t the time, and subsequently this pantomimic dance was
generally referred to as the culminating moment in her impersonation of
Salome. On this occasion, I remember, she proved to us that the exertion
had not fatigued her, by singing the final scene of the music drama,
while Andre Messager played the accompaniment on the piano.

I did not see Mary Garden's impetuous and highly curious interpretation
of the strange eastern princess until a full year later, as I remained
in Paris during the extent of the New York opera season. The following
autumn, however, I heard _Salome_ in its second season at the Manhattan
Opera House--and I was disappointed. Nervous curiosity seemed to be the
consistent note of this hectic interpretation. The singer was never
still; her use of gesture was untiring. To any one who had not seen her
in other parts, the actress must have seemed utterly lacking in repose.
This was simply her means, however, of suggesting the intense nervous
perversity of Salome. Mary Garden could not have seen Nijinsky in
_Scheherazade_ at this period, and yet the performances were
astonishingly similar in intention. But the Strauss music and the Wilde
drama demand a more voluptuous and sensual treatment, it would seem to
me, than the suggestion of monkey-love which absolutely suited
Nijinsky's part. However, the general opinion (as often happens) ran
counter to mine, and, aside from the reservation that Miss Garden's
voice was unable to cope with the music, the critics, on the whole, gave
her credit for an interesting performance. Indeed, in this music drama
she made one of the great popular successes of her career, a career
which has been singularly full of appreciated achievements.

Chicago saw Mary Garden in _Salome_ a year later, and Chicago gasped, as
New York had gasped when the drama was performed at the Metropolitan
Opera House. The police--no less an authority--put a ban on future
performances at the Auditorium. Miss Garden was not pleased, and she
expressed her displeasure in the frankest terms. I received at that time
a series of characteristic telegrams. One of them read: "My art is
going through the torture of slow death. Oh Paris, splendeur de mes
desirs!"

It was with the (then) Philadelphia-Chicago Opera Company that Miss
Garden made her first experiment with opera in English, earning thereby
the everlasting gratitude and admiration--which she already possessed in
no small measure--of Charles Henry Melt