I liked Linda and wanted to give a truthful and appealing impersonation of her. But the handicaps of those days of crude and primitive theatre conditions were really almost insurmountable. Now, with every assistance of wonderful staging, exquisite costuming, and magical lighting, the artist may rest upon his or her surroundings and accessories and know that everything possible to art has been brought together to enhance the convincing effect. In the old days at the Academy, however, we had no system of lighting except glaring footlights and perhaps a single, unimaginative calcium. We had no scenery worthy the name; and as for costumes, there were just three sets called by the theatre _costumier_ "Paysannes" (peasant dress); "Norma" (they did not know enough even to call it "classic"); and "Rich!" The last were more or less of the Louis XIV period and could be slightly modified for various operas. These three sets were combined and altered as required. Yet, of course, the audiences were correspondingly unexacting. They were so accustomed to nothing but primitive effects that the simplest touch of true realism surprised and delighted them. Once during a performance of _Il Barbiere_ the man who was playing the part of Don Basilio sent his hat out of doors to be snowed on. It was one of those Spanish shovel hats, long and square-edged, like a plank. When he wore it in the next act, all white with snowflakes from the blizzard outside, the audience was so simple and childlike that it roared with pleasure, "Why, it's _real_ snow!" It was also the time when hoop skirts were universally fashionable, so we all wore hoops, no matter what the period we were supposed to be representing. Scola first showed me how to fall gracefully in a hoop skirt, not in the least an easy feat to accomplish; and I shall always remember seeing Mme. de la Grange go to bed in one, in her sleep-walking scene in _Sonnambula_. Indeed, there was no illusion nor enchantment to help one in those elementary days. One had to conquer one's public alone and unaided. I confided myself at first to the hands of the _costumier_ with characteristic truthfulness. I had considered the musical and dramatic aspects of the part; it did not occur to me that the clothes would become my responsibility as well. That theatre _costumier_ at the Academy, I found, could not even cut a skirt. Linda's was a strange affair, very long on the sides, and startlingly short in front. But this was the least of my troubles on the afternoon of that first _matinée_ in New York. When it came to the last act--there having been no rehearsals, and my experience being next to nothing--I asked innocently for my costume, and was told that I would have to wear the same dress I had worn in the first act. "But, I can't!" I gasped. "That fresh, new gown, after months are supposed to have gone by!--when Linda has walked and slept in it during the whole journey!" "No one will think of that," I was assured.