One of the precious memories of my youth, the most adequate rendering of a monologue I ever heard, was Charlotte Cushman's reading of Tennyson's "The Grandmother." Sitting quietly in her chair, as she did in nearly all of her readings, she suggested the mind of the grandmother whose girlhood memories, "seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago," were accentuated by the trembling head and hands and voice. All the mental attitudes so well portrayed by Tennyson--the lapses into forgetfulness; the tenderness of the experience; the patience born of old age;--were faithfully depicted. It was something which those who heard could never forget. The greatness of Charlotte Cushman's art was shown in the fact that she could give an extremely simple monologue with marvellous consistency and force. It is strange that among American dramatic artists no one has tried to follow in her steps. I can laugh yet when I remember her transcendent interpretation of "The Annuity," a monologue in Scottish character and dialect. I owe a great debt to Miss Cushman, for she awakened my interest in the monologue, and gave me, over thirty years ago, an ideal conception of the possibilities of dramatic platform art. She never used properties of any kind. At times she stood up and walked the platform and acted a scene from Macbeth or some other play, but always with the simplest possible interpretation, without any mechanical accessories. She never stood in giving her monologues, or readings, which she gave the last year of her life. Care, of course, is needed in regard to the employment of properties also on the stage. The difficulty of placing a horse upon the stage is well known. He cannot be made a part of the picture, cannot be subordinated, or "made up." If we observe from the gallery when a horse is on the stage, we find that the attention of everybody is centred upon him, and the point of the play is lost. Who ever receives an impression of the splendid music while Brunhilde stands holding by the bridle a great cart-horse? The centre of interest in Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer" is not in the horse that Tony Lumpkin has been driving, but in his dialogue with his mother, and her fright at her husband, whom she believes to be a highwayman. To introduce two horses, making the audience uneasy as to what they will do, destroys the dramatic interest of the scene. The bringing of real horses on the stage in a play always causes fear of an accident and distracts attention from the real point of the scene. To see a noted singer motioning to a super to bring her horse on the stage makes "the judicious grieve." There is no doubt a tendency at the present time to over-elaboration and to extravagance in realistic presentation. But if too much literalism is objectionable in the play, how much more is it in the monologue?