while in London ten thousand dollars a week is enormous, and that the
American public has a preference for its own dramatists, I have little
fear for the artistic importance of the drama of the future in America.
And from the discrepancy between my own observations and the
observations of a reliable European critic in New York only five years
ago, I should imagine that appreciable progress had already been made,
though I will not pretend that I was much impressed by the achievements
up to date, either of playwrights, actors, or audiences. A huge popular
institution, however, such as the American theatrical system, is always
interesting to the amateur of human nature.

The first thing noted by the curious stranger in American theaters is
that American theatrical architects have made a great discovery--namely,
that every member of the audience goes to the play with a desire to be
able to see and hear what passes on the stage. This happy American
discovery has not yet announced itself in Europe, where in almost every
theater seats are impudently sold, and idiotically bought, from which it
is impossible to see and hear what passes on the stage. (A remarkable
continent, Europe!) Apart from this most important point, American
theaters are not, either without or within, very attractive. The
auditoriums, to a European, have a somewhat dingy air. Which air is no
doubt partly due to the non-existence of a rule in favor of evening
dress (never again shall I gird against the rule in Europe!), but it is
due also to the oddly inefficient illumination during the entr'actes,
and to the unsatisfactory schemes of decoration.

The interior of a theater ought to be magnificent, suggesting pleasure,
luxury, and richness; it ought to create an illusion of rather riotous
grandeur. The rare architects who have understood this seem to have lost
their heads about it, with such wild and capricious results as the new