Miss Matthison is preëminently a poetic actress. Her moods and methods, her rich and tender voice, her whole training and personality fit her rarely for the realization of the heroines of poetic drama. How truly this is not the age of the poetic drama, however, is shown by the short list of rôles--outside of Shakespeare’s heroines--that Miss Matthison has had, at once adapted to her and worthy of her talents. At the New Theatre she played Sister Beatrice in Maeterlinck’s play of that name, _The Piper_, and Light in _The Blue Bird_. And the New Theatre was not wholly a response to public taste; it was largely an attempt to foster it. For the rest, Miss Matthison’s American appearances (and her English experience was similar) have been distributed among many plays of many kinds, some of them excellent, like _The Great Divide_ and _The Servant in the House_, but all of them rather beside the point, so far as Miss Matthison’s peculiar talent was concerned. When she played, and beautifully played, Andromache in Mr. Barker’s recent production of _The Trojan Women_, she again came briefly into her own. If Miss Anglin and Miss Matthison almost exhaust our list of first-rate poetic actresses (now that Miss Marlowe has retired), the case is far otherwise with the _comédiennes_. There are two, at least,--Grace George and Laura Hope Crews,--who are practiced adepts, thoroughly at home amid the subtleties of high comedy. The place of Miss George[217] among American actresses is only partly indicated by the announcement that she is to direct her own theatre in New York. Though she merits that distinction, it is one that is easily within the grasp of the wife of William A. Brady. But it is indeed something to be one of our few actresses who are mistresses of comedy. Miss George made her first appearance on the professional stage (she had previously acted much as an amateur) as long ago as 1894, but it was not until 1907, when she acted Cyprienne in _Divorçons_, that she disclosed her talent brought to its fullness by long and varied training. Playing with her in _Divorçons_ was that excellent actor, Frank Worthing, and the effect produced by them remains one of the memorable incidents of American acting.[218] During the dozen years that preceded _Divorçons_ and again during the period that has followed, Miss George has been condemned to play in a long succession of comparatively inferior plays. The list is varied only occasionally by brief appearances in genuine high comedy, such as her Lady Teazle in _The School for Scandal_ at the New Theatre and her Beatrice in _Much Ado About Nothing_. Taking it all in all, she is best represented, so far, by her Cyprienne, an admirable impersonation, compact with rich humor, naturalness and charm,--and achievement in real comedy. Miss George promises to come into her own, however, with the opening of the theatre in New York of which she is to be the guiding spirit and the