A few weeks ago Katherine Tingley presented a new play, _The Aroma of Athens_, at her Isis theater in San Diego, which struck all who saw it with profound surprise and delight. There was first the ideal poetic beauty of the setting, a thing unrealizable unless seen. The foremost of the London managers--men like Tree--have made a specialty of beautiful setting, astonishing the theatrical world with the splendor of their work in this line--and with its good taste. They have had enormous resources to draw upon, and have spared no expense in time, money, or thought. It may safely be said that none of them has produced anything more beautiful than this _Aroma of Athens_; it may safely be said that none of them has produced anything so beautiful. One rubbed one's eyes in astonishment, wondering how such things could be, and concluded that Madame Tingley at Point Loma had greater resources to draw upon than are to be found in London, Paris, Berlin, or New York. It is a wonderful thing, prophetic of the time when the culture-metropolis of the world will be right here among us on the Pacific Coast. Madame Tingley long ago said that San Diego would be the Athens of America, and today this is far nearer than we dream. If one would learn what those greater resources of hers are, one must examine her teachings, one must look into that marvelous scheme of education of hers, the Râja Yoga system, which enabled, for example, those little children on the stage to be as graceful, as un-self-conscious as any figures on a Grecian vase. Have you seen children, young children, on the stage, do well, wonderfully well; and then, when the applause rolled in, do better still, remaining sublimely unconscious of the applause? We applauded these children and looked to see, as a matter of course, the aroma of Athens vanish in a series of smirks. But no; clapped we never so loudly, it made no difference to them. They played their Greek games; they were merry and classical; they were Grecian, unstilted, poetic, faery. One's mind went back to Keats' ode: "What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?" And the answer was: Athens, Periclean Athens in all her superb flawless beauty and splendor; yes, those were real Athenians; of whom we have read in Keats and Swinburne; that we have seen sculptured in the Elgin marbles. Here they were, in the flesh and blood; here was the heyday of historic beauty, shedding its supreme aroma on us; with these tones Plato and Aeschylus would have spoken; in this manner Phidias and Pericles would have moved. It was a revelation, a marvelous artistic realization--indeed, it is a shame to use such cant hackneyed phrases for a thing so beautiful, so august--and yet so completely natural and unstrained. GREATER THINGS PROMISED