Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/31

Rh in furniture, pianos, paintings, etc., of whose richness I can give no better idea than by saying they looked as though transplanted from a Fifth avenue drawing-room.

It seemed to me during my different visits to London, and in course of conversation about theatres with English people, that an idea prevailed that, in American theatres, were invariably presented entertainments of a low order, and that American audiences were composed in great part of Pike's Peak miners sitting in the best boxes in their shirt-sleeves and with their legs up. To visit one of those American theatres, and to observe the elegance of the ladies' toilets, the "stunning" get-up of the jeunesse greenbacked of New York, the wild extravagance of outlay in both sexes, is to correct this idea at once. As for the entertainment itself, it is usually as near the European model as three times the money expended on it there can make it.

In England, I found prevailing a rather stupid rule, that a lady must be in "full dress" to go to the best seats in any theatre; and I well remember with what annoyance I removed my bonnet, in obedience to a peremptory command to that effect from the ticket-seller at Astley's. To enter that sacred abode of horsey art, I was told, I must be in full dress. To go in full dress to a circus seemed a very stupid thing to do. Besides, did the mere removal of the obnoxious bonnet constitute "full dress" in England? My own American idea of full dress meant a diamond necklace and as little else as possible. Then, again, the gentlemen of our party had thick shoes on, and, if I am not mistaken, these were rather muddy from walking about London streets all day engaged in sight-seeing. Their dress, however, was not objected to; and, my bonnet removed, the whole party was immediately in that "full dress" which the high-toned entertainment presented at Astley's rendered indispensable!

This same full dress so generally prevailing in England is frequently so shabby that the appearance of an English theatre compares most unfavorably with that of the same species of entertainment in America. I do not now speak of the toilets of those English ladies who can afford any Parisian luxuries their taste may dictate, but rather of that large middle class of gentlewomen who, compelled to be in full dress, compromise the matter by appearing in old-fashioned and unbecoming opera cloaks, with faded artificial roses in their hair, and not infrequently soiled gloves. Perhaps these same ladies have bonnets or round hats and neatly-fitting velvet or silk jackets at home, in which—if they were allowed to wear them at theatres—they would look as well dressed as the American ladies. That the American custom is an agreeable and convenient one is very evident from the fact that English ladies visiting Paris theatres, where it is also in vogue, quickly and gladly