Who waits for Portia's kind behest,
Mine is the part upon this stage
To tell the plot you have not guessed.

"Dear lady, oft in Belmont's hall,
Whose mistress is so sweet and fair,
Your humble slaves would gladly fall
Upon their knees, and praise you there.

"To offer you this little gift,
Dear Portia, now we crave your leave,
And let it have the grace to lift
Our hearts to yours this Christmas eve.

"And so we pray that you may live
Thro' many, many, happy years,
And feel what you so often give--
The joy that is akin to tears!"

How nice of Louis Austin! It quite made up for my mortification over the
camphor pudding!

Pittsburg has been called "hell with the lid off," and other insulting
names. I have always thought it beautiful, especially at night when its
furnaces make it look like a city of flame. The lovely park that the
city has made on the heights that surround it is a lesson to Birmingham,
Sheffield, and our other black towns. George Alexander said that
Pittsburg reminded him of his native town of Sheffield. "Had he said
Birmingham, now instead of Sheffield," wrote a Pittsburg newspaper man,
"he would have touched our tender spot exactly. As it is, we can be as
cheerful as the Chicago man was who boasted that his sweetheart 'came
pretty near calling him "honey,"' when in fact she had called him 'Old
Beeswax'!"

When I played Ophelia for the first time in Chicago, I played the part
better than I had ever played it before, and I don't believe I ever
played it so well again. _Why_, it is almost impossible to say. I had
heard a good deal of the crime of Chicago, that the people were a rough,
murderous, sand-bagging crew. I ran on to the stage in the mad scene,
and never have I felt such sympathy! This frail wraith, this poor
demented thing, could hold them in the hollow of her hand.... It was
splendid! "How long can I hold them?" I thought: "For ever!" Then I
laughed. That was the best Ophelia laugh of my life--my life that is
such a perfect kaleidoscope with the people and the places turning round
and round.

At the risk of being accused of indiscriminate flattery I must say that
I liked _all_ the American cities. Every one of them has a joke at the
expense of the others. They talk in New York of a man who lost both his
sons--"One died and the other went to live in Philadelphia." Pittsburg
is the subject of endless criticism, and