as a building occupying a piece of ground, and doing certain definite work. Evidently it was thought that more should not be allowed the public, concerning a house of habitation. From this it appears that the house is a single very large dwelling of which the dimensions on the ground may be taken at one hundred feet of frontage by sixty feet or rather less of depth. This, however, is the measurement of the whole plot of ground; for the house covers it all, and light for the rearmost rooms and corridors is obtained by three separate courts surrounded by arcades. The front on the street is deeply recessed so as to give a façade of some fifty-five feet at the bottom of the court; with two projecting wings of different widths; the projection, or depth of the court, being of about eighteen feet. And now comes the essential thing—that which forms the peculiarity of the building, and the immense and radical diversity between the scheme proposed by its designer and that adopted by any Parisian master-workman who may have ahotel privéto build. The Milan house is in every respect, in its general design and in the minutest detail, that which might have been built about 1475 in the same town and on the same street. The front is of brick and terra-cotta, except that the door-piece in the middle of the recessed façade, the podium, so to speak, or sub-wall of the basement story, standing some four feet high, is of stone; and that a part of one of the wings where it is opened up in the large doorway below communicating with a kind of shop or business-room, and, above, into arcades with a projecting balcony, is also of cut stone. This stone would have been taken to be marble but that the legends expressly speak ofpietra, and it is probable that Istrian or some other hard white or light gray stone is used. Of stone also are the pillars which carry the vaulting of the cloisters, or galleries, which surround the courts within, and many pilasters, jamb-pieces, dadoes, parapets, and balustrades of the interior; as well as the columns of thelogettawhich crowns one of the wings projecting on the street, and a similar and larger one on the court within. The wallsof the courts, except for the stone work above described and for certain cornice bands which are evidently of terra-cotta, are entirely finished insgraffito; or scratched decoration on hard plaster, fit to bear the moderate climate of Milan, together with certain modelling in very low relief, which is intermingled with the scratched or incised work, and closely harmonizes with it. One interesting detail of the undertaking must be mentioned here: pieces of ancient work have been built into the structure rather freely, and these are so perfectly in the style that they do not attract attention to themselves. They need, in fact, the legends which announce their presence. This is one way of saying that the collected fragments of antiquity have been carefully chosen with the view to being of one style, of one epoch, of one character, and that the building has been built in the style so fixed. At the principal doorway there are four ancient medallions of the character which sculptors of the fifteenth century enjoyed; that is to say, they are enlargements of Roman coins. The secondary or wing doorway, spoken of above as communicating with what seems to be a kind of shop, is entirely antique, with pilasters filled with carving in the sunken panels. In the spandrels of the arch above are two more antique medallions, and an antique pilaster in marble from Mantua is set in the small reëntrant angle formed between this piece of the front and the adjoining house, which projects slightly beyond the Casa Bagatti. Ancient iron work is used for the two windows which flank the central doorway, and by way of emphasis the other windows on that story are without grilles. Iron work in the head of the side doorway already described as antique is announced as made up of ancient parts; and it may be admitted here that all this wrought iron is of somewhat earlier date than the structure generally; a breach of that harmony which has been insisted on above, but one which might easily be considered as quite characteristic of good, fine, imaginative fifteenth century work, when the Renaissance builders would have rejected carvings in the Gothic spirit, but would have admitted iron work of that character without trouble. Above this ancient doorway an ancient Venetian balcony, also of stone, is worked into the double arcade, of which mention has been made. Two large and elaborate wooden ceilings are used in the open cloisters which surround the courts, and it is worthy of commendation that they seem to have been put in place without restoration, with nothing more than necessary repairs or necessary strengthening, and that no attempt has been made to give them a freshly finished modern look. An ancient doorway of carved wood opens upon one of these porticoes; an ancientvera di pozzo, or cistern head, from Venice stands in the middle of that court; an ancient marble fountain and basin; an ancient triple tabernacle with sculptured figures of saints; another tabernacle with an Adoration, and a multiplicity of minor pieces of carving, are worked into the building, including an admirable lion, of heraldic character and supporting a shield of arms, set upon a newel at the foot of the great staircase; and, finally, a very great amount of ancient ironwork in the wayof hinges, door-handles, knockers, awning-rings, and the like, is used in the work.

Graffito: the Certosa near Pavia. Unfinished; from an Old Picture.

The use of this ancient material suggests the true solution of the difficulty which every one must feel; how such a thing as this can be fine when we generally find such imitative work rather mean, rather lazy, rather expressive of the disposition to shirk one's duty than a thing to be commended. It might be objected in the first place that here evidently there has been no reluctance to undertake hard work, for the fitting of old and new details into the same general design, while the character of the old decoration has not been marred in the least, is difficult work enough for any workman. This, however, it is not necessary to urge. The essential thing in the whole situation is this: The reproduction of the fifteenth century house is practicable where the real fifteenth century house might have stood. In Milan, on a quiet by-street of the old city, we can imagine this house having remained intact and unaltered from some time in the second half of the fifteenth century until now. Had any family been rich enough and possessed of the spirit of continuity, that building would have been so preserved. The climate allows of it; the habits of the people would make it easy; one family, or, as perhaps in this case, the families of two brothers, may inhabit such a mansion, and might have inhabited it at any time from 1575 onward for three hundred years. Moreover, there is no time when such a house might not have been built. At least, if we admit that the artists of earlier days were incapable of deliberate and faithful copying of details—that is all that would separate a house built on these lines in the eighteenth century from this one of to-day. The traditions have remained, the masons have worked on these lines, the stone-cutters have wielded the chisel just as their forefathers did before them; nothing but a deliberate resolve to call into prominence the traditional knowledge and the traditional habits which have lingered among the workmen has been necessary in order to call into existence this memory of the past.

Largest Inner Court with Graffiti; Vestibule with Ancient Wooden Ceiling.

You could not build in that way in another country. This house on the streets of Paris would have been an absurdity. In Milan itrepresents the wholesome feeling of national and local sentiment, family pride perhaps, a sense of what is fitting, a sense of continuity, all that is noble and dignified in the sentimental or theoretical side of fine art—it is this and nothing worse or lower than this which has directed this interesting piece of work. In France, as we have said, and still more strongly in the United States, such a piece of work would have been a meretour de force, a mere piece of deliberate copying, and, still more, a deliberate avoidance of the critical problem—how to plan and build an American city house. In north Italy it is the legitimate and wholly sensible scheme of building an old-fashioned Milanese house to serve new Milanese purposes—and anyone may respect and sympathize with such an undertaking as that.

Smaller Inner Court: Graffiti and Stucco Ornaments in Low Relief.

The full title of the work above-mentioned is as follows:

QUI SI CONTENGONO LE TAVOLE RAPPRESENTANTI LI DISEGNI DE LA CASA DE LI FRATELLI BAGATI VALSECHI CHE RITROVASI IN MILANO AL Ñ. 7 DE LA VIA DE SAN SPIRITO FEDEL RIPRODOTTI DAL VERO CON LA NUOVA INVENTIONE DE LA ELIOTIPIA.Fausti et Iosephi Frarum de Bagatis Opus An. Dei. MDCCCXCV.

Fausti et Iosephi Frarum de Bagatis Opus An. Dei. MDCCCXCV.

The reader will note in the Italian title the difference in spelling, as of the proper names, caused by the antique form in which it is cast.

[1]Lately appointed Post-office Inspector.[2]Among them are:Edward Everett. See Life of Webster prefixed to his works.Article inNorth American Review, October, 1830, Vol. 31, p. 463.Article inNorth American Review, July, 1835, Vol. 41, p. 231.Article inLittell's Living Age, 1859, Vol. 63.Eulogy, "Daniel Webster Speeches," Vol. 4, p. 186.Robert C. Winthrop,Scribner's Magazine, January, 1894, Vol. xv., p. 118. "Speeches," Vol 4, p. 377.Rufus Choate, "Speeches," pp. 479, 493.Edwin P. Whipple. "Webster's Great Speeches," Introduction,North American Review, July, 1844.Mellen Chamberlain, inCentury Magazine, September, 1893, p. 709.Henry Cabot Lodge, inAtlantic Monthly, Vol. 49, February, 1882.Julius H. Ward, inInternational Review, February, 1882, p, 124.General S. P. Lyman, "Daniel Webster," 2 Vols., D. Appleton & Co., 1853.James Parton, inNorth American Review, January, 1867, Vol. 104, p. 65.J. H. B. Latrobe, inHarper's Magazine, February, 1882, Vol. 64, p. 428.Charles W. March, "Reminiscences of Congress."[3]Scribner's Magazine, 1894, Vol. xv., p. 118.[4]When I came into the House of Representatives in 1869, one of the reporters told me that he had the manuscript of Mr. Webster's 7th of March speech, which Mr. Webster gave him. It contained a few sentences carefully composed, but which were spoken almost exactly as they were written. But the larger part of the speech, according to this reporter, seemed to be extempore.Perhaps, however, I ought to say that I told this story to Mr. Winthrop, who told me he thought it could not be accurate, because he called at Mr. Webster's house the evening before the 7th of March, and as he went in heard Mr. Webster reading aloud to his son, Fletcher, parts of the speech which he delivered the next day, and when he was shown into the room he found Mr. Webster with a considerable pile of manuscript before him, which he had no doubt was the speech for the next day.

[1]Lately appointed Post-office Inspector.

[2]Among them are:

Edward Everett. See Life of Webster prefixed to his works.

Article inNorth American Review, October, 1830, Vol. 31, p. 463.

Article inNorth American Review, July, 1835, Vol. 41, p. 231.

Article inLittell's Living Age, 1859, Vol. 63.

Eulogy, "Daniel Webster Speeches," Vol. 4, p. 186.

Robert C. Winthrop,Scribner's Magazine, January, 1894, Vol. xv., p. 118. "Speeches," Vol 4, p. 377.

Rufus Choate, "Speeches," pp. 479, 493.

Edwin P. Whipple. "Webster's Great Speeches," Introduction,North American Review, July, 1844.

Mellen Chamberlain, inCentury Magazine, September, 1893, p. 709.

Henry Cabot Lodge, inAtlantic Monthly, Vol. 49, February, 1882.

Julius H. Ward, inInternational Review, February, 1882, p, 124.

General S. P. Lyman, "Daniel Webster," 2 Vols., D. Appleton & Co., 1853.

James Parton, inNorth American Review, January, 1867, Vol. 104, p. 65.

J. H. B. Latrobe, inHarper's Magazine, February, 1882, Vol. 64, p. 428.

Charles W. March, "Reminiscences of Congress."

[3]Scribner's Magazine, 1894, Vol. xv., p. 118.

[4]When I came into the House of Representatives in 1869, one of the reporters told me that he had the manuscript of Mr. Webster's 7th of March speech, which Mr. Webster gave him. It contained a few sentences carefully composed, but which were spoken almost exactly as they were written. But the larger part of the speech, according to this reporter, seemed to be extempore.

Perhaps, however, I ought to say that I told this story to Mr. Winthrop, who told me he thought it could not be accurate, because he called at Mr. Webster's house the evening before the 7th of March, and as he went in heard Mr. Webster reading aloud to his son, Fletcher, parts of the speech which he delivered the next day, and when he was shown into the room he found Mr. Webster with a considerable pile of manuscript before him, which he had no doubt was the speech for the next day.

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