is a country toilet of white batiste, flowered with roses. The flounces are edged with Valenciennes, and the draperies of the batiste are held by knots of ribbon, an underskirt of pink taffetas showing through sufficiently to give a warm glow of color to the whole. The peignior, in which the unfortunate Dame aux Camélias dies, is in this instance suitably composed of crêpe, pleated throughout the entire length. It is white, however, and the overdress is lined with pink taffetas. Pink ribbons fasten the collar at the throat, and form, also, a very loose belt." * ** IN Adrienne Lecouvreur the first costume is a Watteau dressing gown in white silk, striped with pink. The stripes are very wide, and are in themselves composed of an agglomeration of very narrow ones. The skirt over which this is worn is made of Valenciennes alternating with narrow pleated flounces, the edges of which are pointed and serrated like the petals of some flowers. A ball dress is worn in the second act. The skirt is of satin in the beautiful pale tint of green familiar to our eyes in the drooping blossoms of the lime. A flounce of English point edges the skirt. This flounce is tied up so as to form festoons with knots of pale pink velvet. The low bodice and the train are composed of silver brocade strewn with brocaded rosebuds in pale green pink, their foliage being of the color of an emerald. In front, the plastron of the bodice in lime-blossom satin covered with lace continues the idea of the skirt. Loops of pink velvet upon the shoulders, forming epaulettes, complete a beautifully harmonious composition. The third dress in this play is a gala toilette of striking effect. The ivory satin skirt is veiled with flounces of gold lace held by tufts of roses. At the edge a thick hem of roses shows through the meshes of the lace. The low bodice and the train are of ivory satin, covered with a light and delicate tracery foliage in gold. Gold lace edges the much-puffed paniers. More gold lace is draped over the front of the bodice, while the small sleeves, also made of lace, are fastened up with tufts of roses. IN Maître de Forges the first dress is of silk shot in pearl gray and pink, and worn over a skirt almost covered with flowered gauze, the ground of smoke gray showing to great advantage the tints of the flowers. Each flounce is festooned with pearl-colored silk. In front, a miniature tablier of the taffetas suggests the shape of a Brobdignac lilac leaf. At the back the drapery is much puffed. The bodice is crossed by a drapery of gauze, which forms a collarette and jabot. The wedding dress is very elaborate. The front is of gauze embroidered with silk and fine pearls, among which appear the leaves of the orange tree. The long train is of the softest silk, striped with moire. On the front of the bodice is a plastron of embroidered gauze, similar to that of which the skirt is composed. A fichu of exquisite point d'Alençon, far too good for the footlights, is crossed upon the chest and fastened with a bunch of orange blossoms. The mantilla veil is also of point d'Alençon. There is also a ball-dress of coral-colored brocatelle, a mag nificent fabric, flowered with gold and silver. The low bodice is cut in one with a long train lined with sapphire velvet. The splendor of this contrast with the coral pink, the gold and the silver, may be imagined. The train opens over a skirt of coral-tinted satin, draped with gauze embroidered in gold, silver and silks. Clusters of cornflowers and silver thistles form a trimming. ** If I MISS DAUVRAY will bring forward Sheridan Knowles's beautiful comedy of 'The Love Chase" at the Lyceum on Monday night. This play is not especially familiar to the people of this country, although it was given a great many performances by Miss Jane Coombs during a successful tour several years ago, and most gracefully was it played by her too. remember rightly, Frederick Robinson played Wildrake, the part which will now be played by young Southern. In regard to this present production, it is given out that the costumes have been copied from prints of the periodthat of Charles II. Miss Dauvray's wedding dress in the last act is said to be very beautiful. It is of cream satin embroidered with pearls and draped with real old point lace bequeathed to Miss Dauvray by a relative and valued at $3,000. Her A COURT examination took place last week concerning a young woman by the name of Folsom, who has been very popular in the operetta of "Erminie" at the Casino. conduct of late has been extraordinary indeed. She suddenly resigned her position at the Casino, and has publicly given out that she refuses the love and protection of her parents and prefers to live apart from them under circumstances which give them the deepest pain and anxiety. The Tribune said of it editorially: She appeared before the referee to declare that she was not under duress in the conduct she maintained, and when she turned from the witness-stand her broken-hearted mother called after her, My child! my child! O, heavens' my child!' The tragedies of fiction are often light when compared with a grief like this. The mother called in vain. Her child swept pitilessly by her without a sign of recognition. If it be true that a man, married already, stands between this mother and her daughter, and has caused this saddest of all human tragedies, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were cast into the middle of the sea!" * ALEXANDRE DUMAS and Victorien Sardou are living at Marly, neighborly near each other. "We are excellent friends," Dumas is reported as saying, "but we see each other as little as possible. It would be disagreeable to him to have people in his presence treat me as the greatest living dramatist." * ** EWIN BOOTH will not occupy his Newport cottage this summer season. * ** I UNDERSTAND that Mr. J. M. Hill will take the management of the re-organized Boston Ideals. This is a good step on both sides. MRS. J. G. HOLLAND, widow of the wellknown novelist and poet, is living at Orange Valley, N. J., with her daughter, Mrs. Van Wagenen, and is in good health, although she is troubled with poor eye-sight. A WRITER in that admirable paper, the Boston Weekly Transcript, thus describes the scene at the recent author's entertainment: "When the curtain rose at two o'clock, there was for an instant, it must be told, a sort of menagerie feeling, a sense as of famous curiosities on show. The great audience, brilliant and keenly alert, in which there were, by actual count, just four women to one man, craned their heads this way and that to see the great men and the great woman on the stage. "Oh, that's Dr. Holmes, of course; but who is that gray, shaggy man, that looks as if he might be an Anarch ist?" "Why, the small man is Mr Aldrich, after all!'' "I declare, Mark Twain looks as if he had just come out of a Mississippi steamer's pilot-house; he is the only man in the lot that isn't absolutely disappointing." These were comments of people from the remote suburbs, of course; but the Listener could not help hearing them. Meantime the authors, with an air as if they were having their pictures taken, and sitting in attitudes of studied, and for the most part unsuccessful, ease, waited for the ceremonies to begin. Mark Twain who suggested, from his position at the extremity of the circle and the flavor of the grotesque in his appearance, the "bones" of the show, fidgeted a good deal and looked at his watch. He looks more hawkish than ever, now that he has begun to show his years. His clothes were a ghastly advertisement for the Hartford tailors, and looked especially ill-fitting in contrast with the exquisite broadcloth garb of George William Curtis, who sat next him, and whose appearance is always the same happy union of elegance and strength. Then came Aldrich, alert, uneasy, shifting his attention as the movement upon the stage shifted, his face, a little florid and a shade less poetic than his portraits, reflecting the sentiment of everything that passed. There was nothing impassive about him, and in this respect he was the very opposite of Mr. Howells, who sat next him, and of MR. FROHMAN has completed his arrangements for the stock company which will have its home at the Lyceum Theatre next season. Mr. Herbert Kelcey will be the leading man, and will be seconded by Mr. Henry Miller. Mr. LeMoyne, late of Mr. Palmer's company, has been engaged for strong character parts, and Nelson Wheatcroft will be the "leading heavy." Charles B. Dickson and W. A. Feversham will also be in the company. Georgia Cayvan will be leading woman. Louise Dillon will play the leading soubrette parts. Grace Henderson, Mrs. Walcot and Vida Croly complete the company. David Belasco will be the stage manager, and Mr. De Mille will assist in the literary department. ART CHAT. I. THE ACADEMY EXHIBITION. THE sixty-second annual exhibition of the Academy of Design opened last Monday. This exhibition is the most important one of the year. To it our artists send their most important works; they are very much put out if their pictures are badly hung, and elated if they are placed in good positions upon the line. This year, as well as the Clarke prize of $300 for the best American figure composition, and the three Hallgarten prizes of $300, $200 and $100 for the three best pictures, a ble for the prizes are-D. W. Tryon's "Land- new prize is to be added of $300 for the best picture by a woman. This has been generously instituted by Mr. Norman W. Dodge. These prizes will be awarded by a vote of the artist exhibitors on April 20. The exhibition this year is stronger in portraits than in anything else. The landscapes are, none of them, of very brilliant qualities. The genres are about as prevalent as ever, perhaps of higher artistic qualities than ever before. Only five hundred pictures are hung (eight hundred and forty were given place last year), and consequently very few are skyed. Rich draperies cover the walls above and below the pictures, and the Academy looks more inviting than in former years. at all attractive, but the drawing is exceedingly vigorous, and the painting is much broader than was ever done by Mr. Moeller before. I think that for the first Hallgarten prize the artists will waver between the Tryon and the Mowbray, and accordingly as landscape or figure work appeals to them will the votes be cast. The other one will more than likely take the second prize, and the third prize has some chance of going to Mr. Palmer's realistic "January." Mr. Moeller may have a prominent contestant in Mr. Kappes. His "Buckwheat Cakes," (351) a negro genre, is quite a lively picture, though I think its treatment rather slight. Then Mr. Jones's painting is very delicate, though its title somewhat weakens it, as the character of the "Unexpected Visitor" is left AMONG the prominent works marked eligi- entirely to the imagination. Mr. CHARLES F. ULRICH'S "Washing of the Feet, St. Marks, Venice" (158), is the principal picture in the north gallery. It represents a ceremony in which nineteenth century thought is rather apt to find hypocrisy and cant. Ulrich's "Glassblowers" were far more interesting than these dozen or so picked beggars who are costumed for the occasion, and take part in this pseudo religious ceremony with apparently very little sympathy. The young artist, I am glad to see, would be quite repaid for his labor in producing this masterpiece by the sum of $7.500! Five hundred dollars less than Zamacois' 'Court Jesters" brought at the Stewart sale; $600 less than Gérôme's "Une Collaberation;" $3,600 more than Piloty's "Thusnelda," and $8,900 more than Boulanger's "Appian Way;" $1,500 more than Fortuny's "Snake Charmer is said to have cost. And it is $4,500 more than Mr. Winslow Homer asks for his "Underto,w" the chef d'œuvre of the exhibition!!! Talk about "big head!"-our young painters do have it sometimss, don't they? MR. CHARLES M. KURTZ publishes his National Academy Notes" again this year, with a large number of illustrations from drawings by the artists from their own works. Next year the "Notes" will have, in addition to the reproduction from the artist's drawings, photogravures-reproductions direct from the paintings. This will be a welcome feature. We are indebted to Mr. Kurtz's kindness for the illustration in this text. It is a sketch by Mr. Birney of his "Harmony" (113) which is hung in the corridor. The painting in the work is rather harsh in some parts, lacking freedom and mellowness, but the figures Mr. Birney has introduced are full of character and their poses extremely natural. Ernest Knaufft. SHORT SKETCHES ABOUT THE AMATEURS. I. MISS De wolf. MISS ELSIE ANDERSON DE WOLF made her first bow before the public at the private residence of Mrs. Eggleston's, Washington Square, in the "Lone of a Lover." Her second appearance was at the University Club Theatre in a play called "L'été de la St. Martin." After this Miss de Wolf went abroad and played before the Prince and Princess of Wales in the "White Milliner" by Douglas Jerrold, at Charles Wyndham's Criterion Theatre, for the benefit of a church charity. It was repeated shortly afterwards for the benefit of the wives of Soudan. On returning to New York, Miss de Wolf next played with the Amateur Comedy Club in "A Cup of Tea," "Withered Leaves," a comedy by Mr. Broughton being played the same evening, the performance on the whole being a remarkably fine one, Miss de Wolf especially distinguished herself in the character of Lady Clara Seymour, and Mr. Evert J. Wendell, who acted the part of Sir Charles Seymour, made his first artistic success. This performance took place in the spring of 1886. Nothing further of note occurred now until the fall, when Miss de Wolf, with the aid of Mrs. James Brown Potter, Mrs. Oliver Sumner Teall and Miss Alice Lawrence opened the beautiful little Theatre at Tuxedo, October 27, 1886. “A Cup of Tea" and Mrs. Burton Harrison's charming one-act comedy, "Weeping Wives," formed the programme Miss de Wolf's next appearance was with the Amateur Comedy Club in the concert hall of the Metropolitan Opera House, acting the part of Maud Ashley in "Sunshine Anything for a Change" being the second play on the bill. Again at the cosy theatre at Tuxedo where, with the assistance of Mr. Edward Fales Coward, she gave "Drifted Apart," and two scenes from Sheridan Knowles' play "The Hunchback." The audience, although being a small one, seemed so struck by the very clever and artistic way in which Miss de Wolf impersonated the character of Helen, that she determined to make this part one of her best, which I can safely say she has put beyond the reach of any amateur, and better even than many professionals. The date of this performance was December 26. On the following evening Miss de Wolf repeated the part of Lady Bloomfield in "Drifted Apart" in the concert hall of the Metropolitan Opera House, in aid of the Newsboys' West Side Lodging House, A Poetic Proposal" and "Sugar and Cream completed the programme. On January 6, Miss de Wolf again performed Helen in the scenes from "The Hunchback,” at the Lyceum Theatre, before a large and enthusiastic audience. On January 13, Miss de Wolf acted the part of Mrs. Prettipet, in Mrs. Burton Harrison's play called “A Mouse Trap." This was at the Madison Square Theatre, on the afternoons of January 13 and 14. On the evening of the 27th of the same month, Miss de Wolf again enacted Helen, every performance being a little better than the one preceding. Miss de Wolf's last appearance this year was at the private residence of Mrs. Blanchard in the Circus Rider," when Frank Rodney of Miss Helen Dauvray's company took the leading rôle. Of all that Miss de Wolf has attempted, Helen in the scenes from "The Hunchback is by far the best. Miss de Wolf sailed for Europe Saturday. Valentine G. Hall. MY CASTLE. My garret's up five flights of stair, From below in the far distant street, Of the legions of hunters for cash, As they rush and they fume and they flurry, Without mercy to foe or to friend; Heedless of all in their hurry, Save the quarry they all hope to rend. And I laugh as I look on the world, From my sill, 'twixt the leaves of my plants; And thank God that my destiny hurled Me so far from the venomous ants. They call me a dreamer, a fool, Because I hate bustle and noise; I say, as a rule I am poor, But I mean only poor as to money; Tho' the wolf has oft bay'd at my door, My crust has been spread with sweet honey. The honey of love and devotion, The sweets that make poverty light, And waken the bitterest potion, Or make cheerful the sorriest plight. Yes, love, it sits smilingly there, As I write for our butter and bread; Pausing, I look towards her chair And admire the turn of her head. At my gaze, I can see the soft blushes, Her tender, sweet eyes raised to mine, She is queen of my crust and my honey; Charles Kent. IN THE LIMELIGHT'S GLARE. THERE is a silver tinge over the Island of Manhatta. The gin fizzes with the electricity and the merry click of the high-heeled bottine, enlivens the pave from Ward One to the maximum. It is night in New York. It is also night in New Jersey, and the kine are housed, the lamps are smelling in the same key with the miasmal meadows, while the Newark dude is just getting over to Orange in his frock coat and Derby hat to see the young thing who intends to say a decisive little monosyllabic "Yes," just as soon as the Newarkite's weekly income gets as high as his collar, so that his voice won't tremble when he asks "Will you?" What a wide difference there is in nights. Some are so large and glittering, full of mir rors, gorgeous pageants, half-obscured intimations of magnificent possibilities that float on the current of sparkling fluids into the realizations of paradis:acal actualities, and end, so they tell me, with a very large head in the morning. The latest thing in breakfasts has little charm after a night like this. The crickets do not chirrup on a metropolitan night. The subdued murmurings of the country are ignored by everything, including operatic dogs. Perfect sleep is the algebraic X. Compared with London or Paris, New York is as pure as a snowball. A snowball is a pretty thing to look at, but you don't want to run against it very hard. And if the rural divine desires to penetrate to the centre of this town and not get hurt, he should select mid-day, when the sun is thawing things. But of its iniquity I do not write. The hour is eight and Broadway is roaring like ten thousand Bengal tigers. There is a big exhilarating rush up and down through the theatre district. A kinder light than the sun heightens the feminine loveliness that is suspended from masculine sturdiness, and draws flashing rays from the facets of countless jewels and the irises of a myriad of expectant eyes. The elegantly dressed mob is on pleasure bent, with the amenities of life down at the other end of the town. The luminous shirtfronts that loom from cab interiors suggest royalty on a racket, and the aroma of patchouli floating back from the brunette going up to Wallack's, meets and mingles with the fragrance of violets that leaves the skurrying form of the blonde who is cutting across the street to Daly's. Ohé, Mama, but I'm so glad I was born. The mere invigoration of these whirling surroundings gives a zest to existence worth the long day's toil and worry. "I've got tickets, if yer want 'em. Give 'em to yer in the front row, if you want 'em. How many?' Do not call him a nuisance. Go down into New Street if you want to see something worse that is thought lovely in society. Be glad, if you can, that you have fifteen dollars in your inside pocket, don't you see, and can pay the premium. Pass in. Wait calmly till the pomatumed usher has finished telling his last night's history to his deadhead friend and then you may gambol down the aisle and help him hunt up your seats, you will have to beg the pardons of several people for necessitating their rising in order to let you by, and you will realize the deadly enmity that those people feel for you at that moment as they trip you up and make you look awkward and flurried before a scrutinizing house. Ensconced are we now in the temple of Thespis, or the Bijou, just as you like. If our companion is sufficient, the rest of the crowd can go hang, but if it is a duty fête-a reciprocating courtesy |