I have but recently returned from the vaudeville of the centuries. Watching the kick and the glide of very ancient performers. I have spent a year and a half down in the wonderful desert country of the Southwest. I have wearied, however, of the ancient caprice, and turn with great delight to my old passion, vaudeville. I return with glee to the ladies and gentlemen and pet animals of the stage, including the acrobats. Is there one who cares for these artists and for their rhythmical gesture more than myself? I cannot think so. I have wished with a real desire to create new sets for them, to establish an altogether new tradition as regards the background of these charming artists. If that were the chosen field for my esthetic activities, I should be famous by now for the creation of sets and drops by which these exceptional artists might make a far more significant impression upon the type of public they essay to interest and amuse.

I would begin first of all by severing them from the frayed traditions of worn plush and sequin, rid them of the so inadequate back drop such as is given them, the scene of Vesuvius in eruption, or the walk in the park at Versailles. They need first of all large plain spaces upon which to perform, and enjoy their own remarkably devised patterns of body. I speak of the acrobats, the animals, the single and double dancers who perform "down in one" more especially. The so called headliners have their plush parlours with the inevitable purple or rose lamp, and the very much worn property piano just barely in tune. Only the dressmaker and the interior decorator can do things for them, as we see in the case of Kitty Gordon. It is to be hoped that a Beardsley of the stage will one day appear and really do something for the dainty type of person or the superbly theatric artist such as Miss Gordon, Valeska Suratt, and the few other remarkable women of the vaudeville stage.

I am more concerned with the less appreciated artists. I would see that they glitter by their own brilliance. Why, for instance, should a fine act like the Four Danubes and others of their quality be tagged on to the end of a bill, at which time the unmannerly public decides to go home or hurry to some roof or other, or dining place?

I should like seeing the Brothers Rath likewise, perhaps as refined acrobatic artists as have been seen on our stage for some time, in a set that would show them to better advantage, and give the public a greater intimacy with the beauty of their act than can be had beyond the first six rows of the Winter Garden. They are interposed there as a break between burlesques, which is not the place for them. I would "give" them the stage while they are on it. Theirs is a muscular beauty which has not been excelled. I have no doubt that if I attempted to establish these ideas with the artists whom I spend so much time in championing, they would no doubt turn aside with the word "highbrow" on their lips. They would have to be shown that they need these things, that they need the old-fashioned ideas removed, and fresher ones put in their place. I have expressed this intention once before in print, perhaps not so vehemently. I should like to elaborate. I want a Metropolitan Opera for my project. An orchestra of that size for the larger concerted groups, numbers of stringed instruments for the wirewalkers and jugglers, a series of balanced woodwinds for others, and so on down the line, according to the quality of the performer. There should be a large stage for many elephants, ponies, dogs, tigers, seals. The stage should then be made more intimate for the solos, duets, trios, and quartets among the acrobats. I think a larger public should be made aware of the beauty and skill of these people, who spend their lives in perfecting grace and power of body, creating the always fascinating pattern and form, orchestration if you will, the orchestration of the muscles into a complete whole. You will of course say, go to the circus, and get it all at once. The circus is one of the most charming places in existence, because it is one of the last words in orchestrated physical splendour. But the circus is too diffused, too enormous in this country to permit of concentrated interest, attention, or pleasure. One goes away with many little bits. It is because the background is made up of restless nervous dots, all anxious to get the combined quota which they have paid for, when in reality they do not even get any one thing. It is the alert eye which can go over three rings and two stages at once and enjoy the pattern of each of them. It is a physical impossibility really.

I think we should be made aware in finer ways of the artists who open and close our bills. Why must the headliner always be a talking or a singing person who tells you how much money he needs, or how much she is getting? There is more than one type of artistic personality for those who care for vaudeville. Why doesn't a team like the Rath Brothers, for example, find itself the feature attraction? Must there always be the string of unnecessary little men and women who have such a time trying to fill up their twenty-two minutes or their fourteen? Why listen forever to puppy-like song writers when one can hear and watch a great artist like Ella Shields? My third visit to Ella Shields convinces me that she is one of the finest artists I have ever heard, certainly as fine in her way as Guilbert and Chevalier were. It is a rare privilege to be able to enjoy artists like Grock—Mark Sheridan—who is now dead, I am told. Mark, with his "They all walk the wibbly-wobbly walk, they all wear the wibbly-wobbly ties," and so on. Mark is certainly being missed by a great many who care for the pleasure of the moment. When I look at and listen to the aristocratic artist Ella Shields, I feel a quality in her of the impeccable Mrs. Fiske. And then I am thinking of another great woman, Fay Templeton. What a pity we must lose them either by death or by decisions in life. Ella Shields with her charming typification of "Burlington Bertie from Bow."

The other evening as I listened to Irene Franklin, I heard for certain what I had always thought were notes from the magic voice of dear old Fay. Unforgettable Fay. How can one ever say enough about her? I think of Fay along with my single glimpses of Duse, Ada Rehan, Coquelin. You see how I love her, then. Irene Franklin has the quality of imitation of the great Fay without, I think, the real magic. Nevertheless I enjoy her, and I am certain she has never been finer than now. She has enriched herself greatly by her experiences the last two years, and seems at the height of her power. It was good to get, once again, little glimpses of her Childs waitress and the chambermaid. It seemed to me that there was a richer quality of atmosphere in the little Jewish girl with the ring curls and the red mittens, as also in her French girl with, by the way, a beautiful gown of rich yellow silk Frenchily trimmed in vermilion or orange, I couldn't make out which. The amusing French girl, who having picked up many fag-ends of English from her experience with the soldats AmÉricains—got her "animals" mixed—"you have my goat, I have your goat, et—tie ze bull outside," and so on. I am crossing Irene and Fay here because I think them similar, only I must say I think the magic was greater in Fay, because possibly Fay was the greater student of emotion. Fay had the undercurrent, and Irene has perfected the surface. If Irene did study Fay at any time, and I say this respectfully, she perhaps knows that Fay went many times to Paris to study Rejane. The light entertainer is, as we know, very often a person of real intellect.

If you want distinction, then, you will get it in the presence of Ella Shields. Her "Burlington Bertie" is nothing less than a chef d'oeuvre; "Tom Lipton, he's got lots of 'oof—he sleeps on the roof, and I sleep in the room over him." Bertie, who, having been slapped on the back by the Prince of Wales (and some others) and asked why he didn't go and dine with "Mother," replied—"I can't, for I've just had a banana with Lady Diana.... I'm Burlington Bertie from Bow." Miss Shields shows also that she can sing a sentimental song without slushing it all over with saccharine. She has mastered the droll English quality of wit with real perfection. I regret I never saw Vesta Tilley, with whom the old tops compare her so favourably. Superb girls all these, Fay, Ella, Cissie, Vesta, as well as Marie Lloyd, and the other inimitable Vesta—Victoria.

Among the "coming soon," we have Miss Juliet, whom I recall with so much pleasure from the last immemorable Cohan Revue. I wait for her. I consider myself fortunate to be let in on James Watts. We thought our Eddy Foy a comic one. He was, for I remember the Gibson girl with the black velvet gown and the red flannel undershirt. I swing my swagger stick in the presence of Mr. Watts by way of applause. His art is very delicately understood and brought out. It has a fine quality of broad caricature with a real knowledge of economy such as Grock is master of. The three episodes are certainly funny enough. I find myself caring more for the first, called "June Day," since he reminds me so strongly in make-up of the French caricaturists in drawing, Rouveyre and Toulouse-Lautrec. Mr. Watts's feeling for satirical make-up is a fine shade of artistry in itself. He has excellent feeling for the broad contrast and for fierce insinuation at the same time. If you want real unalloyed fun, Mr. Watts will supply you. Nor will Grock disappoint you. Quite on the contrary, no matter what you are expecting.

I do not know why I think of vaudeville as I think of a collection of good drawings. Unless it is because the sense of form is the same in all of the arts. The acrobat certainly has line and mass to think of, even if that isn't his primal concern. He knows how he decorates the space on which he operates. To make another comparison, then, Grock is the Forain of vaudeville. He achieves great plastic beauty with distinguished economy of means. He dispenses with all superfluous gesture, as does the great French illustrator. Grock is entirely right about clownery. You are either funny or you are not. No amount of study will produce the gift for humour. It is there, or it isn't. Grock's gift for musicianship is a singular combination to find with the rest of his artistry. It goes with the remarkably refined look in his face, however, as he sits upon the back of the seatless chair, and plays the little concertina with superb execution. There are no "jumps" in Grock's performance. His moods flow from one into another with a masterly smoothness, and you are aware when he is finished that you have never seen that sort of foolery before. Not just that sort. It is the good mind that satisfies, as in the case of James Watts, and Miss Shields.

From elephants carrying in their trunks chatelaines of Shetland ponies, curtseying at the close of the charming act like a pretty miss at her first coming out, to such work as the Four Danubes give you as the closing number, with Irene as a lead, you are, to say the least, carried over the dreadful spots, such as the young man who sways out like a burlesque queen and tells you whom he was with before Keith got him. His name should be "Pusher," "Advance Man," or something of that sort, and not artist. What he gives you, you could find just as well if not better done on Fourteenth Street. He has a ribbon-counter, adenoid voice production that no really fine artist could afford. He will "get by," because anything does, apparently.

One turns to the big artist for relief, even though minor artists like The Brown Sisters charm so surely with their ivory and silver diamond-studded accordions, giving very pleasing transitions from grave to gay in arias and tunes we know. Accordions and concertinas are very beautiful to me, when played by artists like these girls, and by such as Joe Cawthorne, and Grock.

There are more dancing men of quality this season, it seems to me, who are obscured by dancing ladies of fame, and not such warrantable artistry. Perhaps it is because male anatomy allows of greater eccentricity and playfulness. There are no girls who have just such laughing legs as the inimitable Frances White. It is the long-legged American boy who beats the world in this sort of thing.

The lovely bit of hockey which James Barton gives is for me far more distinguished than all the rest of his work in the Winter Garden Revue. He is a real artist, but it is work that one sees rather a deal of this season, whereas the hockey dance is like nothing else to be found. A lovely moment of rhythmic leg work. We are now thoroughly familiar with the stage drunk, as we have long been familiarized by Weber and Fields with the stage Jew, which is fortunately passing out for lack of artist to present it. LÉon Errol is good for once, even twice. He is quite alone in his very witty falls and runs. They are full of the struggle of the drunk to regain his character and manhood. The act lives on a very flat plane otherwise. It has no roundness.

I have come on my list to Mijares and Co., in "Monkey Business." We have the exquisite criterion always for the wire, in the perfect Bird Millman. "Monkey Business" is a very good act, and both men do excellent work on the taut and slack wire. "Monkey," in this case being a man, does as beautiful a piece of work as I know of. I have never seen a back somersault upon a high wire. I have never heard of it before. There may be whole generations of artists gifted in this particular stunt. You have here, nevertheless, a moment of very great beauty in the cleanness of this man's surprising agility and sureness. The monkey costume hinders the beauty of the thing. It should be done with pale blue silk tights against a cherry velvet drop, or else in deep ultramarine on an old gold background.

The acrobatic novelty called "The Legrohs" relies chiefly on its most exceptional member, who would be complete without the other two. He is most decidedly a virtuoso in vaudeville. Very gifted, certainly, if at moments a little disconcerting in the flexibility and the seemingly uncertain turns of his body. It is the old-fashioned contortionism saved by charming acrobatic variations. This "Legroh" knows how to make a superb pattern with his body, and the things he does with it are done with such ease and skill as to make you forget the actual physical effort and you are lost for the time being in the beauty of this muscular kaleidoscopic brilliancy. You feel it is like "puzzle—find the man" for a time, but then you follow his exquisite changes from one design into another with genuine delight, and appreciate his excessive grace and easy rapidity. He gives you chiefly the impression of a dragon-fly blown in the wind of a brisk morning over cool stretches of water. You would expect him to land on a lily-pad any moment and smooth his wings with his needle-like legs.

So it is the men and women of vaudeville transform themselves into lovely flower and animal forms, and the animals take on semblances of human sensibility in vaudeville. It is the superb arabesque of the beautiful human body that I care for most, and get the most from in these cameo-like bits of beauty and art. So brief they are, and like the wonders of sea gardens as you look through the glass bottoms of the little boats. So like the wonders of the microscopic, full of surprising novelties of colour and form. So like the kaleidoscope in the ever changing, ever shifting bits of colour reflecting each other, falling into new patterns with each twist of the toy. If you care for the iridescence of the moment you will trust vaudeville as you are not able to trust any other sort of a performance. You have no chance for the fatigue of problem. You are at rest as far as thinking is concerned. It is something for the eye first and last. It is something for the ear now and then, only very seldomly, however. For me, they are the saviours of the dullest art in existence, the art of the stage. Duse was quite right about it. The stage should be swept of actors. It is not a place for imitation and photography. It is a place for the laughter of the senses, for the laughter of the body. It is a place for the tumbling blocks of the brain to fall in heaps. I give first place to the acrobat and his associates because it is the art where the human mind is for once relieved of its stupidity. The acrobat is master of his body and he lets his brain go a-roving upon other matters, if he has one. He is expected to be silent. He would agree with William James, transposing "music prevents thinking" into "talking prevents silence." In so many instances, it prevents conversation. That is why I like tea chitchat. Words are never meant to mean anything then. They are simply given legs and wings, and they jump and fly. They land where they can, and fall flat if they must. The audience that patronizes vaudeville would do well to be present at most first numbers, and remain for most or many of the closing ones. A number, I repeat, like the Four Danubes, should not be snubbed by any one.

I have seen recently, then, by way of summary, four fine bits of artistry in vaudeville—Ella Shields, James Watts, the Brothers Rath, and the Four Danubes. I shall speak again of these people. They are well worth it. They turn pastime into perfect memory. They are, therefore, among the great artists.