Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. IN AMERICA. Wig and Gown on the stage and off—" Too English "—American independence—The press—Playing at a lunatic asylum—An emotional Scotchman —Fechter—Welcomed at the Lotos—A poem by William Winter—Toole interviewed on his American impressions—First appearance— The next day's criticism—Notes on the American tour— Canada—The stoiy of an editor and his wife—The coming holiday. " My American tour, which lasted over a year, was in every way successful, and in many ways pleasant. The Americans, when I went over, were not quite ' so English,' as they are now. I opened in Albery's play of Wig and Gown, which they didn't understand at all. It was ' too utterly English, you know.' The barrister's wig and gown is not an American institution. Learned gentlemen plead there in ordinary attire, and in some courts with a cigar in their mouths. This seems a little out of keeping with our notions of the dignity of the law ; but I once saw a priest smoking a cigarette in a Continental cathedraland, after all, that is even still more opposed to our prejudices. There is no harm, of course, in either case. Nothing is wrong, I suppose, unless you mean it to be ; and justice, I daresay, can be MR. TOOLE IN "OFF THE LINE." obtained as well without a wig as with it. I had to withdraw Wig and Gown after trying it for a week, though some of the scenes which the audiences did understand went capitally. " Off the Line, Dearer than Life, Oliver Twist, Paul Pry, Dot, were the pieces that pleased the Americans most; and the leading New York papers were unanimous in their complimentary notices. " I received many kindly tributes from both actors and playgoers, was frequently interviewed, had pleasant dinners given me here and there, and a most kindly reception at the Lotos Club. I went ...