character and all that is noble and gentle in conduct -showing ever the excellence to be emulated and the glory to be gained, soothing our cares, dispelling thoughts of trouble, and casting a glamour of romantic grace over all the commonplaces of the world. Against whatever is inimical to the Stage, thus valued and thus employed, the intellect of the time should surge like a sea of fire, to blast, to wither, to destroy.

Those views and the expression of them gave much offence to the proselytizing Mr. Irving and his admiring advocates. The fact that offensive plays by M. Brieux should be specifically and frankly denounced as such, even though that writer happens to be "a French Academician," seems to have caused special anguish in the breast of Mr. Irving. This summary of that actor's achievement on the American Stage can, notwithstanding his tenderness for the sacrosanct Brieux, best be closed by reprinting in full the rejoinder to Mr. Irving's disparagement of the American public and American critical reviewers which I wrote and published in "Harper's Weekly," June 18, 1910:

Their jugglin', hocus-pocus arts

To cheat the crowd!"

-BURNS.

During the past ten or fifteen years a lively desire that the public morals should be rectified has made itself conspicuously manifest in the local Theatre, and extraordinary endeavors in the cause of virtue have forced themselves on critical attention. The motive has, of course, been pious, but the method has been peculiar, and certain of the apostles of reform have somewhat startled observation by the unexpectedness of their investiture with the didactic surplice. Sister Shaw, for example, surprised the community when she emerged to ventilate the business troubles of Mrs. Warren; Sister Marlowe certainly astonished it when she danced for the cadaver of the Apostle John, and divulged her ingenuous and tender plea in extenuation of sweet Salome; and Brother Sothern struck it into "amazement and admiration" when he announced, and practically illustrated, his devout purpose to make the public understand that "this love matter is not altogether a lascivious and sensual" one. Certain other moral healers, while they cannot be thought to have surprised anybody by their appearance in the good work, can perhaps be rightly said to have administered an edifying shock,-no doubt salutary, though not always reverently appreciated. Brother Al. H. Woods, for instance, while striving mightily, met with rather a hard fate, for his "Narrow

Path" was treated much as the Jews treated Saint Stephen, having been driven from the New York Stage after only one performance; his "Girl with the Whooping-cough" was consigned to durance and to darkness by the flinty-hearted police, and his "Get Busy with Emily" was angrily repudiated alike by the heathen of New Haven and the ungodly of Chicago. Such sometimes is the cruel fortune of the best and gentlest laborers in the vineyard of righteousness. The holy industry, nevertheless, has proceeded, and doubtless it will continue. Much help has come from abroad. In all the long annals of eleemosynary endeavor there is, indeed, no record more touching than that of the acute solicitude which for a long time has surged in the expansive British theatrical bosom relative to the melancholy moral condition of the inhabitants of the United States. Missionary effort to awaken and regenerate our lost and wandering people has been well-nigh incessant. Long ago, it will be remembered, Sister Kendal brought to this benighted land the solemn and, of course, much-needed monition from good old Father Pinero that, whether widowers or bachelors, the males of America when choosing wives should take care not deliberately to choose accomplished, experienced wantons. Long ago, also, Sister Nethersole, whom we have always with us, brought hither a kindred message, enforcing it by the frightful examples of calorific Carmen, promiscuous Sapho, and vacillant Marianne.

Brother Hare soon followed, sounding the alarm to sinners by his remarkable preachments about Mrs. Ebbsmith and the nocturnal assignation of the Gay Lord Quex. Sister Campbell and Sister Langtry duly wheeled into line, with the woful modern instances of Countess Beata and ardent Mrs. Trevelwyn; and Brother Jones, contending for Mrs. Rebellious Susan's right to commit adultery, brought up the rear with a passionate assurance that he was actually "sweating" in his toil to save us from the wrath to come. No one of those ministers of grace, however, has essayed the holy task of our moral redemption with a zeal surpassing that of Mr. Laurence Irving. That Good Samaritan's anxiety about us is very great,-almost as great as that of the itinerant evangelist who, on board an express train, selected a moment when the train was speeding at about a mile a minute over a particularly rough section of the road to distribute to his fellow passengers a tract headed with the pertinent inquiry, "Are You Aware That You Are All Going to Hell?"

Remarks of mine relative to the rank, vulgar, offensive play of "The Three Daughters of M. Dupont," a revolting compound of cynicism, indelicacy, and brutality,-made by the French dramatist M. Brieux and produced by Mr. Irving at the Comedy Theatre, caused the publication by that actor of a letter,-resentful of critical condemnation of that play, in which he undertakes to vindicate it, and prom

ises to reproduce it here and to supplement it with other plays of a kindred character from the pen of the same author. Those supplementary plays are more or less distinctly described by the irate comedian, and his designation of them seems to herald the theatrical presentment of much absurdity and some little feculence. The first of those plays, says Mr. Irving, "deals with the blighting effect of medical theory on the individual and with the charlatanism which enters so largely into modern medicine." The second is labelled "an arraignment of divorce." The third is said to depict "the frauds and evils of French political life." The fourth "shows the evil and devastating effects of the widespread custom of bringing wet-nurses from the provinces for the children of Parisians"-a display which would seem to promise great practical edification in America. The fifth "deals principally with the psychology of the married state when love is not at the bottom of the union." The sixth asseverates "the need of the human race for faith, whether false or true,"-a declaration calculated to astound by its portentous originality. The seventh-"Les Hannetons" ("The Affinity"), which Mr. Irving brought forth here, and which he has many times presented-is, as he approvingly certifies by quoting the words of its author, "a study of free love and of the misery that is bound to ensue from it when the couple have nothing in common but their physical infatuation." All this Mr. Irving, in the abounding