his optics were not in a healthful condition. Mental astigmatism is an infirmity, not a talent, and the "report" is not the less misleading and injurious, because inadequate through lack of perception, than it would be if false through deliberate intention to deceive. Furthermore, even in his misrepresentation of human nature, Ibsen was not original. Cynics have always existed, and Dean Swift's report of the human soul as he saw it, a report made nearly two hundred years ago (1727), far transcends that of Ibsen not only in every particular of technical expertness of expression, but in melancholy incompleteness, purblind censoriousness, gross falsehood, and ignominious censure. The excuse, or at least the explanation, for Swift is incipient insanity, which terminated in madness. The explanation of Ibsen, likewise, is, unquestionably, a disordered brain. One great error of dramatic "reformers" lies in the basic assumption that change necessarily signifies improvement. Often it is recession. Achievement in the future may excel achievement in the past. It was long ago observed by a wise observer that "we know not what a day may bring forth." Let us hope that the new day will provide dramatic writers of greater and finer ability than has ever been manifested and that the art of acting will attain to a loftier height than it ever yet has reached. Entertainment of that hope and endeavor to realize it will not retard advancement! There are many adverse influences, but in the strife between good and evil good is destined ultimately to prevail. Great minds will be born, and noble thoughts will impel to noble endeavor. The movement of the world is onward and upward, but that movement has never been helped, and it never will be helped, by any such gospel of disordered mentality, distrust, despondency, bitterness, and gloom as that which proceeded from the diseased mind of Henrik Ibsen. And if the reader is half as sick of the whole subject of his plays as I am, he must be indeed rejoiced to come to the end of this chapter! II. 'AMERICAN ACTORS ABROAD, AND HOW THEY "FAIL" THERE. Sometimes a little cloud you can espy, My Theatre is a shop and runs itself! -MR. CHARLES FROHMAN'S Parable, Versified. A REPRESENTATIVE speculator in "theatrical goods," Mr. Charles Frohman, returning to New York, from England, supplemented his customary newspaper proclamation of his alleged business plans,-the presentation of plays aboard ocean steamships, the touring of 'America with portable theatres, the establishment of repertory playhouses on the East Side of New York City, and so forth, with a somewhat amusing assurance, which the complaisant press circulated and which the credulous public was expected to credit. "After many years of labor," he said, "I have actually got them to accept American actors abroad." Mr. Frohman's view of his vocation and likewise of himself has been declared by him, in words of which the meaning can not be mistaken: those words are, "I keep a Department Store" and "The Best in the Theatre means ME!" This tradesman's notion, however, that the acceptance of American actors abroad is due to his "labor" or to any conciliatory, persuasive, or industrial influence exerted by him is comically erroneous, in view of the facts which are of record relative to this subject, and also it is impudent. Decisive professional successes were gained by American actors, not only in England, but in other countries of Europe, long before the birth of Mr. Frohman, and, although it is true that the English, in general, prefer their own artists, in every branch of art, American actors deserving of acceptance, by reason of unique or exceptional ability and character, have obtained it in that country, any time within a hundred years. Mr. Frohman is a clever man of business and his career has been industrious in commercial speculation, various, picturesque, and fortunate. He is a native of Sandusky, Ohio, born June 17, 1860. His important theatrical enterprise began in 1888, when he acquired control of the late Bronson Howard's striking and popular war drama of "Shenandoah,"-a play that proved abundantly remunerative. Since that time he has dealt largely in plays and still more largely in actors, both English and American, and many of his trade ventures, especially of late years, have been very profitable. He has established a fine theatre, the Empire, in New York; has obtained control of other local playhouses; and, in co-operation with other speculators, has gained dominance of a chain of theatres extending throughout a large part of America; and, for many years, he has thus exerted a potent and often inauspicious influence on the character and development of the American Stage. A theatrical manager of the intellectual order,-typified by such men as Dunlap, Caldwell, Simpson, Barry, Wood, McVicker, Ellsler, Jefferson, Warren, Wallack, Booth, Irving, and Augustin Daly,— he has not endeavored to be,-certainly he has never been. His course has emulated that of such men as Jarrett, Haverley, and Abbey. He has, under the rough instruction of experience, learned much, and he occupies a position in which he possesses the power of doing great good to the Theatre and the public and of earning high renown, but some of the startling discoveries which he has proclaimed indicate that he has yet much to learn. Not long ago, adventuring in the field of Shakespearean commentary, for example, he pictured that great poet as a vulgar, dishonest, theatrical speculator, and announced that Shakespeare exhibits "the sensuousness of Swinburne and the eroticism of Oscar Wilde thrown in," and that "when things were getting a bit slow Shakespeare would not scruple to please the people by inserting a vile joke." Among all his freakish announcements, however, however, none is more preposterous than his bland deliverance, “I |