lf annoyed with herself at the thought.

"And are not you also interested in New York, Mr. Lyon?" my wife asked.

"Yes, moderately so, if you will permit me to say it." It was an effort
on his part to keep up the conversation, Margaret was so wholly
unresponsive; and afterwards, knowing how affairs stood with them, I
could understand his well-bred misery. The hardest thing in the world is
to suffer decorously and make no sign in the midst of a society which
insists on stoicism, no matter how badly one is hurt. The Society for
First Aid to the Injured hardens its heart in these cases. "I have never
seen another place," he continued, "where the women are so busy in
improving themselves. Societies, clubs, parlor lectures, readings,
recitations, musicales, classes--it fatigues one to keep in sight of
them. Every afternoon, every evening, something. I doubt if men are
capable of such incessant energy, Mrs. Fairchild."

"And you find they have no time to be agreeable?"

"Quite the contrary. There is nothing they are not interesting in,
nothing about which they cannot talk, and talk intensely. They absorb
everything, and have the gift of acquiring intelligence without, as one
of them told me, having to waste time in reading. Yes, it is a most
interesting city."

The coming in of Mr. Morgan gave another turn to the talk. He had been to
see a rural American play, an exhibition of country life and character,
constructed in absolute disregard of any traditions of the stage.

"I don't suppose," Mr. Morgan said, "a foreigner would understand it; it
would be impossible in Paris, incomprehensible in London."

"Yes, I saw it," said Mr. Lyon, thus appealed to. "It was very odd, and
seemed to amuse the audience immensely. I suppose one must be familiar
with American farm life to see the points of it. I confess that while I
sat there, in an audience so keenly in sympathy with the play--almost a
part of it, one might say--I doubted if I understood your people as well
as I thought I did when I had been here a week only. Perhaps this is the
beginning of an American drama."

"Some people say that it is."

"But it is so local!"

"Anything that is true must be true to local conditions, to begin with.
The only question is, is it true to human nature? What puzzled me in this
American play was its raising the old question of nature and art. You've
seen Coquelin? Well, that is acting, as artificial as a sonnet, the
perfection of training