be exploited as stars merely
because of their personal charm. A beautiful young woman, whether she can
act or not, may easily appear "natural" in a society play, especially
written around her; and the public, lured by a pair of eyes or a head of
hair, is made as blind as love to the absence of histrionic art. When the
great Madame Modjeska last appeared at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, presenting
some of the most wonderful plays that the world has ever seen, she played
to empty houses, while the New York public was flocking to see some new
slip of a girl seem "natural" on the stage and appear pretty behind the
picture-frame proscenium.

IV

A comparison of an Elizabethan audience with a theatre-full of people at
the present day is, in many ways, disadvantageous to the latter. With our
forefathers, theatre-going was an exercise in the lovely art of
"making-believe." They were told that it was night and they forgot the
sunlight; their imaginations swept around England to the trampling of
armored kings, or were whisked away at a word to that Bohemia which is a
desert country by the sea; and while they looked upon a platform of bare
boards, they breathed the sweet air of the Forest of Arden. They needed no
scenery by Alma-Tadema to make them think themselves in Rome. "What
country, friends, is this?", asked Viola. "This is Illyria, lady." And the
boys in the pit scented the keen, salt air and heard the surges crashing on
the rocky shore.

Nowadays elaborateness of stage illusion has made spoiled children of us
all. We must have a doll with real hair, or else we cannot play at being
mothers. We have been pampered with mechanical toys until we have lost the
art of playing without them. Where have our imaginations gone, that we must
have real rain upon the stage? Shall we clamor for real snow before long,
that must be kept in cold storage against the spring season? A longing for
concreteness has befogged our fantasy. Even so excellent an actor as Mr.
Forbes-Robertson cannot read the great speech beginning, "Look here, upon
this picture and on this," in which Hamlet obviously refers to two
imaginary portraits in his mind's eye, without pointing successively to two
absurd caricatures that are daubed upon the scenery.

The theatre has grown older since the days when Burbage recited that same
speech upon a bare platform; but I am not entirely sure that it has grown
wiser. We theatre-goers have come to manhood and have put away ch