it is fatally too late.

However, I am not really concerned at this time of day with the
improbabilities of so well-established a tragedy, but only with the
most recent interpretation of it. And let me say at once that, for the
best of reasons, I do not propose to compete with the erudition of my
fellow-critics in the matter of previous interpreters, for I bring a
virgin mind to my consideration of the merits of the present cast.

_Fédora_ is the most exhausting test to which Miss MARIE LÖHR has
yet put her talent. The heroine's emotions are worked at top-pressure
almost throughout the play. At the very start she is torn with
passionate grief for the death of her lover and a still more
passionate desire to take vengeance on the man who killed him. When
she learns the unworthiness of the one and the justification of the
other those emotions are instantly exchanged for a passionate worship
of the late object of her vengeance, to be followed by bitter remorse
for the harm she has done him and terror of the consequences when he
comes to know the truth. And so to suicide.

I will confess that I was astonished at the power with which Miss LÖHR
met these exigent demands upon her emotional forces. It was indeed a
remarkable performance. My only reservation is that in one passage
she was too anxious to convey to the audience the intensity of her
remorse, when it was a first necessity that she should conceal it
from the other actor on the stage. It was nice and loyal of Mr. BASIL
RATHBONE to behave as if he didn't notice anything unusual, but it
must have been as patent to him as to us.

Of his _Loris_ I cannot say too much in admiration. At first Mr.