ays
thought Henry as Charles I. most moving when he made that involuntary
effort to kneel to his subject, Moray, but the Lyceum audiences never
seemed to notice it. In New York the audience burst out into the most
sympathetic spontaneous applause that I have ever heard in a theater.

I know that there are some advanced stage reformers who prefer to think
applause "vulgar," and would suppress it in the theater if they could.
If they ever succeed they will suppress a great deal of good acting. It
is said that the American actor, Edwin Forrest, once walked down to the
footlights and said to the audience very gravely and sincerely: "If you
don't applaud, I can't act," and I do sympathize with him. Applause is
an instinctive, unconscious act expressing the sympathy between actors
and audience. Just as our art demands more instinct than intellect in
its exercise, so we demand of those who watch us an appreciation of the
simple unconscious kind which finds an outlet in clapping rather than
the cold, intellectual approval which would self-consciously think
applause derogatory. I have yet to meet the actor who was _sincere_ in
saying that he disliked applause.

My impression of the way the American women dressed in 1883 was not
favorable. Some of them wore Indian shawls and diamond earrings. They
dressed too grandly in the street and too dowdily in the theater. All
this has changed. The stores in New York are now the most beautiful in
the world, and the women are dressed to perfection. They are as clever
at the _demi-toilette_ as the Parisian, and the extreme neatness and
smartness of their walking-gowns are very refreshing after the floppy,
blowsy, trailing dresses, accompanied by the inevitable feather boa of
which English girls, who used to be so tidy and "tailor-made," now seem
so fond. The universal white "waist" is very pretty and trim on the
American girl. It is one of the distinguishing marks of a land of the
free, a land where "class" hardly exists. The girl in the store wears
the white waist; so does the rich girl on Fifth Avenue. It costs
anything from seventy-five cents to fifty dollars!

London when I come back from America always seems at first like an
ill-lighted village, strangely tame, peaceful and backward. Above all, I
miss the sunlight of America, and the clear blue skies of an evening.

"Are you glad to get back?" said an English friend.

"Very."

"It's a land of vulgarity, isn't it?"

"Oh yes, if yo