e scene is
intensely responsive to the New York spirit, and objectively it is most
expressive of the American character in that certain surface effect of
thin brilliancy which remains with the spectator the most memorable
expression of its physiognomy.

No doubt something like this was in the reader's mind when he resumed,
with a sigh: "It's rather pathetic how much more magnificently Italian
opera has always been circumstanced in exile than at home. It had to
emigrate in order to better its fortunes; it could soon be better seen
if not heard outside of Italy than in its native country. It was only
where it could be purely conventional as well as ideal that it could
achieve its greatest triumphs. It had to make a hard fight for its
primacy among the amusements that flatter the pride as well as charm the
sense. You remember how the correspondents of Mr. Spectator wrote to him
in scorn of the affected taste of 'the town' when the town in London
first began to forsake the theatre and to go to the opera?"

"Yes, they were very severe on the town for pretending to a pleasure
imparted in a language it could not understand a word of. They had all
the reason on their side, and they needed it; but the opera is
independent of reason, and the town felt that for its own part it could
dispense with reason, too. The town can always do that. It would not go
seriously or constantly to English opera, though ever so much invited to
do so, for all the reasons, especially the patriotic reasons. Isn't it
strange, by-the-way, how English opera is a fashion, while Italian opera
remains a passion? We had it at its best, didn't we, in the Gilbert and
Sullivan operas, which were the most charming things in the world; but
they charmed only for a while, and it may be doubted whether they ever
greatly charmed the town. The manager of the Metropolitan replaces
German with Italian opera, and finds his account in it, but could he
find his account in it if he put on 'The Mikado' instead of 'L'Elisir
d'Amore'? If he did so, the town would not be here. Why?"

The reader did not try to answer at once. He seemed to be thinking, but
perhaps he was not; other readers may judge from his reply, which, when
it came, was this: "There seems to be something eternally as well as
universally pleasing in Italian opera; but what the thing is, or how
much of a thing it is, I wouldn't undertake to say. Possibly the fault
of English opera is its actuality. It seizes up