"I—I don't know," faltered Miss Clementina.

But the words were muffled against Mr. Maclin's coat, and he took the liberty of assuming that she did know.



LOVE AND YOUTH

Butterfly, Your little day flit on; Youth drifts as gayly by, And soon as you is gone.

Wayside flower, Be darling of the day; Youth shares your sunny hour, And with you slips away.

Woodland bird, Hush not one fervent strain; Love's voice with yours is heard, Then neither heard again.

JOHN VANCE CHENEY.



THE DRAMATIC SEASON'S LAST MOMENT

By ALAN DALE

Going—going——

Just as, with a sputter and a flicker and a last expiring tremor, we had begun to realize that the going season was, indeed, nearly gone, something happened. There was a rally, and a brief return to animation. The corpselike season sat up and waved its hands. An electric current, applied to its extremities by one admirable actress and one enterprising manager, was the cause of this surprising change, and the writing of epitaphs was temporarily postponed.

The return of the season to a semblance of interesting activity was due to the arrival in our midst of Miss Marie Tempest, who came from England just as the sad troupe of her unsuccessful countrymen had returned to that land. Miss Tempest, with a woman's daring, and the true spirit of "cussedness," took every risk, and, though even the enthusiastic and misinformed London papers have been obliged to avoid pet allusions to the "furore created in America" by the unfortunate English actors who failed here this season, the admirable little comedienne had no qualms.

Nor had her manager, Mr. Charles Frohman. It is pleasant, at times, to record managerial enterprise that cannot possibly be a bid for pecuniary reward. Mr. Frohman, whose name is often unfortunately mentioned in connection with the sad, cruel, oppressive, commercial speculators in dramatic "goods," belongs absolutely and utterly to another class. It is ten thousand pities that the enthusiasm and real artistic fervor of this undaunted, farseeing manager should be shadowed by this association. Mr. Frohman actually sent Miss Marie Tempest and her English company over from London for a short stay here of four weeks, merely to let us sample her new play, "The Freedom of Suzanne," that had been so well received in England.

Those who try to tar Mr. Frohman with the commercial brush will readily perceive their error. Had Miss Tempest packed the Empire Theater at every performance, the enormous expenses of this undertaking could never have been defrayed. The manager did not quiver. The actress—viewing the return of her countrymen, with flaccid pocketbooks, from the land of dollars—had no misgivings. She came, and she saw, and she conquered.

Miss Tempest, in "The Freedom of Suzanne," was worth waiting for. She was worth suffering for. We were perfectly willing to admit that the season was over, and we were not sorry, for it was one of the worst on record. But to the Empire we trooped to sample this last offering, and it was so good, and so delightful, that it flicked the season back for a month. Miss Tempest had a first-night audience that gave the "among-those-present" chroniclers quite a tussle. It seemed like early September, when theatrical hopes run high, and the demon of disillusion is not even a cloud as big as a man's hand.

Since Marie Tempest left musical comedy—that sinking ship—to its fate, and devoted herself to the development of her own unique gifts as a comedienne, her husband, Mr. Cosmo Gordon Lennox, has been the tailor that made the plays fit. If a playwriting husband can't fit his own wife, then his capabilities must surely be limited. Mr. Lennox proved, in "The Marriage of Kitty" last year, that he quite understood the eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of the clever little actress, and knew exactly how to make them salient. Although English, nobody could accuse Miss Tempest of being a "bread-and-butter miss." The most vivid imagination could never associate her with a white muslin gown, a pretty blue sash, a Christmas-card expression of surprised innocence, and the "prunes and prisms" attendant upon those luxuries.

Mr. Lennox had to trip across the English Channel, which is a nasty, "choppy" crossing, to find material that would suit his wife. That is always a troublesome thing to do, because the "goods," when bought, must be well soaked overnight, in order to remove the sting. This was the policy he pursued with "The Marriage of Kitty." The tactics were very similar in the case of "The Freedom of Suzanne," which was cut from the cloth of "Gyp's" novel, "Autour du Divorce." According to the program, the author "wished to acknowledge his indebtedness for certain passages in the play to a novel by the Comtesse de Martel." The "Comtesse de Martel" sounded nice and swagger, though "Gyp" is anything but that in her novels.

The comedy was very light, and frolicsome, and jolly, and—er—naughty, and—er—respectable. You had to stay to the very end, which was not bitter, in order to discover that it was quite respectable. That is where the English playwright always seems to improve upon the French. In London, a heroine may be volatile, and saucy, and unconventional, and iconoclastic, and spicy, and shocking, and quite horrible, but in the last act the adapter allows you to discover that she is really a very good, nice, whole-hearted woman; that she loves her husband in a faithful, wifely way, and that she will live happily ever afterward, a perfect picture of all the domestic graces. The curse has gone! It is the triumph of deodorization.

So in "The Freedom of Suzanne," while Suzanne danced a veritable can-can through two acts, she was brought back to a sedate English jig in the third. It was a play that could not stand, and that did not need a close analysis, for it was just a vehicle by means of which Miss Tempest could let loose the matchless bag-o'-tricks among which her art may be said to lurk. Suzanne gave her the finest acting part that she has ever had. It was an intellectual treat to sit and watch the really exquisite, delicate work that she embroidered upon the diaphanous theme of the amusing little comedy.

Suzanne was terribly tired of her husband, and Charles did seem a bit of a bore. He was the type of "married man" who can no longer see graces in the woman who belongs to him—because she belongs to him. Suzanne chafed, and wanted her freedom. She clamored for a divorce, but there were no grounds upon which to obtain it. She yearned for the right to select her own associates; to do what she liked; to have a good time, and to be responsible to nobody. There was a mother-in-law in the case, of course, and, although the brand has become tiresome, this particular lady was necessary in order to emphasize Suzanne's apparently hapless plight.

Miss Tempest's success was assured when, in the first act, she recited the story of her own scandalous doings, with the divorce in view. As a piece of acting, this was worth the attention of every theatergoer. The actress sat on a sofa, and ran through the list of episodes in an amazing way. Some of her story she told with her eyes, with her facial expression, with gestures; the rest she set down in words freighted with every variety of intonation. Not once did she rise from that sofa. The other people were grouped around her, and all they had to do was to display astonished horror. They made a framework.

You were held in a grip of admiration by the telling effect of this scene. No other actress could have played it as Miss Tempest did. Her every meaning leaped over the footlights. Not a word, or the inflection of a word, escaped attention. It was an absolutely flawless piece of comedy. The artistic comedy of Rejane lacked the richness and unction of Miss Tempest's methods. Those who failed to see "The Freedom of Suzanne" missed a rare treat.

There was very little plot, of course. Suzanne got her divorce by collusion, in a manner that was a bit surprising in view of the fact that Charles was portrayed as a man of culture and refinement. In order to please Suzanne, he gave her a good shaking in the presence of a witness—as grounds for divorce! It was while waiting for the decree to be made "absolute" that Suzanne naturally discovered her love for him, and her rooted objection to the attentions of the three blackguards who were kowtowing before her. This assuredly was not new. It was merely the popular divorce twist of French playwrights.

In the last act of the play, Suzanne and her husband were reconciled, and all the improprieties of the earlier acts carefully smoothed away. "The Freedom of Suzanne" itself, however, did not matter very much. Sledge-hammer criticism could pulverize it. Poor little play! It did not merit any obstreperous handling, for it kept its audience in a state of unreasoning merriment, and it encased Miss Tempest like the proverbial glove. There is nothing more fascinating than perfect comedy acting. It is a tonic, the exhilarating effect of which is invaluable.

Miss Tempest brought over her London leading man, Mr. Allan Aynesworth, a remarkably good actor of drawing-room roles. The ease and polish of the "thoroughbred"—and "thoroughbred" is a term that should replace the played-out "gentleman"—were convincingly shown. G. S. Titheradge was the other popular London name in the cast. The rest were adequate, but by no means extraordinary. They taught no lesson of artistic excellence, but at the fag-end of the season, we were not clamoring to be taught anything at all. Lessons were the very last thing in the world that we hankered for. Our desire for light entertainment was amply realized. "The Freedom of Suzanne" was a delightful wind-up.

Mr. Frohman, it is said, announced this enterprise as the result of a wish to do something "to be talked about." We are willing. We are willing at any time to talk about anything that can give us as much undiluted pleasure as this production did. We will even chatter and frivol, if Mr. Frohman will repeat the operation. And by-the-bye, I think that I have done both. My enthusiasm led me away. Let me extinguish it.

From the diminutive to the enormous leads us easily in the direction of that tremendous combination of high spirits and massive corporeality, Miss Alice Fischer. This actress, who has been before the public for a good many years, may be looked upon as one of those curious metropolitan figures that have acquired more popularity off the stage than on it. Miss Fischer has dominated feminine clubs, has associated herself with "movements," and has posed as advocating a National Theater, even while she did a dance every night in a classic gem entitled "Piff, Paff, Pouf!" She has "starred" occasionally, but never with much success. As a "good fellow" and a delightful acquaintance, Miss Fischer has always been unsurpassed. This role, not unusual among men, is unique among women.

Possibly you have heard of actors noted as wits, good fellows, bons-vivants and horse show figures. Their apparent popularity has invariably led you to believe that a "starring" venture would be stupendously successful—that their legions of friends would gather round them, and "whoop" them toward fortune. Such, it has frequently been proved, has not been the case. That cold, critical, money's-worth-hungry assemblage known as the "general public" has intervened, after a rousing "first-night" that has seemed like a riot of enthusiasm, and has stamped its disapproval upon the proceedings. Some of the strangest failures on the stage have been achieved by those who were brilliantly successful off the stage.

Hitherto this has been the fate of Miss Fischer. Many admired her, but that many were not included in the general public, that has no pronounced predilection for club men or club women. Fortunately—and it is a great pleasure to announce it—in her latest venture at Wallack's Theater, a new old comedy, and a clever one, by Stanislaus Stange, called "The School for Husbands," Miss Alice Fischer succeeded not only with her friends, but with the great unknown. She proved herself to be an actress of exceeding vitality and force, and she made not only a popular but an artistic hit.

Of course she was bound to do it sooner or later. We may not have indorsed her previous productions, but we always liked Miss Fischer, with her bouncing good nature, her intelligent outlook, her curious untrammeled demeanor, always suggestive of a huge schoolgirl suddenly let loose; her capital elocution and her agreeable way of insistently seeming at home. In "The School for Husbands," these qualities appeared quite relevantly. This strange season, now over, which has snuffed out so many poor, feeble little stars, has been very kind to Miss Fischer. She "came into her own."

Mr. Stange's play was an amusing comedy, dealing with domestic infelicity—of the tit-for-tat order—in the "old" style. That is to say, it did not flaunt in our faces a fracture of the seventh commandment, or drag in a series of epigrams modeled upon those of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld and Oscar Wilde. Mr. Stange went in for what we call the "artificial," but it all occurred in 1720. The eighteenth century covers a multitude of sins that are naked and unashamed in the twentieth. We were disarmed in our frenzied analysis when we were confronted with such purely imaginary and entertaining types as Sir John and Lady Belinda Manners, Lady Airish, Lady Speakill, Lady Tattle, Lord Foppington and Lord Drinkwell.

We were back again amid the "old comedy" characters, of whom we always talk with sycophantic admiration. Sometimes we loathe them, but we never say so. There has been a sporadic revival of one or two of these "old comedies" this season, accomplished with that "bargain-counter" atrocity—a sop for vulgar minds—known mischievously as the "all-star-cast." It has been amusing to watch the cold, dispiriting and almost clammy reception accorded to these "classics," compared with the cordiality extended to Miss Alice Fischer in her "imitation" classic, "The School for Husbands." Yet, if a well-read, modern playwright cannot improve upon the eighteenth century, with his sublime knowledge of all that has occurred since—then he must indeed be rather small potatoes.

Mr. Stange made these improvements. While the revived work of the late Oliver Goldsmith and Dion Boucicault languished, the "old comedy" of the twentieth century triumphed. If you saw it, you will understand why. There were episodes in "The School for Husbands" that were very clever and enlivening. All the characters were puppets, but they danced with the latest electric improvements, and their gyrations entertained. Blood they certainly lacked, but nobody cared. It was a relief to watch this amusing but thoroughly refined tomfoolery, and to know that no problem lurked beneath it. It was the Eden Musee, suddenly galvanized into life and pirouetting in all its color and brilliancy.

With Arthur Forrest, who is a fine, distinguished, subtle, convincing actor; with Miss Grace Filkins, Jameson Lee Finney and Mrs. Ida Jeffreys-Goodfriend, Miss Fischer managed to beat any "all-star-cast"—the refuge of the destitute. The star herself was so irresistible, so dominant and so largely vital, that hundreds of people who had merely heard of Alice Fischer were glad to meet her. This "venture" firmly established her, and the establishment was conducted by such legitimate means that the event was unusually interesting.

Oh, I'm tired of stars. I am—I am! Last month I devoted myself almost exclusively to them, and now I find that the cry is still "they come, they come!" To be sure, Miss Marie Tempest and Miss Alice Fischer both achieved success, but now I see before me the plaintive figure of poor little Miss Annie Russell, who didn't. Miss Russell came to the Criterion Theater with a Zangwill play. It sounds well, doesn't it?—but I can assure you that the sound was most misleading.

Nothing quite so drab, so despondently dreary, or so damply dismal as "Jinny the Carrier" ever asked for a hearing and got it. Zangwill has lectured upon the drama, and paid pungent respect to its incongruities, but he has proved himself to be infinitely worse than the various playwrights whom he ridiculed. "The Serio-Comic Governess," thrust upon Miss Cecilia Loftus, was bad enough, but "Jinny the Carrier" went far below it, and stayed there all the time.

It was an "idyll" of Frog Farm, near London, and Frog Farm seemed to be a trifle less amusing than Hunter's Point, near New York. It introduced us to rural types of deadly monotony, among them being a "village patriarch," suggesting cheap melodrama; a veterinary surgeon, a postman, a village dressmaker and Jinny herself, who "ran" a wagon, and who subsequently fell in love with a rival who tried to drive her out of the business. There were four acts of cumulative hopelessness, and by the time Jinny was ready to get married, the audience seemed just as ready to die of fatigue.

The humor was supplied by the village dressmaker, who owned a mustache, and who clamored for a depilatory! This pleasing, refined and frolicsome bit of originality failed to awaken people from their torpor. There was a good deal of talk about pigs and horses, while tea, cucumbers and marmalade graced the dialogue incessantly; but the amazed audience could not indorse this rural festival. Jinny, amid the pigs, horses, tea, cucumbers and marmalade, talked in Mr. Zangwill's best style—a style replete with wordplay or pun—but her setting killed her, and she was soon "done for."

Perhaps "Jinny the Carrier" was a joke. Who shall say? It is a bit "fishy"—I forgot to say that a real, dead fish was among the debris of this comedy—that two such bad plays as "Jinny the Carrier" and "The Serio-Comic Governess" honored New York to the exclusion of London. It is all very well to say that New York is so generous, so appreciative, so alive to all the good points of clever writers—it is all very well to say that, and sometimes it reads very well—but the fact remains that these plays had no good points. London would have laughed at them in immediate derision. We need feel no pride in the circumstance of their original production in New York. Instead, we should feel perfectly justified in feeling extremely sorry for ourselves. We might even say that both of these plays were foisted upon us in a spirit of "Oh, anything's good enough for New York!"

I don't say, and I don't believe, that this was the reason we suffered from this Zangwill rubbish. Our ill luck was due to the fact that playwrights and plays, owing to the grinding theatrical dictatorship that has absolutely pulverized the healthy God-given spirit of competition, by which alone an Art can be kept alive, are few and far between. The manager takes what he can get, and he can get precious little, for the incentive is lacking. He is obliged to produce something, because he has an appalling list of theaters to fill. It is perfectly inconceivable that "Jinny the Carrier" should have been even rehearsed. It is a sheer impossibility that anybody could have anticipated success.

Miss Annie Russell, a sterling little artist, deserved all our sympathy. It was sad to see her in these surroundings, battling against the inevitable. Miss Russell can succeed with far less material than many actresses need. Give her half a fighting chance, and she is satisfied. It is pitiful to think of this clever young woman freighted with affairs like "Brother Jacques" and "Jinny the Carrier," but it was wonderful to watch her genuine efforts to do the very best she could. There can be nothing sadder in the life of an actress than this struggle with a forlorn hope. When that actress is intelligent, well-read, artistic and up-to-date, as Miss Annie Russell surely is, her plight is even more melancholy. One can scarcely view, in cold blood, this reckless waste of fine talent.

May I pause for a few moments, and say something about the Hippodrome?

The Hippodrome was such a stupendous affair, and its opening took place at such a singularly opportune moment, that a wave of enthusiasm swept over this island. Every dramatic critic in town went to the opening of the Hippodrome, while many of them crept into the "dress rehearsal," in order to get their adjectives manicured and be ready to rise to the occasion. This in itself was quite unique. As a colossal American achievement, the Hippodrome loomed. It combined spectacle, ballet, specialties, acting, singing, novelty.

In its ballet, particularly, it invited and received the admiration of every lover of art. Nothing more beautiful than "The Dance of the Hours" has delighted the eyes and the ears of this metropolis, that fell in love, at first sight, with its magnificent staging, as the excuse for the lovely music of "La Gioconda." The Metropolitan Opera House never offered anything so sumptuous. It appealed irresistibly to the artistic instinct. It exploded the fatuous policy that causes the appearance in this city of those senseless, antiquated spectacles—food for neither adult nor juvenile—known as "Drury Lane pantomime," a form of entertainment that in its native land has begun to languish.

The ballet at the Hippodrome was a revelation, for this city has never taken kindly to ballet, probably for the reason that it has never seen one of genuine artistic merit. A capital performance entitled "A Yankee Circus in Mars" was not a bit less "dramatic" than the alleged comic operas and tiresome musical comedies that have afflicted us with such drear persistence, and it was certainly infinitely more plausible. It had novelty, sensational features and a superb equipment. In addition to all this, there was a wonderful aquatic arrangement, in which the huge stage suddenly sank and gave place to an imposing body of water, wet and ready to receive the plunging horses and riders, as they swam across in the pursuit of their dramatic story.

Two young men, Messrs. Thompson and Dundy, newcomers among the jaded and throttled amusement purveyors of the big city, were responsible for all this, and the greatest credit is due to their "nerve" as well as to their astonishing executive ability. The enterprise at first seemed like some amazing "pipe-dream," from which there must be a rude awakening, but the opening of the Hippodrome was such a bewildering success, and so unanimously acclaimed, that the croakers were silenced. One of these was exceedingly amusing. He had declared that the Hippodrome must fail. Its colossal results, however, so overwhelmed him that he forthwith announced his belief that New York would patronize two Hippodromes, and his intention of building a second.

The promise that Mr. Kellett Chalmers held out to us in his play of "Abigail," with Miss Grace George, evaporated in a sad farce, or comedy, entitled "A Case of Frenzied Finance." We had been flattering ourselves that we had discovered a new "outlook," and we came a bad cropper. The simian antics of an impossible bell boy, in an impossible hotel, and his maneuvers in the arena of finance, were the "motive" of this extremely invertebrate contribution. There was an "Arizona Copper King"; there was his daughter; there was a gentleman from "Tombstone, Ariz.," and there were some tourists drawn after the Clyde Fitch style, but with none of his lightness of touch.

It was almost impossible to follow the grotesque proceedings, and utterly impossible to find a gleam of interest in them. One of the characters drank incessantly through two acts, and indulged in the luxury of what is politely called a "jag." We might have been pardoned for envying it. There are worse conditions, when it comes to the contemplation of such a "comedy" as "A Case of Frenzied Finance." One suspected satire occasionally, but it was mere suspicion. One was anxious to suspect anything, but I always hold—and I may be wrong—that the best thing to look for, when one goes to the theater, is a play. Perhaps that is an old-fashioned notion.

This strange affair took us back to old times, when we were less sophisticated, but it is not at all likely that "A Case of Frenzied Finance" would have passed muster in the days when we approved and laughed at the works of the late Charles H. Hoyt. There was generally something salient in the Hoyt farces—some happy touch or some hit that "struck the nail on the head." In the farce at the Savoy, there was much of the frenzy that is usually associated with the padded cell, and that is not, as a rule, enlivening to the outsider.

Mr. Douglas Fairbanks, a very "fresh" young actor, was the heroic bell boy, a very bad advertisement for New York hostelries. He worked harder than any bell boy has ever been known to do, and it seemed a shame to waste so much effort on alleged "drammer." Mr. Fairbanks might possibly have made more of a lasting success in a real hotel than he will achieve in the spurious affair that was staged. A number of others, in an extremely uninteresting cast, labored ineffectively. Mr. Chalmers completely routed the good impression he had made in "Abigail," and I should recommend him to "bide a wee" before hurling further manuscripts at susceptible managers—not for their sake, but for his own.

Mr. Paul Armstrong was luckier with "The Heir to the Hoorah." How true it is that one can live down anything! It should be an inspiring and consolatory thought to Mr. Kellett Chalmers. Mr. Armstrong lived down "The Superstitions of Sue," which, one might have thought, would have proved to be a veritable old-man-of-the-sea. This is, happily, a forgetful and unprejudiced public, and hope is rarely extinguished.

Although "The Heir to the Hoorah" was freighted with a title so prohibitive that people who attach importance to names might be excused for fighting shy of it, it proved to be a play with so many real laughs in it that criticism was disarmed—one always says that as though criticism started armed, which is absurd!—and joined in the somewhat irresistible mirth. It was a "Western" play, of course. "The Heir to the Hoorah" couldn't be Eastern. But, by means of the West, Mr. Armstrong was able to get in some amusing episodes that appealed exclusively to the East. Much of it was devoted to parody of that sublime institution known as "evening dress"—popular on Third Avenue as the "dress suit."

There is nothing really funnier. Of course we are accustomed to it. Our souls may rebel at its exigencies, but unless we happen to be millionaires, we cannot afford to flout the conventions. We wear the "evening dress" because we have been taught that it is respectable and seemly. In "The Heir to the Hoorah" a number of miners and "rough diamonds," in "a mining town east of the Divide," were portrayed in their struggles with civilization.

It was very droll. Dave Lacy, Bud Young, Mr. Kelly, Bill Ferguson, Lon Perry and Gus Ferris, all gorgeously uncouth, as far as externals go, made an admirable onslaught in the direction of the "dress suit." "Immaculate evening dress," as we call the garb of a man who is rigged up in imitation of the elusive but energetic restaurant waiter, has rarely been more humorously attacked. This feature went much further than did the story of the play. But it served to put an audience in such a good humor that the somewhat trivial play itself seemed better than it really was. Certainly no European playwright could have seen the ludicrous possibilities of evening dress as amusingly as Mr. Armstrong did. Perchance Mr. Bernard Shaw might have done so, but his cynicism would have marred the prospect. There was no "pose" in the humor at the Hudson Theater.

The play had the advantage of being well acted. We often complain that leading actors cannot wear evening dress gracefully. This time they had to do their worst for it, and were asked to wear it as ungracefully as they could. They were able to do it. Most of them were comparatively unknown, but they were none the worse for that. John Drew or William Faversham or Kyrle Bellew could not possibly have pilloried evening dress as did the actors in "The Heir to the Hoorah."

"The Firm of Cunningham" succeeded "Mrs. Temple's Telegram," at the little Madison Square Theater, but did not prove to be a worthy successor. It was from the pen of Mr. Willis Steell, who rushed in where angels fear to tread; or, in other words, invented a couple of complex ladies, and then tried to explain them plausibly. There is no more difficult task. One lady was a skittish matron, addicted to betting on the races and to allowing a nice looking boy to kiss her; the other was a white-muslin girl from Vassar, who fell in love with that boy at remarkably short range.

It was very unsatisfactory. One woman was a cat, with whom we were supposed to sympathize; the other had many of the characteristics of a fool. Why label Vassar for the latter? It was, however, the married woman who was the "heroine," and a key to her character was never supplied. I like a key to complex ladies, and am not a bit ashamed to admit it. I want their motives a-b-c'd for my use, in the case of plays like "The Firm of Cunningham." When complex ladies figure in masterpieces, than the key is unnecessary, and what you don't understand, you can always ascribe to the "psychological."

Miss Hilda Spong, a clever actress who is always miscast and who is rarely able to display her fine qualities, was this contradictory "heroine," while Miss Katherine Grey, usually assigned to dark melodrama, was the white-muslin girl with the Vassar mis-label. William Lamp, as the boy who kissed, was possibly the best member of the cast, that also included William Harcourt and Henry Bergman. "The Firm of Cunningham" scarcely seemed built for "business."



A SEA SHELL

Behold it has been given to me To know the secrets of the sea,— Its magic and its mystery!

And though, alas, I may not reach The clear communicable speech Of men, communing each with each,

I have such wonderment to tell, Such marvel and such miracle, I needs must strive to break the spell.

Hence do I murmur ceaselessly; And could one but translate me, he Might speak the secrets of the sea!

CLINTON SCOLLARD.



FOR BOOK LOVERS

By ARCHIBALD LOWERY SESSIONS

Two recent books that deal with a theme familiar enough to novel readers, but always stimulating. "The Garden of Allah," by Robert Hichens, and "The Apple of Eden," by E. Temple Thurston. Charles Carey's "The Van Suyden Sapphires" a good detective story. Other books.

Two recent books are worthy of something more than casual notice for reasons entirely unconnected with the question of their literary merits, for they afford some material for reflection upon the curiosity of coincidences and for speculation as to the value of the priest in love as a character in fiction.

It is not to be supposed that undue significance is given to these aspects of the appearance of the books in question, for no important deductions are to be drawn from their nearly simultaneous publication; it is not especially remarkable as a coincidence. It is, however, an interesting fact that two novelists as gifted as the authors of these two books have shown themselves to be should have been working out the same theme in very much the same manner, and presumably at approximately the same time.

The opportunity of the cynical critic is, of course, obvious, and he will, if he thinks of it, lose no time in exclaiming that the most remarkable thing about it is that the books should have found publishers at all, and add, sourly, that if all similar coincidences were brought to light by publication, the condition of English fiction would be more hopeless than it is.

But the cynic would be wrong, as usual. If it is admitted that the new books of Mr. Hichens and Mr. Thurston are not "epoch-making," it still remains a fact that they are as nearly so as any of the books of the year; they narrowly miss the standard which entitles them to be genuine and permanent representatives of English literature.

No one needs to be reminded that love stories, in which the lovers are required to surmount all sorts of obstacles, are common enough; one of the chief difficulties in supplying the demand is to create obstacles of the sort that will stand the test of plausibility and yet add a reasonable means by which the hero and heroine may overcome them, for the distracted couple must live up to what is expected of them, and their romance must be molded by the practical maxim that nothing succeeds like success—success meaning that their final happiness must be in conformity with the necessities of conventional morality; their union either blessed by the church of their faith or confirmed by law. And it might be added that the reader, in the majority of cases, will be conscious of a sense of uneasiness unless the happy outcome is effected not only with his own approbation, but with that of the conscience of each of the lovers. If any question of right and wrong is left unsettled for them, the reader remains dissatisfied, no matter what consideration of principle he may himself feel justified in disregarding.

A man devoted to celibacy, by vows voluntarily made to the church which he looks upon as his spiritual director, who finds himself in love with a woman, in the nature of things presents an attractive problem to a novelist—probably because the solution is so difficult; to be sure, the theme is not altogether new, but it possesses an interest that is never wholly satisfied; it suggests all sorts of dramatic possibilities; it supplies material for an intense climax, and it provokes discussion.

People will differ about what a man's duty is under such circumstances, and the question will be asked whether his allegiance is due to the church or to the woman who returns his love, overlooking what may perhaps be the fact that it is not so much a question of loyalty to the church as of loyalty to conscience; a foolish consistency, possibly "a hobgoblin to little minds," but, nevertheless, one to be weighed in the consideration of the story's artistic merits.

Whatever the outcome of the conflict between conscience and inclination, whether the old conception of duty is confirmed or is abandoned for a new one, there remains the same difference of opinion. Is the man weak or strong? Is his decision in conformity with the familiar facts of human nature? Is it natural that his love for his church should outweigh his passion for the woman? And is the woman likely to acquiesce in the destruction of her hopes?

* * * * *

It is discouragingly seldom that a book comes to the reviewers' hands, which, by its virility and its honest merit as literature, in the old and true sense of the word, rises as high above the average as does "The Garden of Allah," which Robert Hichens publishes through the Stokes Company; and it is because it truly possesses these qualities that it gives promise of a life of appreciation which will outlast many other volumes in the year's crop of fiction.

In the consideration of such a book the motive power, the plot, is hardly of moment—it is the workmanship, and what one might term the self-conviction of the novelist, that counts. After all, the story of the renegade monk and his earthly love, culminating in marriage, is not unusual; one foresees the ultimate solution of this problem—his renunciation of the world and his return to his monastery. It is a theme which has engaged the pen of writers time out of mind—but it is safe to say that never has the theme been handled with such mastery, with such keenly sympathetic character delineation and analysis, as that with which Mr. Hichens has handled it. His craftsmanship, his insight into and understanding of human nature and the forces that mold it—the intangible forces of the earth and air, the minute happenings of one's daily life that, in themselves, are too likely to pass unregarded, but work so powerfully and well-nigh irresistibly upon the spirit of men and women—all this is superb and thorough.

His literary generalship amounts almost to genius approaching that of the great masters of fiction. Indeed, if any fault can be found with the book, it is that it is too painstakingly complete; nothing is left to the imagination—or, rather, the imagination is forced by the essence of eternal truth that seems to form each phrase and sentence, to comprehend all, down to the least detail; and a thorough reading of the book leaves one with the sense of physical fatigue, as if the reader himself had experienced the violent and terrible ordeals of the soul that were the portions of the actors in this drama of the African desert.

* * * * *

Whether or not it would have been wiser for Mr. E. Temple Thurston to have published his new book, "The Apple of Eden"—Dodd, Mead & Co.—under a nom de plume, is largely, if not wholly, a commercial question. Those who have shown a disposition to belittle it on account of the interesting but irrelevant fact that he is the husband of the author of "The Masquerader," have exhibited small powers of discrimination and missed an opportunity to do justice to a remarkable book, for such it unquestionably is.

The book is a very keen study of character; one of the sort that could be made only by a close observer of human nature, accustomed to the analysis of motives and to the due apportionment of their elements.

It is the story of the evolution of a young priest from an inexperienced celibate to a fully developed man, by which phrase is meant spiritually and intellectually developed by the desperate method of temptation.

Father Everett embraced the priesthood and committed himself by irrevocable vows with all the enthusiasm of ignorant youth and without the slightest comprehension of the significance of his manhood. He naturally, under such circumstances, never questioned his fitness to advise and rebuke and absolve sinners. But with the appearance of the woman, another and hitherto unrecognized side of his nature began to stir, and his torture was prepared. That his love for Roona Lawless was reciprocated, instead of bringing them joy, only added to the horror of their situation, and it was well for them both that the man had access to the shrewd kindliness and the worldly wisdom of his vicar, Father Michael.

The old priest showed his surprise when the climax of his curate's confession brought out the fact that the latter's transgression was limited to the exchange of a kiss, and when the young man exclaimed: "Glory be to God, wasn't it enough?" the other replied, dryly: "Faith, it's well you found it so."

It is, to be sure, an old enough story. But its merit is that it is told with a vigor and a dramatic insight that makes it read like a narrative of actual fact. If it has any fault, it lies in rather unnecessary multiplicity of physiological details.

* * * * *

It is to be hoped that Mr. Chesterton, who has recently confessed to a weakness for reading detective stories, may be able to get a copy of Charles Carey's book, "The Van Suyden Sapphires," just published by Dodd, Mead & Co., for in it he will find all the diversion that he needs, and possibly some information as to the art of plot construction—if indeed it is an art and not a science.

It is a little bit uncertain as to whether or not Mr. Carey intentionally emphasizes Miss Bramblestone's rather abnormal intuition, or whether he is trading, for the purpose of his story, upon the popular superstition—maybe it is not a superstition—that this faculty is essentially feminine. But it is not a matter of the highest importance whether he has or not; it is not even worth while to be hypercritical in a discussion of the artistic quality of the story; it would be a waste of time and space to undertake to throw doubt upon the probability of any of the story's episodes, for when one is forced to make the acknowledgment that Mr. Carey has written a book that will not surrender its hold upon the attention until the last word is read, what more need be said in its praise?

It is as good an example of the peculiar fascination exercised by so-called detective stories as we know of; and besides this it contains—as most of these stories do not—a lot of people who command both our interest and sympathy, from the heroine to the self-confessed criminal, Harry Glenn, who is, in spite of his wickedness, a very captivating young man, as Miss Bramblestone found out, and as her lover, Captain McCracken, was finally forced to admit.

* * * * *

"The Unwritten Law," by Arthur Henry, A. S. Barnes & Co., is extremely interesting, and written in a curiously circumstantial style, so explicitly worked out as to details of scenery, location and so forth, that it constantly produces the effect of fact rather than fiction.

Various seamy sides of society are shown up in pretty plain colors, and the author does not hesitate to draw conclusions from them, too strongly convincing to be questioned by his readers. The old engraver, Karl Fischer, his wife and two daughters, are typical products of the time, especially the pretty and sensual Thekla, whose physical exuberance and innocent carelessness of social decencies are such a manifest result of her environment.

These four form the nucleus of the plot, and have to do with the destinies of other characters, all equally pronounced types. Adams, the young lawyer, is interesting in his defense of old Karl, on trial for counterfeiting; the Vandermere and Storrs families might be portraits drawn from our own acquaintance; more's the pity.

But the story is, nevertheless, far from commonplace. It will not make us laugh, yet will keep us absorbed till the last page, and we lay it down feeling that we have seen certain phases of life with some intense lights thrown upon them.

* * * * *

Baroness Von Hutten's poor little "Pam," Dodd, Mead & Co., with her contradicting intensity and innocence, and her distorted notions of matters social, is as interesting a study as can be found in recent fiction. It might be as well not to leave her in the path of conventionally-brought-up young persons who have not her antecedents—but their elders will understand her as a product, and perhaps even perceive that she points a moral while adorning a tale. Pam is the child of a mercenary English girl, well born, who has fled to the Continent with her lover, an opera singer, who has left his wife. Contrary to the usual result of such unions, the two are completely happy in one another; too much so to bestow any special attention on Pam, except the explanation to her, in most explicit terms, of her social limitations as their offspring. Her wanderings from one situation to another with a maid and a monkey, her shrewd childish distrust of the conventional virtues, her slow awakening to the absorbing passion for the man she loves, and her final realization of the barriers which stand between them, make a strong story, absorbing in its interest.

* * * * *

Two more detective stories are "The Amethyst Box" and "The Ruby and the Caldron," by Anna Katharine Green, the latter published in the same volume with another short story, "The House in the Mist," by the same author.

The two volumes are the first of a series which the publishers—Bobbs-Merrill Company—call "The Pocket Books," designed to represent "the three aspects of American romance—adventure, mystery and humor."

They are happily named, for they are small volumes, which can be conveniently slipped into the pocket and read at odd times.

"The Amethyst Box" and "The House in the Mist" are tales of mystery of rather a grim sort, for there are violent deaths in both, but, as in all of Mrs. Rohlfs' stories, justice is finally executed upon the guilty, and the reader's sense of the fitness of things is satisfied.

The only unpleasant feature of "The Caldron and the Ruby" is that suspicion of theft is directed toward an innocent person; but inasmuch as, in order to make a detective story, the innocent must be under suspicion and must be ultimately vindicated, this cannot be considered in the light of a defect.

* * * * *

Of quite a different character is the tale of Morley Roberts' "Lady Penelope," L. C. Page & Co. The reader spends most of his time, as it were, in the wake of a gaseous motor car. Such audacious defiance of the conventionalities on the part of the heroine, such mystery and scandal as to her matrimonial ventures, such "racing and chasing" and automobiling, such varying suitors—all individually represented by full-page illustrations—such a precociously impudent boy of fourteen meddling with the plot and acting as Penelope's prime minister, such mixed-up situations and harum-scarum talk, cannot be found between ordinary lovers, but the result is amusing, to say nothing more. The best character in the book is the old duchess, for whose mystification Penelope's scheme is planned, and who only at the climax discovers, like the rest of us, which of six men her niece has married, though all of them lay claim to that honor.

* * * * *

"Return," by Alice MacGowan and Grace MacGowan Cooke, L. C. Page & Co., is a new version of the taming of a shrew, though in the case of Diana Chaters, the cure is effected without the intervention of a Petruchio.

This is the pith of the theme of the story, very briefly put, for, as she is introduced to us in the opening chapters, she is, with all her beauty, as hopeless a termagant as can well be conceived, and when she bids us farewell at the end of the book, the transformation has been made complete.

The book is filled with color and action, the background of which is the rather motley life of colonial Georgia, or rather of the time during which Georgia was being established as a colony for insolvent debtors through the efforts of General Oglethorpe. The suspicions and uneasiness existing in the midst of the heterogeneous population attracted to the new colony, the constant state of alarm from the threatened incursions by the Spanish from the South and the presence of Indians and negroes, furnish plenty of material for an exciting tale of which a high-spirited and refined young woman is the central figure throughout. That she should suffer humiliations at which she bitterly rebelled is not to be wondered at, and, in spite of her arrogant pride, one cannot help sympathizing with her in her troubles and rejoicing with her and with Robert Marshall in their reunion.

The material used in the book is peculiarly difficult to handle on account of its complexity, but the authors are to be sincerely congratulated on having constructed out of it a very interesting and coherent tale.

* * * * *

Mr. Harris Dickson has furnished another demonstration of the fact that a man can do two things—though, perhaps, not at the same time—and do them well. It is safe to assume that his professional life has been a busy one, for a lawyer who attains a judicial distinction, as a rule, has to work hard, but in spite of it he has found time to write an exceedingly good story.

"The Ravanels," published by Lippincott, is a characteristically Southern tale; Southern in setting, in character and in action. Whether justly or not—probably not—it is more or less widely accepted as a fact that less regard is shown for the value of human life in the South than in the East, and it may reasonably be said that a defect in Mr. Dickson's story is that, in some measure, it tends to give color to this opinion, for its theme deals chiefly with one of the feuds of which we read so much.

Stephen Ravanel, the hero and a scion of a distinguished Southern family, grows up cherishing a bitter resentment against his father's murderer, Powhatan Rudd, who has escaped punishment for the crime. His earliest recollection is that of his dead father, whose body is shown to him by his aunt.

After he has reached manhood, the spirit of revenge still alive, Rudd is killed under circumstances which point to Stephen as the slayer. It is the trial of the young man on the charge of murder that supplies a most exciting and dramatic episode in the story, and it is extremely well done, for all the essential particulars are produced without undue emphasis.

There is, of course, a love story, a very attractive and convincing one, of which the heroine, Mercia Grayson, is a characteristically fascinating Southern girl. It is a tale of which the author may well feel proud to have written.



Transcriber's Notes The Contents list was added. jubilant over my narrow esscape. [changed to escape] sheen upon her petal-like skin, the mys-mystery [changed to mystery] He had been an obstinate child, alwas [changed to always] "Me?" reutrned [changed to returned] Joe, with a laugh. think he [changed to she] wasn't planning it all ever met here [changed to her] there at Lindale. this interruption of your fete, [changed to fete] but, the reckless, the prodigal and the declasse. [changed to declasse]

THE END