Chapter 3

Recognition placed new aspect on little affair.>LONDONDERRY perceived it was simple ignorance of customs of the place that led to apparent indiscretion. So with genial nod passed on to seat over the clock.

Few minutes later outraged attendant, catching sight of the bundle, peremptorily ordered its removal.

_Business done._--By 243 votes against 55 Lords carried MIDDLETON'S amendment to Address demanding immediate dissolution. WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE communicated to the MEMBER FOR SARK his conviction that this hide-bound Government will take no notice of the mandate.

"Reminds me," said the Bold Baron, brushing away a manly tear, "of a hymn I learned in the nursery:--

'Tis not enough to say You're sorry and repent If you go on in the same way As you did always went.'"

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ANOTHER HAPPY ACCIDENT.

(_From "The Daily Sale."_)

_The Daily Sale_ has peculiar pleasure in announcing that another of its insured readers has been gravely injured by an accident to the taxi-cab, omnibus, train or tram, in (or on) which he was travelling at the time of the disaster. The name of this reader (whose portrait is given) is Mr. Vivian Brackendope, the well-known amateur actor of Burton-on-Beer. Mr. Vivian Brackendope is indeed a lucky man. He is the ninth of our readers to be badly smashed up during the past six weeks. Now, who will be the tenth? Fill up the coupon on page 2 and _you_ will be eligible.

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AN ADMIRABLE CRICHTON.

"In the list of successes in the Cambridge Local Examinations we notice the name of P. T. Harris, of Wellingborough Grammar School, who gained credit for himself and his school by passing in every subject and gaining four distinctions, the distinctions being gained in arithmetic, French, algebra, and Little Bowden Pig Club."

_Market Harborough Advertiser._

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"COUNTRY LIFE: an Illustrated Journal for all interested in Country Life and Country Pursuits, complete from its beginning in 1897 to June 1906, _profusely illustrated with views of ancient and modern seats, Country scenes, sporting incidents, and portraits of winning horses, prize beasts, and fashionable beauties."_

_Bookseller's List._

An ungallant sequence.

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THE WISH IS FATHER TO THE THOUGHT.

"Then, after a last earnest statement of the Ulster position by Mr. Gordon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose to wind up the Government."--_Daily Telegraph._

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A TYPICAL AMERICAN.

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AT THE PLAY.

"The Melting Pot."

It is impossible not to respect the earnestness of Mr. ZANGWILL when he treats of the persecution of his co-religionists in Russia, or their social exclusion in America. But when he appeals to an English audience he is addressing the converted. It is a good many years since the pogram was a popular form of amusement in this country, and at present the Jew is the flattered idol of English Society. It may seem surprising that his play should have had so great a success in the States, where they are not supposed to have a passion for hearing home truths. But then its main theme is the glorification of America as the Melting Pot or crucible into which are flung the wrongs and hatreds and slaveries of the old world, to re-appear in the shape of justice and love and freedom. This is the theme upon which _David Quixano_, a Kishineff Jew who has lost all his family in a massacre, goes from time to time into an orgy of lyrical raptures. And indeed the swiftness with which the naturalised immigrant, of just any nationality, assimilates himself to local conditions, instantly changing his heart with his change of sky, and learning to wave his stars and stripes with the best of the native-born, must seem miraculous to the ordinary patriot. And here we touch the weak spot in Mr. ZANGWILL'S pæan of the Melting Pot. For those who migrate to America for the sake of its democratic freedom are the few; and those who go there for the sake of its dollars are the many; and into the Melting Pot--or, to use an image more apposite to indigenous tastes, its Sausage Machine--are thrown not only the wrongs and hatreds of unhappy races but also the dear traditions of birth and blood and family ties and pride of country, to emerge in a uniform pattern without a past.

For his plot, Mr. ZANGWILL relies upon a very stagy coincidence. _Quixano_ falls in love with a young Russian girl who conducts a Settlement Home in New York, and conquers her prejudice against his race, only to find that she is the daughter of the very officer who permitted the massacre at Kishineff in which _Quixano's_ family had perished, and himself been wounded. In turn he naturally has his own prejudices to conquer, and does so. But not till he has scared us with the fear that he is going to be false to his theory of purification by process of the Melting Pot.

Mr. WALKER WHITESIDE, who plays the part, was excellent in his quiet moods, and when he was obliged to rant was no worse than other ranters. The superb solidity of Mr. SASS as the Russian officer served as an admirable foil to the mercurial methods of _Quixano_. Miss PHYLLIS RELPH as the heroine mitigated the effect of her obvious sincerity by a bad trick of showing her nice teeth. Mr. PERCEVAL CLARK, as a young American millionaire, was pleasantly British. Humorous relief of a cosmopolitan order was provided by the Irish brogue of Miss O'CONNOR; the broken English of Miss GILLIAN SCAIFE; the Anglo-German of Mr. CLIFTON ALDERSON who played very well as _Herr Pappelmeister_ (Kapellmeister to a New York orchestra); and what I took to be the Yiddish of Miss INEZ BENSUSAN as the aunt of the hero, a pathetic figure of an old lady with firm views about the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath, and a pedantic habit of celebrating with a false nose and other marks of hilarity the anniversary of the escape of the Chosen People from a Persian pogram twenty-five centuries ago.

It might seem from this long catalogue of humorists that frivolity was the prevailing note of the play. But I can give assurances that this was not so. The prevailing note was a high seriousness, culminating in the last Act, when tedium supervened. I attribute my final depression in part to the scene--a bird's-eye view of New York from the roof-garden of the Settlement House. It was impossible to share _Quixano's_ spasm of exaltation in the matter of the Melting Pot as he gazed on this very indifferent example of scenic art.

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"A Midsummer Night's Dream."

I am not sure that Mr. GRANVILLE BARKER'S faithful followers are being quite kindly entreated by him. He happens to have a keen sense of humour and for some little while he has been trying, with a very grave face, to see how much they will swallow. This time, everybody else except the initiated can see the bulge in his cheek where his tongue comes.

The alleged faults of the old school, which the new was to correct, were (1) an over-elaboration of detail in the setting; (2) a realism which challenged reality. ("Challenge," I understand, is the catch-word they use.) Both these qualities were supposed to distract attention from the drama itself. The answer, almost too obvious to be worth stating, is that the grotesque and the eccentric are vastly more distracting than the elaborate; and that, if you only sound the loud symbol loud enough the audience has no ear left at all for the actual words. As for the "challenging" of reality the new school would argue that, as the stage is a thing of convention to start with--artificial light, no natural atmosphere or perspective, no fourth wall, and so on--all the rest should be convention too. The answer, again almost too obvious, is that, since the audience has to bear the strain of unavoidable convention, you should not wantonly add to their worry. And, anyhow, the human figures on your stage (I leave out fairies and superhumans for the moment) are bound to challenge reality by the fact that they are alive. If Mr. BARKER wants to be consistent (and he would probably repudiate so Philistine a suggestion) his figures should be marionettes worked by strings; and for words--if you _must_ have words--he might himself read the text from a corner of the top landing of his proscenium.

And the strange thing is that no one in the world has a nicer sense of the beauty of SHAKSPEARE'S verse than Mr. BARKER. Indeed he protests in his preface: "They (the fairies) must be not too startling.... _They mustn't warp your imagination--stepping too boldly between SHAKSPEARE'S spirit and yours._" (The italics are my own comment.) He is of course free, within limits, to choose his own convention about fairies, because we have never seen them, though some of us say we have. Mr. CHESTERTON naturally says they can be of any size; Mr. BARKER says they can be of any age from little _Peaseblossom_ and his young friends to hoary antiques with moustaches like ram's horns and beards trickling down to their knees. And as many as like it, and are not afraid of being poisoned, may have gilt faces that make them look like Hindoo idols with the miraculous gift of perspiration. But he should please remember that the play is not his own. It is, in point of fact, SHAKSPEARE'S, and I am certain he was not properly consulted about the Orientalisation of the fairies out of his Warwickshire woodlands. You will be told that he _has_ been properly consulted; that he himself makes _Titania_ say that _Oberon_ has "come from the furthest steppe of India," and that she too had breathed "the spiced Indian air." But on the same authority Mr. BARKER might just as well have fixed on Asia Minor or Greece as their provenance. She charges _Oberon_ with knowing _Hippolyta_ too well, and he accuses her of making _Theseus_ break faith with a number of ladies. Clearly they were a travelling company and would never have confined themselves to the costumes of any particular clime.

Anyhow, when at His Majesty's you saw _Oberon_ in sylvan dress moving lightly through a wood that looked like a wood (and so left your mind free to listen to him), you could believe in all the lovely things he had to say; but when you saw Mr. BARKER'S _Oberon_ standing stark, like a painted graven image, with yellow cheeks and red eyebrows, up against a symbolic painted cloth, and telling you that he knows a bank where the wild thyme blows, you know quite well that he knows nothing of the kind; and you don't believe a word of it.

But, to leave SHAKSPEARE decently out of the question, I liked the gold dresses of the fairies enormously, so long as _Puck_--a sort of adult Struwel-Puck that got badly on my nerves--was not there, destroying every colour scheme with his shrieking scarlet suit, which went with nothing except a few vermilion eyebrows. I liked too the grace of their simple chain-dances on the green mound (English dances, you will note, and English tunes--not Indian). But in the last scene, where they interlace among the staring columns, their movements lacked space. Indeed that was the trouble all through; that, and the pitiless light that poured point-blank upon the stage from the 12.6 muzzles protruding from the bulwarks of the dress-circle. There was no distance, no suggestion of the spirit-world, no sense of mystery (except in regard to Mr. BARKER'S intentions).

The best scene was the haunt of _Titania_, with its background of Liberty curtains very cleverly disposed. As drapery they were excellent, but as symbols of a forest I found them a little arbitrary. I do not mind a forest being indicated, if you are short of foliage, by a couple of trees (in tubs, if you like) or even a single tree; but somehow--and the fault is probably mine--the spectacle of hanging drapery does not immediately suggest to me the idea of birds' nests. I am afraid I should be just as stupid if Mr. BARKER gave me the same convention the other way round, and showed an interior with foliage to indicate window-curtains.

The play itself, with its rather foolish figures from the Court and the easy buffoonery of its peasants, does not offer great chances of acting; and Miss LAURA COWIE was the only one in the cast who added to her reputation. Her _Hermia_ was a delightful performance full of charm and piquancy and real intelligence. Miss LILLAH MCCARTHY sacrificed something of her personality to the exigences of a flaxen chevelure. Mr. HOLLOWAY'S _Theseus_ was wanting in kingliness, and his hunting scene was perhaps the worst thing in the play. He was not greatly helped by his _Hippolyta_, for Miss EVELYN HOPE never began to look like a leader of Amazons. Miss CHRISTINE SILVER'S _Titania_ had a certain domestic sweetness, but even a queen of fairies might be a little more queenly. Mr. DENNIS NEILSON-TERRY as _Oberon_ was a curiously effeminate figure for those who recalled the manly bearing of his mother in the same part. Of the two bemused Athenian lovers, Mr. SWINLEY, as _Lysander_, bore himself as bravely as could be expected.

Mr. NIGEL PLAYFAIR had, of course, no difficulty with the part of _Bottom_, and Mr. ARTHUR WHITBY'S _Quince_ and Mr. QUARTERMAINE'S _Flute_ were both excellent. It is to the credit of the whole troupe of rustic players that nobody tried to force the fun.

Apart from a slight tendency to hurry, a trick that, except in swift dialogue or passionate speech, gives the effect of something learnt by heart and not spontaneous, the delivery of the lines--and some of SHAKSPEARE'S most exquisite are here--was done soundly.

Finally, no one who wants to keep level with the table-talk of the day should miss this interesting and intriguing production, especially if he hasn't been to _Parsifal_.

O. S.

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HOW TO GET YOUR PHOTOGRAPH INTO THE ILLUSTRATED DAILY PAPERS.

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OVER MONT BLANC BY AEROPLANE.

_"'Thou, too, hoar Mount! with they sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward.'"_--_Daily Chronicle._

Conquered, alas! and by one of they dratted flying machines.

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"Eastbourne.--Furnished double-fronted villa, from April, for six or twelve months; facing south; near the downs, fifteen months from pier, five from 'buses."--_The Lady._

Too near for us.

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TO SEPTIMIUS ON TROUT.

(_A February Ode._)

To-day the young year in her sleep was stirring In woods and hearts of men; To-night 'tis sharper and the cold's recurring-- Septimius, what then?

Draw in and talk of politics and speeches To the old tiresome tune? Not we who saw pale sunshine on the beeches Only this afternoon;

Who saw the snowdrops frail in woodland hollows, Who heard the building rooks Herald a time of flowers and skimming swallows, Green fields and brawling brooks!

Nay, pledge anew, Septimius, such gages Of May-time's radiant rout Till, as becometh fishermen and sages, Our talk shall trend to trout--

To little trout, to little streams that scurry Where the hill curlews cry, O'er which the neophyte may splash and flurry, Yet heap his basket high;

To careful trout, for pundits skilled and wary, That use upon the chalk, Plump and recondite, dubious and chary-- On such shall turn our talk.

Then since we're of the Faithful, vowed to follow Old Thames's placid flow, We'll breathe of his leviathans that wallow, In bated tones and low;

And I mayhap shall say a word in token Of one prodigious friend Who lurks--excuse a statement more outspoken-- 'Twixt Marlow and Bourne End;

While you, Septimius, set memory roaming To That which smashed amain Your trace of proof, and hint how some soft gloaming He yet shall come again.

So shall we sit this firelit hour, contriving Blue halcyon days that hold The lisp of streams in crisping reed-beds striving, And meadows spun with gold.

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"Insurance business is ransacted."

_Quarterly Post Office Guide, p. 154._

The influence of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE again.

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INTELLECTUAL DAMAGE TO ANIMALS.

We gather from _The Daily Sketch_ that a reverend gentleman at Herne Bay has just founded the S. P. M. C. A., or "Society for the Prevention of Mental Cruelty to Animals," and holds, as part of his propaganda, that the Zoo should be disbanded and abolished, and, in fact, that no wild animals or birds should be kept anywhere in captivity at all.

The S. P. M. C. A. fills a long-felt want. Everyone with any sense of politeness or tact must recognise that it is grossly improper to wound the feelings of the lower orders of creation by the opprobrious use of such epithets as ass, donkey, cat, mule, pig, goose, monkey, and so on. Picture the mental torture and degradation undergone by the self-respecting rodent who overhears the contemptuous exclamation, "Rats!" Realise, if you can, the stigma attached to the hard-working order of garden annelids when, possibly in their very presence, one human being addresses another as a "worm"!

Then, again, take the deplorable breaches of etiquette on the part of visitors at the Zoo. We ourselves have heard the most uncomplimentary allusions made to the appearance of the baboons and the hippopotamus, in the hearing of those unfortunate creatures, and quite regardless of their _amour propre_. The callous Cockney takes care to insult his helpless victims only when they are behind bars and cannot retaliate effectively. One shudders to think of the mental humiliation that is daily experienced by the warthog and the mandrill. And even the nobler animals--the lions and bears--are not allowed to escape without prejudicial comment, especially at feeding-time. Not the slightest deference is paid to the private opinions and sentiments of these carnivores by the vulgar crowd of sight-seers. The parrots alone can ease their harassed souls and have the last word with the passer-by.

Meanwhile, we have to apologise to our cat for having recently upbraided him rather too freely for his nocturnal habits and general lack of discipline, not having considered the shock of such language to his sensitive mind.

ZIG-ZAG.

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"Young lady requires secretarial work of any kind, good writer and correspondent, accustomed to literary work, or would write up Parish fashions."--_Daily Mail._

Smocks are no longer being worn. Sun-bonnets may be expected in a few months.

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

"Anyhow, I can remember this Court and can tell a tale it plays a part in, only not very quick." Thus Mr. WILLIAM DE MORGAN, introductory, on the fourth page of his latest novel, When _Ghost meets Ghost_ (HEINEMANN). Before it ends there have been as near nine hundred pages of it as makes no difference; and the things that the author remembers in the course of the tale, and the not-very-quickness with which he tells it, must be seen to be believed. The main outline of this more than leisurely plot is concerned with the coming together of two aged twin sisters, each of whom has been living for years in ignorance of the other's existence, so that they meet at last almost as ghosts. Hence the title. But you will not need to be told that there is ever so much more in the nine hundred pages than this. There are the children _Dave and Dolly_, for example; likewise _Uncle Mo'_, and any quantity of humble London types; not to mention the group that includes _Lady Gwen_, and _Adrian Torrens_, and a score of others, all drawn with that verbal Pre-Raphaelitism in which the author takes such obvious delight. For myself I must honestly confess that I have found it a little overwhelming; but that, after all, is a question of individual taste. I suppose there is one comparison that is inevitable. I had meant to say never a word about CHARLES DICKENS in this notice, but, like the head of another CHARLES, it would come; and when the chief house in the story began to rumble and finally collapsed in a cloud of dust--well, could anyone help being reminded of how the same incident was handled by the master of such terrors? In brief, this latest De Morgan left me with a profound and increased respect for the author; some little envy for the reader whose time and taste enable him to enjoy it as it should be enjoyed; and, for proof-readers and reviewers, a very pure sympathy.

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