Of all the theatrical performances, I enjoyed most “The Sorcerer”, the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Gilbert was already a household word with us through our devotion to his “Bab Ballads.” His play, “Pygmalion and Galatea”, had already made a hit, but it was through his partnership with Arthur Sullivan that he won his great popularity. Those were the palmy days of light opera. Offenbach was still sung all over the world, and the vogue for the Gilbert and Sullivan operas in all the English-speaking countries was something phenomenal. These melodious operettas, bubbling over with clean, wholesome English fun, deserved all the popularity they enjoyed. To this day I never miss an opportunity of hearing the revivals that from time to time take place. The latest of these, a performance of “Pinafore” given at Newport, by the American sailors during the Great War, gave me hardly less pleasure than the original production I witnessed on my second visit to London in 1878. Considering how much of fun there was during my first London season, I remember with some surprise how often we went to church. I heard some admirable sermons from Dean Vaughan at the church of the Temple, and have a confused memory of having stayed and dined with the Templars in a great hall, upon mighty roasts of beef under vast pewter covers, gooseberry fool, and enormous strawberries. We often went to service at Westminster Abbey to hear Dean Stanley preach. The beauty of his English was like the architecture of a Doric temple. He had a fine intellectual head and a face of great power and sweetness. We were at his house more than once: we met there Mr. Seeley, the author of “Ecce Homo”, a book published anonymously a few years before, which had made a deep impression. We also heard Moncure Conway and Stopford Brooke. Conway, who was an American, was then preaching for the South Place Religious Society. He was an old friend, and I remembered him well at Green Peace. Though he and my mother did not agree on matters theological, they were good friends, and we went several times to his house in Hammersmith. He was a large, striking-looking man, with a great head and an assertive personality: very aggressive both in and out of the pulpit, but warm-hearted and stimulating. He did not like to be classed with Christians, though he had started as a Methodist minister and later joined the Unitarians. His congregation were plain people, many of them working men of socialistic tendencies.