His mind again reverted to the subject with pleasant anticipation when, the next afternoon, clad in knickers and a Norfolk, with a cap pulled rakishly over his eyes, he trudged over the hills to which the children had directed him. Soon, however, everything was blotted from his consciousness save a section of brown hill, over which his eyes roved eagerly in search of the small, Japanese-looking fungi.

"Mushroom or toadstool?" was his stern inward query, as the pert little parasols became more and more numerous; and he did not realize that he had spoken aloud until a gush of laughter caused him to raise his eyes hastily.

She was not three steps away, and from the trim leather leggings, above which her kilted skirt swirled, to the thick sweater and Tam that she wore, she seemed to Van Mater the most dashingly correct damsel he had ever seen. The foggy air had brought a delicious color to her cheeks and brightness to her eye which made her seem a very creature of the out-of-doors, and Van Mater stared, charmed and arrested.

"Evidently you don't recognize me," she suggested. "I was the third bridesmaid—the one in pink—the homely one, you know."

She eyed him with a wicked satisfaction while the color rose to his face. He had a disagreeable recollection, since she identified herself so minutely, that he had rather passed that particular bridesmaid over with scant attention, amazing as it now seemed. Then he recovered himself, and with that gallant movement of the arm which seems the perfect expression of deference, removed his soft cap and bowed low, as he said:

"Of course—I remember you perfectly now, Miss—ah."

He tried, as he took her extended hand, to mumble something unintelligible enough to pass for her name, looking at her with an admiration purposely open in the hope of distracting her attention, but the ruse was of no avail. She only smiled into his face with impish delight.

"You people from the East are so dreadfully disingenuous," she complained. "Why not confess frankly that, so far as you are concerned, I belong to the 'no name' series?"

Her eyes were dancing, and suddenly Van Mater felt as if he had known her always—eons before he had known himself in his present incarnation.

"To think that I shouldn't have recognized you in the pink gown," he murmured, with well-feigned surprise. "And to think that I'm no more surprised than I am to have you suddenly bob up here in the wet, after your wanderings of perhaps a hundred lifetimes! I can't seem to recall the date and planet upon which we last met," he continued, apologetically, "but I fancy that we picked mushrooms in those old times—that the earth and air were all sopping, just as they are now."

"You write books—you know you do!"

"Well—it's a decent enough occupation!"

"Yes," uncertainly. "Still, writers aren't usually very sincere; they don't mean what they say. They spin copy as a spider does a web!"

"Writers not sincere—don't mean what they say!" he echoed. "Why, my dear young lady, you're all wrong. They usually mean so much that they can't begin to say it—and as for sincerity, they're the sincerest people in the world!"

"That is, while it lasts!" he added to himself, but his listener, who had stooped to the ground and was now holding up a particularly large and luscious mushroom, was all unconscious of his reservation.

"Look out! You're stepping on them!" she cried, excitedly, and for the next ten minutes they wandered about with eyes bent on the earth in fascinated absorption. Van Mater at last straightened up with such a thrill of satisfaction as he had not experienced since boyhood.

"My pail's full," he called, seating himself on one of the projecting bowlders. "So come and show me where to pick the beefsteaks."

She pointed upward. Where the hill humped itself against the sky the blurred figure of a cow was visible. Van Mater tried again.

"You might come and rest," he coaxed, pointing to another bowlder that cropped out in friendly nearness to his own. With a last lingering scrutiny of the ground about, she came, seating herself beside him. Then, with her chin resting on her hands, she surveyed him with a sort of boyish sang-froid.

"We're right cozy for acquaintances of a half hour's standing," she remarked, at last. "But, then, I've heard about you for so long. You see, Corny told Beth, and she has—well—mentioned you to me."

"Pooh—that's nothing! I tell you, I've known you for centuries. I remember that when I heard of one of those theosophist fellows marrying a girl he'd known for a thousand years or so, I roared. Now I understand it!" (Very solemnly.)

She did not speak, and he began again with increased seriousness:

"Really, I'm in earnest, you know. I've the most curious sense of—well, of companionship with you—as if we'd known each other indefinitely, as if——"

She interrupted rather hastily.

"Honestly?"

Tersely—"Upon my soul."

She rose somewhat hurriedly. "It's going to rain!"

"Never mind. I have a conundrum. Why is love like a mushroom?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Because it's easily crushed, I suppose, and you're never quite sure of it."

"Wrong. Because it springs up in a night—that is, in an hour," he answered, impressively.

The drops began to fall softly, swiftly, easily, as if they would never more be stanched.

"Come," she said, but her cheeks were more richly colored than before.

"Isn't this heavenly?" he murmured, as they vanished down the road in a blur of rain. She did not answer, but her eyes were shining.



SOME FEMININE STARS

By ALAN DALE

Advertised personalities. Enormous sums squandered on theatrical impossibilities. Amelia Bingham's pluck and restlessness. "Nancy Stair" rather tiresome. Lesser lights in star-dom.

Three thin, anaemic, bedraggled plays, each with a heralded, exultant feminine "star" skewered to its bloodless pulp, dropped into this metropolis just ahead of the reluctant crocus. Three highly advertised "personalities" tried to weather out a veritable emaciation of drama, and the result was, of course, a foregone conclusion. Slowly but surely is knowledge being forced upon the deluded manager, and he is learning to appreciate the vital truth of the much battered Shakespearian quotation, "The play's the thing." No trumped-up interest in one particular puppet will take the place of the drama itself. This is a pity. It is easier to create a marionette than it is to construct a play.

The three highly advertised "personalities" that reached us at crocus time were owned and engineered by Miss Amelia Bingham, Miss Mary Mannering and Miss Virginia Harned. I mention them in the order in which they appeared, which is not necessarily that of superior merit. They came in at the fag end of a tired season, dragging a load of pitiful dramatic bones. Hope ran high, but fell in sheer despondency. In spite of the fact that the poet prefers to picture hope as springing, I think that in this case it may be better portrayed as running. There is a sensation of panic in the race.

Miss Bingham came to town with a very swollen "comedy-drama," called "Mademoiselle Marni," from the pen of a "monsoor," programmed as Henri Dumay—said to be an American "monsoor" at that. This actress affects French plays for reasons that have never been explained, and that certainly do not appear. As a "star," she is of course entitled to treat herself to any luxury that may seem to tempt her histrionic appetite, and the Gallic siren evidently appeals to her. It is not likely that there will be international complications, although the provocation must at times be keen.

"Mademoiselle Marni" was one of those impossible chromos that might have been designed for the mere purpose of giving one's sense of humor a chance to ventilate itself. In the serious theater-goer—and one is bound to consider him—it awoke amazement. How is it that at rehearsal a dozen presumably sane people can "pass" such an effort, he must have asked himself? Why is it that in a theatrical venture that costs a great deal of money, there are no misgivings? The serious theater-goer is never able to answer these questions.

It is almost proverbial that the most hopeless sort of theatrical enterprise—if conventional—never languishes for lack of funds. Try and start a solid business scheme, in which you can calculate results in black and white, and the difficulties and discouragements will be almost insuperable. Endeavor to obtain money for an invention or innovation that has success written across it in luminous letters, and you will "strike a snag," as the rude phrase goes, with marvelous celerity. But a bad play—one that to the unsophisticated theater-usher or to the manager's scrubwoman must perforce appear as such—experiences no such fate. This is one of the marvels of theaterdom.

In the case of "Mademoiselle Marni" Miss Bingham herself must have spent an enormous sum that she would probably have hesitated to invest in some enterprise sane or possible. The play was a turgid coagulation of illogical episodes lacking in all plausibility. This particular actress is generally happy when she can select for herself a character that is beloved by all the masculine members of the cast. Apparently, she "sees" herself in this role. She likes to appear as the personification of all the virtues, self-sacrificing and otherwise, and this idiosyncrasy is, of course, frequently fatal to sustained interest. We do not care for these sensational paragons.

In "Mademoiselle Marni" Miss Bingham played the part of a very beautiful French actress, of whom everybody said: "Oh, what a woman!" (Perhaps the audience also echoed that phrase, but with quite a different significance.) She was exquisitely in love with Comte Raoul de Saverne, who was engaged to another, and was "ordered" away from her by the father of that other. This parent was a very wicked baron, and just as Mlle. Marni in an ecstasy of rage was about to strike him, somebody called out: "Do not hit him; he is your father."

We discovered that Mlle. Marni was the wicked baron's illegitimate child. As he had been saying extremely pretty things to her—for she was so bee-yoo-ti-ful!—you will readily perceive that fastidious people might find this "situation" what some critics love to call "unpleasant." Wicked barons, viewed in the process of admiring their own daughters, are not exactly long-felt wants upon the New York stage. However, this episode was scarcely offensive, for it was so exuberantly silly that nobody could take it seriously.

Later on, Mlle. Marni gambled on the stock exchange, and made two million dollars in a few minutes, so that she could get even with the wicked baron, and force him to recall Raoul. In this act the actress wore black velvet, and looked every inch French—Bleecker Street French. It was the "big" scene, and was considered very strenuous by those acting in it. To those in the audience, it merely accentuated the cheap vulgarity of the play, that had no redeeming point, either literary or dramatic. It was, in fact, a forlorn hope.

Perhaps if Miss Amelia Bingham would not select her own plays, she would fare better. She is by no means lacking in histrionic ability. She has done many good things in her day. But the temptation of the self-made "star" to see nothing but her own part in the drama that she buys, is very acute. A satisfactory ensemble, a logical story, a set of plausible characters and a motive are all overlooked. Her own "personality" is her sole anxiety, and—well, it is not enough. Miss Bingham was assisted by Frederic de Belleville, Frazer Coulter and others less known to fortune and to fame, but "Mademoiselle Marni" was not accepted. It was staged "regardless," but even that fact did not count in its favor. Miss Bingham's pluck and recklessness were alone in evidence.

Scarcely more felicitous was Miss Mary Mannering with "Nancy Stair." Miss Mannering is not as good an actress as Miss Bingham. She is one of the "be-stars-quickly." A year or two more in some good company would have been of inestimable advantage to her, but the lower rungs of the ladder are not in great demand to-day. That ladder is top-heavy. The upper rungs are worn by the futile grasp of the too ambitious; the lower ones are neglected.

It was Paul M. Potter who tapped on the book cover of Elinor Macartney Lane's novel, with his not very magic wand, and tried to coax forth a play. Exactly why he did this was not made clear, for the day of the book play is over, and there was nothing in "Nancy Stair" that overtopped the gently commonplace. Mr. Potter's play was by no means lacking in interest, but we are exceedingly tired of the ubiquitous heroine of tawdry "romance" who does unsubtle things, in an unsubtle way, to help out certain unsubtle "complications." If I mistake not, these very novels are beginning to pall, as such stupid, meaningless vaporings should do. One cannot resist the belief that one-half of them are written with an eye upon the gullible playwright, for a play means larger remuneration than any novel could ever hope to secure.

It is not necessary to rehearse the story of "Nancy Stair." I can assume that you have read it, though if you are like me, you haven't. I look upon Mr. Julius Cahn's "Official Theatrical Guide" as rich and racy literature compared with these fatiguing attempts to invent impossible people, and drag them through a jungle of impossible happenings—simply because Mr. Anthony Hope, a few years ago, achieved success by similar means, which at that time had a semblance of novelty. I may be "prejudiced," but then I have at least the courage of my own prejudices. In "Nancy Stair" Mr. Potter even seemed to belittle opportunities that might have raised his play from the dull level of conventionality.

One episode in which Nancy, afraid that her lover has murdered the Duke of Borthwicke, enters the presence of the corpse, and there forges a letter in the interests of Danvers, might have been made into something strongly emotional, creepy and Sarah Bernhardtian. This incident in itself was so striking, and it seemed to be so new—though I believe that Mr. Potter himself repudiates the notion that there can be anything new in the drama—that it was almost criminal to slight it. Nothing was made of it. It almost escaped attention. Instead, we got a crew of comic opera Scotchmen singing songs, and an absurd picture of Robert Burns, who was injected pell-mell into the "romance." It was disheartening.

Those who had read the book complained bitterly of the "liberties" that Mr. Potter had taken with it. Those who had not read the book complained equally bitterly that Mr. Potter had not taken more of those "liberties" and made it better worth his while. To me, the book drama is a conundrum. It always has been, and now that it has nearly died out, I am still unable to solve it. When you read a book, you form mental pictures of its characters, and are generally discontented with those that confront you on the stage. And when you don't read a book, the play made therefrom lacks lucidity, and you experience the need of a "key." I should imagine that the dramatization of a novel killed its sale. Who, after viewing "Nancy Stair" as a play, would tackle it as a novel? Of course, when a book is dramatized after it has had a stupendous sale, the author cannot complain. He has no excuse for protesting. This is a somewhat interesting topic.

Miss Mannering coped with Nancy as she would cope with Camille or Juliet, or any character quite outside of her range of ability. In light comedy episodes, she is quite acceptable. She is a very pretty, graceful, distinguished young woman, but her "emotion" is absurd. Her dramatic fervor is such an exceedingly stereotyped affair that you can watch it in a detached mood. You can pursue your own thoughts while she is "fervoring," and she will not interrupt them. Miss Mannering is emotional in a conventional stage way, and she knows a few tricks. But the subtlety that comes from experience, the quality that nothing but a long and arduous apprenticeship can produce, are leagues beyond her ken. It is a pity, but the "be-stars-quickly" all suffer in this identical way and there is no remedy.

Robert Loraine as the "hero" gave a far better performance. It was theatrical, but satisfactory. The late Robert Burns was played by T. D. Frawley in a deliciously Hibernian way. Poor Bobbie would have had a fit if he could have seen his nationality juggled with in this manner. If Mr. Frawley had warbled "The Wearing o' the Green" the illusion would have been complete. Mr. Andrew Mack could have done nothing better—for Ireland.

"The Lady Shore" was the title of Miss Virginia Harned's massive production at the Hudson Theater. Jane Shore was dragged, willy-nilly, from history almost as though she were the heroine of a so-called popular novel, and two ladies, Mrs. Vance Thompson and Lena R. Smith, propelled her toward 1905. While, on moral grounds, we may inveigh against the courtesan, when we meet her in everyday life, the fact remains that for the stage there is no character in greater demand by "star" actresses and "romantic" playwrights. They seem to find a peculiar interest in a woman who has "lived"—no matter how. If, in ransacking history, they are lucky enough to discover a courtesan who can be billed as a "king's favorite," they appear to smack their lips exultantly. One is almost inclined to believe that dead-and-gone kings must have chosen "favorites" merely for the sake of to-day's stage.

As soon as the playwright has excavated a courtesan, he begins to think of the best way of whitewashing her. For she must be offered up as more sinned against than sinning. Of course. The playwright wastes his substance thinking up excuses for her. He is quite willing—nay, anxious—that she shall go wrong, but he prefers that she shall be driven to it by untoward circumstances. He is desirous that we shall sympathize with her, to the point of tears, in the last act. It is very kind of him to do such charitable deeds in history's name, and we realize how exceedingly unselfish he is. Just the same, this mania for resurrecting defunct courtesans seems a trifle neurasthenic. It appears to indicate a hysterical sympathy, on the part of the playwright, with dead characters whom, in life, he would hesitate at asking to dinner en famille.

The two women who built up "The Lady Shore" smashed history into smithereens in their rabid and frenzied effort to make her an exquisite impersonation of nearly all the virtues. It was, in fact, grotesque and ludicrous. With any old history book staring them in the face, they treated Jane Shore precisely as though she were the heroine of a dime novel. They had no qualms. They lopped great wads from her past, and huge excrescences from her present, and by the time that she had reached the last act, the audience sat dazed at the delicate beauty of her character. No masculine playwright could have done as much. Possibly if the purifiers of Lady Jane Shore elected to dramatize the career of Messalina, they would make of her a combination of Joan of Arc and Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall.

The Jane Shore at the Hudson Theater was married to a brute of a husband, but she left him simply because she was driven to it, poor girl! She became the mistress of Edward IV., apparently because she yearned to be a mother to his children. She was always rescuing the little princes from the Duke of Gloucester. She sat beside Edward IV., in the council chamber of Westminster Palace, so that she could beseech him to pardon delinquents who were brought before him in a procession of fifteenth century "drunk and disorderly."

There never was a more perfect lady. The playwrights unfortunately omitted to picture her teaching a Sunday school, and I can only imagine that they must have forgotten to do so. Jane Shore's love for Edward IV. was depicted in such lily tints that you simply hated the memory of your history book that said such rude things about her life after the sovereign's death. The historical "penance" that on the stage seemed so effective was, as we know, really unavailing. Dramatic license is a great thing, and it is pardonable when it is used with discrimination. But made to do duty as a daub, it is unjustifiable. What is the use of going down into history as one thing, if you are to be bobbed up on the stage, after the passage of centuries, as another? To the feminine playwright, the line that separates saints from sinners is an invisible boundary.

As a play, "The Lady Shore" was mere melodrama, of a somewhat incoherent nature. Perhaps if the central character had been imaginary—and it was nearly that—the melodrama would have been all the better for it. Why not invent a good new character, instead of revamping a bad old one? Why not exercise the imagination upon some original creation, instead of straining it around a type that lurks in the libraries? The authors of "The Lady Shore" might have used their labors more advantageously. It is always a futile task to rewrite history. History is cold, and unbudgingly accurate. Why trifle with it?

Miss Virginia Harned, however, escaped from her play. She is an emotional actress of considerable force, as she showed us in her production of "The Lady of the Camelias." She has the power of repression. She is artistic, sincere and graceful. Her work in this diffuse play proved that beyond the peradventure of a doubt, so that her engagement at the Hudson Theater need not be unduly deplored. The Gloucester of John Blair was extremely amusing. Such a Richard, the most imaginative imaginer could never have dreamed of! He played the part as though the Duke of Gloucester were an Ibsen gentleman, battling with a dark green matinee. Mr. Loraine came from "Nancy Stair" to "The Lady Shore," and was Edward IV. It would be interesting to know which "heroine" he really preferred. The little princes in the tower seemed to deserve their fate. They were arguments in favor of race suicide.

Two other celestial bodies of the feminine gender, fixed for one brief week apiece on the theatrical "concave," moved quickly in the direction of "the road." These more or less heavenly lights were Miss Odette Tyler and Miss Eugenie Blair, who appeared at those kaleidoscopic theaters called "combination houses." Miss Tyler used to be something of a Broadway "favorite"—a term that has lost a good deal of its significance. She appeared in the little Yorkville Theater on the highroad to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, in a play of her own, called "The Red Carnation."

No purpose would be served in analyzing this uncanny, chaotic mass, even were it possible to do so. Miss Tyler placed herself amid French revolutionary surroundings, and was seen as a remarkable "romantic" French woman, with a strong American accent and an emphatic New York manner. She fluttered through Paris in 1793, evidently convinced that it was just as "easy" as New York in 1905. She had a caramel demeanor and ice-cream allurements. She kittened and frivoled through the Reign of Terror with an archness that was commendable, though somewhat misplaced, and she let loose a lay figure labeled Marie Antoinette that was designed to frame her own accomplishments.

Familiar as we are with the French revolution, used as a stage motive, "The Red Carnation" threw such a new light upon it all, that we were a trifle dumfounded. Miss Tyler gracefully revised it for us, and made it appear as a somewhat gay and frolicsome time. Moreover, it had all the modern improvements. It seemed to be steam-heated and electric-lighted, and although Marie Antoinette did not make her entrance in an automobile, you felt that it was waiting outside. Historians, interested in the French revolution, might get some valuable sidelights from Miss Odette Tyler's idea of it. The actress herself has an agreeable personality and considerable ability.

The other "star" to whom I have fitfully alluded—Miss Eugenie Blair—has much vogue outside of New York. She came to the Murray Hill Theater with a version of Wilkie Collins' much-abused "New Magdalen," which was called "Her Second Life." This being her life number two, you felt a distinct sensation of relief that you were spared a glimpse at lives numbers one and three. It was such a very crude performance that I should not have dragged it into this record had it not been for the fact that Miss Blair was part of the singular display of celestial bodies that I have tried to indicate in this article. She is a weighty actress corporeally, if not artistically, and poor Mercy Merrick fared rather badly. This Wilkie Collins heroine has been neglected of late, in favor of such base subterfuges as figures of the Nancy Stair caliber, but certain signs point to revivals of "The New Magdalen," which as an emotional story has seldom been surpassed. Compared with the pitiful puppet "romances" of to-day, this genuine piece of throbbing fiction seems to be in distinctly another class.

Mr. Frank Keenan, with whose praiseworthy effort to emulate the tactics of M. Antoine in Paris my readers are familiar, gave up the Berkeley Lyceum ghost, unable to weather the storm and stress of experiment. While admiring Mr. Keenan's energy, and appreciating the little one-act bills that he offered with such rapid-transit celerity, it is impossible to avoid deprecating the lack of logical foresight that he manifested.

He trifled with our young affections, aroused our enthusiasm and inspired in us the belief that a permanent institution was inevitable, and then—quietly dropped out. In other walks of life, people who make experiments have generally supplied themselves with the wherewithal to wait while their schemes approach fruition. Rome was not built in a day, but if the builders thereof had been actors, Rome never would have been built at all! The actor, who is usually a singularly unbalanced person, looks for immediate success, and can endure nothing else.

Why Mr. Keenan should have expected to jump into a whirlwind of instantaneous applause is an enigma. Nothing that is out of the conventional rut succeeds at the start. There must be patience, perseverance and a struggle. Otherwise life would be very easy, which it is not. The rosy little scheme at the Berkeley Lyceum had attracted considerable attention. Critics paid homage to every change of bill, anxious to chronicle success, and looking with glad eyes at the possible advent of a new impetus to the jaded theatrical machine. They had worked themselves into the most appreciative state of mind. Lo, and behold! After a few weeks, M. Antoine's American imitator evaporated. Lack of funds!

What a dismal lack of those funds there must have been when the enterprise started! Who but an actor would embark upon a scheme, and project such radiant promises in the interests of those who are tired of wallowing in the trough of vulgar "popularity," when it was apparent that, without that popularity, the thing couldn't last more than a month? Mr. Keenan should apologize to M. Antoine, of Paris. He took his name in vain. People with new ideas, opposed to the conventionality of the old ones, expect naturally to bide their time before the public unhesitatingly accepts them. If Mr. Keenan had engaged in his alluring pursuit, willing and even anxious to "lose money" before he made it, a very different story would have been told.

People ask why dramatic chroniclers grow cynical. The answer is simple. They feel that they are persistently "jollied" along, and they assuredly are. It was so in the case of the Berkeley Lyceum plan that fell through simply because money failed to pour into the box office, and M. Antoine, of Paris, lacked the vitality of Barnum & Bailey's circus! It was so last year when Mr. Sydney Rosenfeld tried to "elevate" the stage with the Century Players. This is an age of get-rich-quickly, and there is no other object. Actors talk of art, and of unconventionality; they inveigh against commercialism and pose most picturesquely. But they are in such a hurry to spear the florid, bloated body of easy success that they cannot wait. Mr. Frank Keenan went direct from M. Antoine's Parisian plan to vaudeville!

The little play upon which he relied to turn the tide of dollars in his direction was called "A Passion in a Suburb," and was described as "a psychological study of madness," by Algernon Boyesen. It was horror for the sake of horror, which is always distressing, and it was a failure. It was food neither for the elect nor for the mob. Both classes demand a plausible excuse for stage happenings. The picture of an insane husband strangling his wife and child might be accepted as the logical sequence of some startling train of events. But to enter a playhouse and watch a couple of murders for no other reason than that the murderer was a madman, is not enlivening. It is ghoulish.

I have devoted much space to Mr. Frank Keenan and his plan. I was sorry for him until I thought it all over. Then I couldn't help feeling a bit sore. It was all very foolish. The bubble was pricked so quickly! It is a consolation to reflect that the New York critics did everything in their power to push along a project that would have been of great value to this metropolis. It was foredoomed to failure, because it depended upon the iniquity known as "quick returns." De mortuis nil nisi bonum. (I think I have, though!)

That a one-act play is fully able to create a veritable sensation, as keen as any that a five-act drama might evoke, was instanced at the Manhattan Theater, when Mrs. Fiske produced a little drama, written by herself, and called "A Light from St. Agnes." I think I may say that it was the finest and most artistic one-act play that I have ever seen—and I've seen a few in my day. It aroused a matinee audience, on a warm afternoon, to an ecstasy of enthusiastic approval, because it appealed directly to the artistic fiber.

It was not a case for cold analytic judgment. It was not an occasion when long-haired critics could draw a diagram, and prate learnedly of "technique" and other topics that often make critics such insensate bores. "A Light from St. Agnes" was recognized intuitively as great. The soul of an audience never makes a mistake, though the brain frequently errs. A brain might perhaps prove that this play was artistically admirable, but the soul reached that conclusion instantly and unreasoningly. The effect was marvelous.

I wonder if you quite grasp my meaning. You know there are some things that refuse to be reduced to diagram form. They decline to answer to the call of a, b and c. They won't be x'd and y'd algebraically. Very material people of course rebel at this. They want everything cut and dried. They would dissect the soul with a scalpel, and reduce psychic effects to the medium of pounds and ounces. That is what certain reviewers tried to do with "A Light from St. Agnes."

Their material eyes saw that the end of the little play was murder; that its motive was a sacrilegious robbery—the theft of a diamond cross from the body of a woman lying dead in a church; that the man was a drink-besotted ruffian; that the woman was his illicit partner; that the atmosphere was assuredly brutal. Material eyes saw all this. Material senses reasoned that, given all these qualities, such a play must be horrible, and unduly strenuous. But intuition set all this reasoning awry. You see, intuition doesn't reason; it knows. It is better to know than to reason. Get a dozen people to prove to you that "A Light from St. Agnes" was a dismal and unnecessary tragedy. Oh, they might be able to do it. Then go and see it, and you will understand precisely what I am driving at.

Plays that appeal to intuition are the most wonderful offerings that the theater can make. Nothing can stay their effect; nobody can successfully argue against them. Rare indeed they are. When some playwright, as the result of a genuine emotion, makes a drama, in the sheer delight of that emotion, and with a disregard for conventionality, and no hope of box-office approval—then you get a work of art. Incidentally, I may remark that such a work of art is so irresistible that it literally forces the box office to tinkle. It would be a pity if it didn't.

The scene of "A Light from St. Agnes" is laid in a Louisiana village called Bon Hilaire. Michel and Toinette occupy a rude hut, in the vicinity of St. Agnes' Church. The light from the church sometimes irradiates the sordid, loathsome room. In fact, Toinette places her couch in such a position that the light may shine upon her eyes, and awaken her in time to call Michel, her befuddled partner.

A woman who has tried to reform the lawless life of this section of Louisiana has died. Her body lies in the church. Toinette and Michel have both been cynically amused, in their reckless way, at her efforts, unavailing, to reform them. And she is dead! Father Bertrand visits Toinette, and tells her this. The peasant laughs. The priest gives her a crucifix that the woman left for her, and its influence—though the playwright is far too subtle even to suggest this—is the "moral" of the little play for those who want their i's dotted and their t's crossed.

The drama moves quickly. The drama is tragedy. Michel returns, more hopelessly intoxicated than ever. She lies on the rude couch, seeking sleep. He talks, as he plies himself with drink. The subject is the dead woman in the church of St. Agnes. Some one had placed a lily in her hand. He hopes that nobody will ever dare to place a lily in his! There are long silences; significant pauses. Through the open window he looks into the church. He sees the dead woman, laid out on a gold-embroidered cloth. On her breast is a cross of diamonds.

More long silences; more significant pauses. He must possess that diamond cross. Why not? He hated the dead woman. He would steal into the church and rob the body; nay, more, he would hurl insults at it. Toinette has the crucifix. Perhaps it is that; perhaps it is the awakening of some forgotten instinct within her. The horror of the man's intention convulses her. There is a terrible conflict between the two. It is the very intensity of drama. The audience, wrought up, holds its breath. Then Toinette, by a ruse, escapes from the man, and, rushing from the dwelling, gives an alarm. The bells ring, in wildest chime. Michel realizes that he is trapped; that the woman has undone him. He goes after her, finds her, brings her back. He wrestles with her, forces her back upon the rude couch, and plunges his knife into her throat.

The stage is in darkness. Yet you can dimly see him hovering over the body; you watch him in a sort of fascination, as he washes the blood from his hands, and then furtively, in the silence, steals away. Toinette lies, extended on the couch, motionless—dead. From the window the light from St. Agnes creeps into the room. It is cast tenderly over Toinette's body, which it irradiates strangely as the curtain falls slowly.

One must "describe" plays, even when in so doing one runs the risk of doing them an injustice. My recital of the story of "A Light from St. Agnes" sounds bald, as I recall the effect that the play produced. I insist that never for one moment was it "morbid" or unnecessarily horrible. It rang true, without one hysterical intonation. It was sincere, dignified, artistic, beautiful. It was admirably staged; it was acted by John Mason, William B. Mack and Fernanda Eliscu with exquisite appeal.

Mrs. Fiske scored heavily as a playwright. There were two other one-act dramas from her pen—"The Rose" and "The Eyes of the Heart." The latter made an excellent impression, but it was in "A Light from St. Agnes" that she stamped herself indelibly upon the season.



FOR BOOK LOVERS

Archibald Lowery Sessions

Practical purposes served by stories of trade and commerce. Something more than entertainment. Among the interesting new books are "The Common Lot," by Robert Herrick; "The Master Word," by L. H. Hammond; "The Plum Tree," by David Graham Phillips.

Spring has brought with it a multitude of gay volumes. American bookbinding has at last reached such a point that, whatever the nature of its contents, a novel may at least make an impression by its good clothes.

Trade stories almost overcrowd this brilliant assemblage. Of course, it is what might be expected of American commercialism, that our literature should open its doors to all phases of business and manufacture. Most of us feel particularly at home and in our element, as it were, when finding amusement for a leisure hour among mills or stock markets.

And these tales, like the Rollo books, impart much valuable information to the uninitiated. We can remember feeling a slight degree of impatience some years ago, when Mr. Hopkinson Smith gave us his careful demonstration of the building of stone piers in the pages of "Caleb West." But in the end we recognized thriftily that he had given us, for the small price of the book, enough points to be available for carrying on an intelligent conversation with a stone mason; a decided addition to one's accomplishments in those days of social misunderstanding.

That book came with the first advances of the tide. Now hundreds of such volumes are washed up at our feet, out of which we may accumulate regular trade libraries if we like, from which a young student can learn the ins and outs of all professions and commercial ventures, their temptations or advantages, and their relation, as well, to the mysterious workings of love. What a possession for a would-be-well-equipped worldling!

The only difficulty is, what are we going to do when these resources are used up?

However, there is no real need to worry. We can still encourage the unsuccessful author, who has been befogged by romance and idealism, to peg away for a year or two at some, if possible, unique form of manufacture, going into it from the bottom and learning its tricks and its manners. He will have at least the opportunity of becoming a good mechanic, and probably some chance of getting up a paying novel in the hereafter—with a seductive cover.

* * * * *

There can be no doubt that "The Common Lot," by Robert Herrick, Macmillan Company, is among the strongest of this year's books, and one which should take high rank as a thoroughly representative American novel.

From beginning to end it absorbs attention, is virile in the depiction of character, and most of all notable in its absolute fidelity to human nature and the modern point of view, even where it points an overwhelming moral. The story of Jackson Powers' career, his promising beginning, the natural temptation to overlook a bit of dishonesty, and his equally natural response to it, followed by his deterioration as an architect who sacrifices his ideals to commercial interests, is a fine piece of work; so is the portrait of his strong wife, and her slow but crushing realization of his weakness.

The delightful little doctor in the slums, and the defiant product of conventionality, Venetia Phillips, supply plenty of humor, and for sensation, one need not look further than the thrilling description of the Glenmore fire, which, in its awful tragedy, reveals Powers to himself as a criminal.

Not the least powerful scene is that in which his confession and attempts to atone are received by the contemptuous man of the world, who sees in them only weakness and cowardice, despite his scorn of the crime.

No reader will put down the book without having experienced some stirrings of heart and some reminders of personal experience, or without a keen interest in the story.

* * * * *

As "The Cost" dealt with finance on a big scale, so David Graham Phillips' latest book, "The Plum Tree," Bobbs-Merrill Company, deals with politics on a big scale.

In these two stories, Mr. Phillips depends for the success of his narrative rather upon theme and plot than upon style and characterization; not that these two elements are slighted, or that they are not skillfully and masterfully handled, but that one feels that they are purposely subordinated to the subject-matter and to interest in the development of the tale.

That it is an intensely interesting book cannot be denied; it is so because it is near enough to the facts of politics to make the stirring and dramatic episodes it describes seem like the account of a phase of vital human life.

The story is that of young Sayler's development from a green, inexperienced and impecunious young lawyer, to the seasoned man who controls the politics of the country through his unerring manipulation of both party machines; the maker of Presidents, the master of Congress, the terror of the financial world. The methods by which he achieves these results make up the action of the story; they are such as we are all familiar with, except, perhaps, in the combination which Mr. Phillips makes of them.

The love element is of minor importance, and doubtless, to some minds, it will be considered unattractive. But no one can deny that the story, as a whole, is one of more than ordinary power.

* * * * *

The Harpers publish another new story by Warwick Deeping, "The Slanderers." It is a novel which, in style, so suggests George Meredith as to make one suspect that the author is a pupil of the older writer.

A pair of idealists, quite realistic, nevertheless, in their introduction to one another, and in the attachment which follows, are the chief actors in the plot. Gabriel Strong, the dreamy son of a prosperous English squire, falls in love with Joan Gildersledge, the equally dreamy daughter of a bestial and intemperate miser. Gabriel marries an unsatisfactory young woman in the vicinity, Ophelia Gusset, and retains Joan as his consoler and friend in a virtuous but high-strung companionship, out of which the country gossips, who hear of it through a spying servant, develop a slander.

Gabriel's wife, meantime, is amusing herself with a military man at a watering place. The clearing up of this situation, and the pairing off of congenial couples with various striking episodes, among them the death of Zeus Gildersledge, and his denunciation of his daughter, and the final reconciliation of Gabriel with his father, by whom he has been disinherited, make up a tale in which interest is sustained to the very end. The book is full of dainty descriptions of landscape, and the few leading personalities are well and strongly drawn.

* * * * *

"The Master Word," by L. H. Hammond, Macmillan, is described upon the title-page as "a story of the South of to-day." Its background is placed in the phosphate region of Tennessee, and the author assures us that many of the incidents described, "especially those more or less sensational in their nature," actually occurred within her own experience. The purpose of the story, she says, furthermore, is "in full accord with Southern thoughts and hopes."

It is hardly necessary to say that it would not be a story of the South if it did not deal in some way with the race question; but it would be premature to conclude from this that it is essentially a problem novel.

The opening chapters introduce this question, growing out of the distressing circumstances of a wife's discovery of her husband's infidelity, and the problem is interwoven closely with the plot in the presence of the latter's illegitimate mulatto daughter. Her career and end are the more unpleasant to the reader because of the conviction that they are detailed with facts as they exist in the South. The pathetic interest of Viry's story, though properly subordinate to the main plot, forces itself on the reader's attention.

In other respects, also, the truth of the conditions described is impressed upon one, even though he may be unfamiliar with the facts.

It is a very strong tale, full of color, with a consistently developed plot, constructed with a fine sense of proportion and vivid characterization, except in one respect, which constitutes the weak point of the story—that is to say, the character of Dick Lawton, who is somewhat priggish and altogether disappointing.

* * * * *

Miss Geraldine Bonner has very wisely selected a theme for her story, "The Pioneer," Bobbs-Merrill Company, with which she is thoroughly at home. Its subtitle is "A Tale of Two States"—viz.: California and Nevada, and, therefore, as may be correctly inferred, it is a mining story, or at least a story in which this element plays an important part.

The action takes place during the years almost immediately following the Civil War, and leads up to the period of the Bonanza discoveries in Nevada, in the early seventies. With such material as this afforded, it is easy to see that an extremely interesting tale can be constructed by so experienced an author as Miss Bonner.

The story involves, of course, the consecutive gain and loss of fortunes many times repeated; it pictures the social life of San Francisco and the rough life of Nevada mining camps, and gives attractive glimpses of the valleys of California, all with a degree of descriptive power that is a little unexpected.

The character of the old pioneer, Colonel Parrish, and the two sisters, June and Rosamund Allen, and the reciprocal affection of the three, furnish the large element of human interest in the story, for they are very attractive and lovable people. The relations of the two girls with "Uncle Jim" arrest the attention and stimulate the sympathies of the reader even more than the love affairs of the former.

The narrative flows on pretty evenly, with no strikingly dramatic situations and no overwhelming climax, but interest is held tenaciously all through.

* * * * *

Another of the late Guy Wetmore Carryl's posthumous books is "Far From the Maddening Girls," published by McClure, Phillips & Co.

It is altogether a delicious piece of nonsense, serious neither in style nor intention, filled with puns so atrocious as to make the reader admire the author's audacity, the recklessness of which adds much to his entertainment.

A bachelor, hopelessly cynical, as he thinks, on the subject of women, who deludes himself into the conviction that he can successfully and permanently escape from them, is not only a fair mark for any sort of ridicule, but also a fruitful theme for a farce. The particular bachelor who figures in this narrative devised a means of effecting this end by building himself a country house—of all things! The result is, of course, obvious; as, indeed, the result of a farce ought to be.

Doubtless some critical souls will call the story flat, but to such people we can only say that there is a lot of harmless fun in the book that will act as an efficient corrective for jaundiced views of life.

* * * * *

A very charming story is "The Princess Passes," by C. N. and A. M. Williamson, the authors of "The Lightning Conductor," which will be recalled with a great deal of pleasure by a multitude of novel readers. The new book is published by Henry Holt & Co.

Like "The Lightning Conductor," the new book has for its theme a European tour, partly by automobile and partly on foot, undertaken by the hero, Lord Montagu Lane, at the urgent solicitation of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Winston, to cure a serious case of disappointed love.

That he should find ample consolation for the loss of Helen Blantock, and in the end lose interest in her and her titled grocery man, will not surprise the reader. The manner in which it is effected, however, involves some rather unconventional details, worked out, of course, through the agency of a delightful American girl. Anyone who has read "The Heavenly Twins" will doubtless find something to stir reminiscence in the intercourse between Lord Lane and the Boy. In this the chief interest in the plot centers.

It is altogether a charming narrative, full of pretty descriptive passages, and colored by the evident satisfaction the authors took in writing it.

* * * * *

"The Secret Woman," by Eden Phillpotts, Macmillan Company, is a little tale of English farm life, with a picturesque setting, great intensity of action and passion, and some indefiniteness as to what code of morals the rather unpleasant performances of its characters should be judged by.

As adultery, usury, murder and suicide are among these little eccentricities, offset against superstition, religion and rationalism, the reader may take his choice of theories. Interest is sustained without question, and the two women—an older and a younger one—who as heroines and wrongdoers enlist our sympathy, are attractive and painted in clearer colors than the men. One or two minor personalities, however, are clearly drawn, and the dramatic element forcefully developed.

* * * * *

It would be difficult to hit upon a novelist who shows wider divergences in his work than Booth Tarkington, not because he gives in it any special evidence of versatility—a word which implies something like genius, or at least talent. This peculiarity is due rather to an arbitrary method in the choice of themes.

In his latest book, "In the Arena," published by McClure, Phillips & Co., he has given a striking demonstration of this. It is a collection of six short stories, dealing with the subject of State and municipal politics. The question of cause and effect here is comparatively unimportant; whether Mr. Tarkington went to the Indiana legislature to get material for short stories, or whether he has written these because of his experience as an assemblyman, is not a matter of literary interest.

The narrations are not particularly convincing. Those who are familiar with the practical politician, and his followers and their modern methods, will find few parallels in the characters and descriptions in these tales. Political bosses nowadays seldom resort to the crude device of ballot-box stuffing and threatened blackmail to defeat reformers, and reformers are unlikely to be so easily frightened as Farwell was. The game is much more complex than it used to be, principally because the reformers have learned to play it more intelligently, and those who fail to give them credit for astuteness know little about the rules; the politicians themselves have ceased to make the mistake of underrating their antagonists.

The female lobbyist is a character that "once-upon-a-time" flourished at the national and in State capitals, but modern methods have made her, to a large degree, superfluous, and now the high-priced lawyer, representing the Trust, deals directly with the party boss instead of the individual lawmaker. It is cheaper and quicker.

Mr. Tarkington's friends, Boss Gorgett and Mrs. Protheroe, belong to a species that is extinct—at any rate, outside of Indiana.

* * * * *

"The Chronicles of Don Q," by K. and Hesketh Prichard, J. B. Lippincott Company, is a picturesque tale of adventure, told, however, with a restraint that lends dignity and a fair degree of plausibility.

Being the story of a Spanish bandit, there is, of course, an abundance of murder and sudden deaths; but as the right persons survive, and a majority of the villains die, with more or less violence, the sensibilities of the reader are not much shocked.

In spite of Don Q's profession and associates, and a temperament somewhat pessimistic for a highwayman, he is not really a bad sort of fellow. His idiosyncrasies are due, doubtless, to an early disappointment in love, on account of which allowances are to be made, particularly as he retains his courtly manners, a careful regard for the misfortunes of others, so far as his occupation permits, a very efficient sympathy with the weak and a devotion to the Church manifested in many practical ways—his piety being of the kind imitated, with more or less success in America, by persons said to belong to the same class as Don Q.

Though apparently absolutely isolated from the rest of the world in his mountain retreat in southern Spain, he keeps in touch with affairs outside so far as they affect him, and is able, in mysterious ways, to anticipate, and so defeat, all attempts to ensnare him. Surprise is impossible for him, as it was for Sherlock Holmes.

If his portrait, by Stanley Wood, is a faithful likeness, the influence of his presence is not to be wondered at.

* * * * *

"Constance Trescott," by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Century Company, stands out among the stronger books of the season. He takes for his heroine a not unfamiliar type of woman, reared by an old uncle whose antipathy to religion has made her, as she describes it: "Neither religious nor non-religious—open-minded."

She is, however, docile because of her deep love for her husband, under the latter's attempts to interest her in the faith which he holds dear. Trescott, who compels admiration by his fine, straightforward course, takes his wife to a small Missouri town, where Southern prejudice is still rife and laws are lax, and where feeling is bitter against the uncle of Constance, the absentee landowner, who has sent Trescott to represent him in enforcing evictions from a tract of land to which he claims ownership.

Greyhurst is Trescott's opponent in a consequent lawsuit, a picturesque and passionate character, with a mixture of Creole and Indian blood. While he admires Constance, he hates her husband, whom he labors unscrupulously to defeat.

The court scene, where Constance is called to give certain testimony, and does it to the confusion of Greyhurst, is interesting; and still more dramatic is the murder of Trescott by Greyhurst, after the decision against the latter.

The rest of the book turns upon the revenge which Constance, undisciplined as she is by nobler inspirations, devotes her life and fortune to wreaking upon Greyhurst, and its sensational consummation. The story is one of Dr. Mitchell's most characteristic efforts, and, like all he writes, is well worth reading.



Transcriber's Notes The Contents list was added. Cold [changed to Could] hold all he could chew. Dena [changed to Deena] turned and came slowly dressed in loose-fitting mantles of guano [changed to guanaco] skins secretary at Gibralter [changed to Gibraltar] among notaable [changed to notable] men The Wickcliffe [changed to Wickliffe] boy, Billy divorcees [changed to divorcees]—hitherto Bentnor's particularly large and lusscious [changed to luscious] mushroom

THE END