mend, no matter what other
apparently important work is going forward.

[Illustration: Mr. and Mrs. Herne in "Drifting Apart." Act II. See
page 545.]

Mrs. Herne is a woman of extraordinary powers, both of acquired
knowledge and natural insight, and her suggestions and criticisms have
been of the greatest value to her husband in his writing, and she had
large part in the inception as well as in the production of _Margaret
Fleming_. Her knowledge of life and books, like that of her husband,
is self-acquired, but I have met few people in any walk of life with
the same wide and thorough range of thought. In their home oft-quoted
volumes of Spencer, Darwin, Fiske, Carlyle, Ibsen, Valdes, Howells,
give evidence that they not only keep abreast but ahead of the current
thought of the day. Spencer is their philosopher, and Howells is their
novelist, but Dickens and Scott have large space on their shelves. All
this does not prevent Mr. Herne from being an incorrigible joker, and
a wonderfully funny story-teller. All dialects come instantly and
surely to his tongue. The sources of his power as a dramatist are
evident in his keen observation and retentive memory. Mrs. Herne's
poet is Sidney Lanier, and she knows his principal poems by heart.
"Sunrise" is her especial delight. But to see her radiant with
intellectual enthusiasm, one has but to start a discussion of the
nebular hypothesis, or to touch upon the atomic theory, or doubt the
inconceivability of matter. She is perfectly oblivious to space and
time if she can get someone to discuss Flammarion's supersensuous
world of force, Mr. George's theory of land-holding, or Spencer's law
of progress.

[Illustration: Mr. and Mrs. Herne in "Drifting Apart." Act III. See
page 545.]

Her enthusiasms bear fruit not only in her own phenomenal
development, but in her power over others, both as an artist and
friend. Wherever she goes she carries the magnetic influence of one
who lives and thinks on high planes. Her earnestness is tremendous.

They are both individualists in the sense of being for the highest and
purest type of man, and the elimination of governmental control.
"Truth, Liberty, and Justice," form the motto over their door. Mr.
Herne has won great distinction as a powerful and ready advocate of
the single tax theory, and they are both personal valued friends of
Mr. George. It is Ibsen's individualism as well as his truth that
appeals so strongly to both Mr. and Mrs. He