1ST AMERICAN.  “What are they making all that row about—­just because SEEBACH walked across the stage?  Why, she never said a word.”

2D AMERICAN.  “Let’s go round to the hotel and take a quiet sleep till she comes on again.  I’ve got my night-clothes with me.  Always bring ’em when I go to see German tragedy.”

Then ensue other hours of dialogue, interspersed with soliloquies of half an hour each.  Interspersed also with perpetual dropping of the curtain, whereby the play is made to last some eight or ten hours longer than would otherwise be the case.  Most of the German music that has been written during the last three centuries is played by the orchestra during these intermissions.  But in course of time SEEBACH gives us the Garden scene, winning our frantic admiration by her inimitable tenderness and grace, and finally we reach that grandest scene ever written by dramatist, that most pathetic poem ever conceived by poet—­the meeting of “FAUST” and “MARGARET” in prison.  At last we are more than repaid for the dreary hours that have gone before.  We have seen SEEBACH’S “MARGARET”—­the most powerful, the most pathetic, the most beautiful, the most perfect creation of the stage.

And as we pass slowly up the tortuous, steep stairways of the theatre, while the Germans, all talking at once, burden the air with unintelligible gutturals, you say to me—­if you are the intelligent person that you ought to be—­“SEEBACH is the greatest actress of this century—­greater than RISTORI, subtler and more tender than RACHEL.”

With which opinion the undersigned concurs with all the emphasis of conviction; and over our late breakfast, to which we immediately sit down, we discuss the question, Which is the greatest—­the poet who drew “MARGARET,” or the actress who made the poet’s picture warm with passionate life?

MATADOR.

* * * * *

Absolutely True.

For the last fifty years or so the metaphysical thinkers of Germany have been engaged in seeking for the Absolute.  From present indications it would seem as though they are about to find it—­where perhaps they least expected it—­in the imperial reign of King WILLIAM, aided and abetted by Count VON BISMARCK.

* * * * *

“THE RIGHT PARTY.”

A few days ago PUNCHINELLO officially announced his adhesion to the Right Party.

PUNCHINELLO hadn’t the slightest idea which party was the right one, but thought that, as some party must be right, he could not go very for wrong.  But mark the denouement.  Every party imagines itself the right party, and welcomes him joyfully to its bosom.  Republicans love him, Independents worship him, while Democrats would endure even the Fifteenth Amendment for his sake.  In order to reciprocate their sentiments Mr. P. would have to resolve himself into a kind of Demo-Independent-Republican, which he has no idea of doing.  Here’s what some of the “organs” say of him: