Chapter 3

"When the Light Blues went out a second time R.C. Barrett, of the winning trial eight crew, was at strike,--_Daily Paper_.

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NEMESIS.

Kindly the dentist was, for he Had obviously sought To keep his waiting victims free From apprehensive thought, Providing for those souls in fear The Comic Press of yesteryear.

I read those jests of days agone, Those jibes at folly flown, And wondered should I light upon Some trifle of my own, A par well pointed in its time Or fragment of reputed rhyme.

Could I retrieve some sparkling fytte Bedecked with _jeux de mots_, I fancied that the sight of it Might soothe my present woe, Reminding me how once I had Been quite a jocund kind of lad.

Lo, what a foolish hope was this! I realised too soon The special form of Nemesis That waits on the buffoon: _The joke I found concerned the gloom Inside a dentist's waiting-room_.

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THE LATEST PARTY.

(_Being the Diary of a well-intentioned Voter_.)

_Monday_. Important article in my morning paper on the serious political outlook. Recommends the formation of a new party to carry out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy. Sounds excellent. The new party is to be called the People's Party. I decide to join it.

_Tuesday_.--By a fortunate mistake my newsagent placed wrong paper on my step to-day. Find I was being misled by the sheet I usually take. A new party to carry out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy has already been formed. It is called the National Party. I decide to join it.

_Wednesday_.--Attended public meeting advertised as being in support of the new party. Expected to hear all about the programme of the National Party. Instead was urged to join the Modern Party, to carry out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy. Signed card before leaving the hall pledging my support.

_Thursday_.--Dined with Brooks, who takes very grave view of the state of the country. Said what we really want is a new party. Went on to outline some urgent progressive reforms and mentioned one or two necessary steps for combating the forces of Revolution and Anarchy. Suggested that he and I should try to start a local branch of the Britannic Party. Seemed so enthusiastic that I hadn't the heart to refuse him.

_Friday_.--Johnson called at the office during my busiest hour. Wanted to enrol me as a member of a new party, to be known as the Efficiency Party. No time to go into it properly, so agreed, to get rid of him. Anyhow, the object's a good one. It was something about progressive reforms and combating the forces of Revolution and Anarchy.

_Saturday_.--Heard at the Club that if the Coalition is not better supported in their attempts to carry out progressive reforms and combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy, they will form themselves into a new party and go to the country. Locally we are to have, in addition to the retiring Coalitionist, a Free Liberal candidate, a Labour Party candidate, a couple of Independent candidates, a People's Party candidate, a National Party candidate, a Modern Party candidate, a Britannic Party candidate, and an Efficiency Party candidate. Afraid this would make my position extremely complicated. Decide to give undivided support to the Coalition in the hope of averting a General Election.

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AT THE PLAY.

"THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RUSSIAN DANCERS."

With that uncanny tuition of his Sir JAMES BARRIE has, of course, hit on the precise truth. Russian dancers are not born but made--by the _Maestro_, which I take it is (broadly speaking) Italian for Producer and Presenter.

When _Karissima_ goes on a visit to the stately home of the _Veres_ the peace of that ancient haunt of the conventionally correct is queerly broken. Young _Lord Vere_ loses his heart. However, that might just as easily or more easily have happened if the Gaiety had been invited. But a dreadful change comes to _Uncle Bill_--he buys his clothes ready-made (at _La boutique fantasque_, for a guess, or possibly Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY'S), grows dundrearies and goes hopelessly off his game at golf.

_Karissima_, poor dear, can't walk or talk or putt, for that matter, except with her toes. _Bill_ calls this last cheating, but young _Vere_ thinks it simply adorable--as do we all. _Lady Vere_, his mother, can't get used to being kissed by _Karissima_, who _will_ stand upon her lightly with one foot, oddly waving the other meanwhile in the air. Besides it takes too long and _is_ rather too demonstrative. And couldn't _Karissima_ dear just try to walk with her soles really flat on the ground in the solid English county way? Certainly. _Karissima_ will try, to please Madame, and with painful effort achieves a half-dozen clumsy steps till unconquerable habit and Mr. ARNOLD BAX'S allusively witty music lift her on tiptoe again. And really she is such a darling that the once reluctant dowager finally consents to the marriage; wedding bells forthwith (within); a white-haired clergyman, surprised at nothing, as becomes the very best type of padre, appears; follow _corps de ballet_ bridesmaids; and _Bill_ gives her away.

_Karissima_, says _Vere_ to _Maestro_ later in the evening, is depressed. Because she hasn't a child. They both tremendously want a child. _Maestro_, silently showing his watch-dial, would seem to wish to suggest that they were unreasonably impatient. _Karissima_ also pleads. Well, he will see what he can do. But there's an awful penalty. For a new Russian dancer cannot be made unless another surrenders life. Anyway he fetches his black bag. And _Karissima_ dances down the main staircase with her babe, who grows apace and is shortly seen prancing in the garden (on his toes--"Thank Heaven!" says the _Maestro_).

And _Karissima_ dies and is brought in on her bier, and dances (she _would_!) her own funeral service. _Maestro's_ heart is touched; he lies down in her stead, and she, dancing on a carpet of thistle-down shot with stars (I think), and her lord (I am sure), perpetually exclaiming, "How perfectly topping!"--both achieve an enviable immortality.

Madame KARSAVINA is exquisite; she is well supported by Mr. C.M. LOWNE (_Hon. Bill_), Mr. HERMAN DE LANGE (_Maestro_), Miss G. STERROLL(_Dowager_), and Mr. BASIL FOSTER (_Lord Vere_). And I thought I detected Mr. DU MAURIER'S appreciation of the bizarre in his production. But the triumph is the triumph of the whimsical author. I don't think he has ever done anything better; more ambitious things, yes, but nothing so free from flaw.

Isn't it more than possible that just three-score years ago, on a May day (see _Who's Who_), some Maestro of Fantasy slipped into a little house in Kirriemuir, N.B., with a black bag? Wouldn't that explain the otherwise inexplicable, the unwearying resourcefulness, the unabashed playfulness of this impenitent youth?

T.

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DRAM.BAC.

A suggestion has been put forward, with the support of the British Drama League and others, for the establishment at our universities of a "Faculty of the Theatre and Dramatic Degree." Heartily applauding the proposal, we append a typical examination paper for the final school:--

(1) Sketch briefly the progress of amateur acting in this country, from the impersonation of a Danish minstrel by ALFRED THE GREAT, to the Victory Varieties Matinée arranged by Lady Eve Tatlery.

(2) Arrange, in order of probability, the first fifty authors of SHAKSPEARE.

(3) "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton." Estimate the rival claims of the Windsor Strollers.

(4) Indicate your make-up for ROMULUS, HENRY THE EIGHTH, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

(5) What is a point, and how made? A "straight" line lies evenly between any good points; give instances.

(6) Under what dramatic conditions can a part be greater than the whole? Cite the authority of any two actor-managers for this theory.

(7) Explain, with diagrams, (a) The Eternal Triangle; (b) Squaring the Upper Circle.

(8) Illustrate the axiom that the length of a run varies with the breadth of the dialogue.

(9) What proportion of the music-hall comedians of Great Britain is supplied by (a) Lancashire; (b) Scotland?

(10) Which European drama requires most doors for its honeymoon farces?

(11) "What Manchester thinks to-day England will think next Sunday evening." Analyse this statement in its bearing upon the play-producing societies.

(12) "Let who will make a nation's laws so that I make its songs." Discuss the ethical and sociological significance of this with regard to (a) "Where do flies go in the winter-time?" (b) "I _do_ like-an egg with my tea."

In the _vivâ-voce_ portion of the examination, candidates for Honours will be required to satisfy the examiners (to the point of actual tears) by their recital of selected passages from prepared books. They may offer any two of the following: "Buckingham's Farewell;" "The Signalman's Daughter;" "The Death of Little Nell" (_with voices_).

For candidates not seeking Honours a passable imitation of Mr. GEORGE ROBEY will entitle to one group.

A.E.

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TWO VIEWS.

There was a high priest of illusion Who rose by his leader's extrusion; By way of amends He invites his old friends To extinguish their prospects by Fusion.

There was a great foe of delusion, Who came to the honest conclusion That Socialist Labour Plays beggar-my-neighbour And sought to defeat it by Fusion.

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A LEAP-YEAR RECORD.

"CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY SPORTS.--H.M. Abrahams winning the long jump with a distance of 22yds. to his credit."--_Picture Paper_.

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"THE PREMIER AND HIS FUTURE.

WHITHER GOETH THOU?"--_Headings in Daily Paper_.

Answer adjudged correct: "I knowest not."

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'Wanted, a Horse for its keep. Excellent cuisine."--_The Times of Ceylon_.

_À la_ cart, we presume.

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"A roof garden for cats is included in the scheme for the extension of the premises of Our Dumb Friends' League."--_Evening Paper_.

We have heard the nocturnal cat on the tiles called many names, but never a "dumb friend."

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"The Police announce that dogs without dollars found wandering after 10 p.m. are liable to be destroyed."--_Hong Kong Paper_.

We understand, however, that in China dogs are almost invariably provided with taels.

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THE METHODS OF GENIUS.

(_BY OUR SPECIAL LITERARY PARASITE_.)

The public already know something of the painful difficulties under which novelists labour at the present moment owing to the paper shortage and the enhanced cost of book production. But "the economic consequences of the Peace" by no means exhaust the handicaps of the conscientious and sensitive novelist. We are glad therefore to note the efforts of _The Daily Graphic_ to enlist the sympathy of the public on behalf of this sorely tried and meritorious class. Our contemporary tells us, for example, of one momentous writer who was reduced to dictating blindfold "because the facial peculiarities of first one and then another amanuensis" upset her equanimity. Then there is the tragic story of Mr. R.L. HITCHENS, who, being engaged to write an article against time, sent out for a stenographer, who on arrival proved to be a man with a large black beard of so sinister an aspect that Mr. HICHINS was forced to dismiss him and write the article in his own hand. Yet Mr. HICHENSis not easily put off, for we learn that he finds he works best in big hotels and not, as we might have guessed, in the sequestered tranquillity of a minaret.

To some writers solitude is the true school of genius. Yet Sir LEWIS MORRIS found some of his happiest thoughts come to him while travelling in the underground, while Mr. W.B. YEATS records a similar experience as the result of a journey on the top of a tram-car. Your advanced modernists, with MARINETTI at their head, find their best stimulus to creative effort in the clang and clatter of machinery. _per contra_, to return to _The Daily Graphic_, Mrs. C.N. WILLIAMSON must have pretty things to look at "in business hours." But the happiest of all our authors is Madame ALBANESI, who "finds her brain-spur in a blank sheet of paper, and not the ghost of an idea what she is going to write about." Less fortunate writers labour assiduously only to leave the minds of their readers a blank, without the ghost of an idea of what the author has been writing about.

It is a pity that Mr. W.L. GEORGE, in his interesting survey of modern writers of fiction in the _English Review_, has told us nothing about the methods of the "Neo-Victorians" and "Semi-Victorians," the "Edwardians" and "belated Edwardians," and the "Georgians" and "Neo-Georgians." With all these classes he deals faithfully. But his criticism is purely literary. He fails to tell us the things that every reader wants to know. It is all very well to say that the neo-Georgians "paint in ink," but he ought to have mentioned whether it is green or red. Does Miss DOROTHY RICHARDSON dictate to the sound of trumpets, garbed in crimson trouserloons? Does Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT cantillate his "copy" into the horn of a graphophone or use a motor-stylus? Does Mr. SIEGRIED SASSOON beat his breast with one hand while he plays the loud bassoon with the other? Does Mr. ALEC WAUGH use sermon-paper or foolscap? Does Mr. ALDOUS HUXLEY keep a tame gorilla? These are the really illuminating details that we hunger for. Without them it is impossible to appreciate the artistry of our young Masters. Mr. W.L. GEORGE has given us a glimpse of the working of their brains; let him now reveal to us the secrets of their workshops.

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