Chapter IV: Stephen Crane (1)

The author of _The Red Badge of Courage_ has lately been the subject of a brilliant biography. Mr. Thomas Beer’s _Stephen Crane: A Study in American Letters_ has the color and the abiding fascination of its subject, if sometimes a trifle too cryptic and oracular. The point of _The Red Badge of Courage_ is its record of war as the experience of the individual, any war in any age. The book, a product of purely imaginative experience by a youth of twenty-two to twenty-four, lights up its single theme as completely as a Verrey flare exposes some small corner of a battle. Reading either Crane’s work or Mr. Beer’s study, one can no more doubt that Crane was a genius. He had the intense, piercing, personal vision of the isolated, unexplained (and unexplainable) artist. Such a figure is not to be produced by any sedulous process of education; it is not a triumphant burbank of literary cultivation. Although people remember, or, at least, generally have heard of, _The Red Badge of Courage_, there is a sharp need for republication of most of Crane’s work in a good edition; for _The Open Boat_ and _The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky_ are of the utmost importance, the first on the evidence of Joseph Conrad, the second on the evidence of Stephen Crane. If one were asked to pick the American authors of most interesting significance to literature at large, one would do well, I think, to let both Poe and Hawthorne wait at one side while one weighed carefully Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane.

* * * * *

Other authors whose use of American history in fiction has interested huge audiences are Everett T. Tomlinson, Elmer Russell Gregor, Frederick Trevor Hill and Bernard Marshall. It is perhaps natural that their fiction should be spoken of, as Altsheler’s is often spoken of, as “stories for boys.” There is conclusive evidence, however, that about half of the readers of Altsheler are adults; and the percentage of adult readers for the books by Mr. Tomlinson, Mr. Gregor, Mr. Hill and Mr. Marshall is heavy. This might be inferred easily enough from the simple fact that between 1,250,000 and 1,500,000 copies of Mr. Tomlinson’s books have been sold.

Everett T. Tomlinson, born in 1859, had a boyish passion for natural history and another for baseball. From Williams College he went into teaching, becoming headmaster of a boys’ school, where he still played ball. For twenty-three years he was pastor of a church in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was appointed a member of the New Jersey Public Library Commission when it was formed in 1901, and became its chairman in 1921. His first book appeared thirty years ago. Besides many fictions, such as _The Mysterious Rifleman_ and _Scouting on the Border_, he is the author of a _Young People’s History of the American Revolution_ and such books as _Places Young Americans Want to Know_ and _Fighters Young Americans Want to Know_. His new book (1924) is called _Pioneer Scouts of Ohio_.

Elmer Russell Gregor, born in 1878, was graduated from a military academy and spent twenty-four hours in the drygoods business, six months in real estate, and more successful periods as a farmer and stock raiser, and in lumbering, quarrying and mining. His real job since 1910 has been writing, but, as he says, his hobbies are Indians (foremost), ornithology, natural history, forestry, hunting and fishing, and breeding prize-winning dogs, chickens and pigeons, so “you see I don’t have much time for work.” He lives in Southport, Connecticut, but has traveled much and “my circle of intimate acquaintances includes cowboys, ‘sour-doughs’ (miners), Injuns, mountaineers, and lumberjacks—all good fellows.” The books that have been most popular with his readers are stories of young Indian chiefs, divided into two series, the Western Indian Stories and the Eastern Indian Stories, and, most recently, the Jim Mason series, which follows the fortunes of a white frontiersman in the days of the French and Indian wars. _Captain Jim Mason_ (1924) is his latest work.

Frederick Trevor Hill, born in 1866, a graduate of Yale and a graduate in law at Columbia, on the staff of General Pershing and cited by Pershing, is the author of very widely-known books on the law, both as fact and as material for fiction. His interest in American history has led him to study the three or four outstanding figures in such books as _On the Trail of Grant and Lee_, _On the Trail of Washington_, and _Washington The Man of Action_. Why, it may be asked, two books on the Father of his country? And the response must be that _On the Trail of Washington_ is, as the subtitle explains, “a narrative of Washington’s boyhood and manhood, based on his writings and other authentic documents,” and is concerned with the growth of early years; whereas _Washington The Man of Action_ is an attempt to portray the mature man as he really was, not as the plaster saint of his earliest biographers.

Bernard Marshall was born on a farm twenty miles south of Boston, one of a family fond of books and music. Having resolved to be a writer, he thought he could play in orchestras and make a living until he had his foothold as an author. Thereupon twenty years were passed as a musician, a legal stenographer, a writer of technical articles and in advertising work. Then, after trying to help build ships to win the war, Mr. Marshall settled in Berkeley, California, a half mile from the university, and began to write historical romances, _Walter of Tiverton_, _Cedric the Forester_, and _The Torch Bearers_. The last two and his new American historical romance, _Redcoat and Minute Man_, form a Liberty Series, showing three crucial points in the history of the Anglo-Saxon struggle for popular liberties, Magna Charta (_Cedric the Forester_), Oliver Cromwell (_The Torch Bearers_), and the American Revolution (_Redcoat and Minute Man_).

BOOKS BY EMERSON HOUGH

1895 _The Singing Mouse Stories_
1897 _The Story of the Cowboy_
1900 _The Girl at the Half-Way House_
1902 _The Mississippi Bubble_
1903 _The Way to the West_
1904 _The Law of the Land_
1905 _Heart’s Desire_
1906 _The King of Gee Whiz_
1906 _The Story of the Outlaw_
1907 _The Way of a Man_
1909 _Fifty-Four Forty or Fight_
1909 _The Sowing_
1910 _The Young Alaskans_
1911 _The Purchase Price_
1912 _John Rawn—Prominent Citizen_
1913 _The Lady and the Pirate_
1913 _The Young Alaskans in the Rockies_
1914 _The Young Alaskans on the Trail_
1915 _The Magnificent Adventure_
1916 _The Man Next Door_
1917 _The Broken Gate_
1918 _The Young Alaskans in the Far North_
1918 _The Way Out_
1919 _The Sagebrusher_
1919 _The Web_
1922 _The Covered Wagon_
1923 _North of 36_
1924 _Mother of Gold_

SOURCES ON EMERSON HOUGH

_The Men Who Make Our Novels_, by George Gordon. Moffat, Yard and Company. Page 140 _et seq._ This book now published by Dodd, Mead and Company.

Autobiographical article in the American Magazine: 1918 or earlier.

Editorial article in the Saturday Evening Post, April or May, 1923.

“A Defense of the American Tradition,” by William MacLeod Raine, in the Author and Journalist, Denver, Colorado, 1923.

BOOKS BY JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

THE YOUNG TRAILERS SERIES: Frontier Life in the Revolution. Two boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, and three scouts are the chief characters:

_The Young Trailers_
_The Forest Runners_
_The Free Rangers_
_The Eyes of the Woods_
_The Keepers of the Trail_
_The Riflemen of the Ohio_
_The Scouts of the Valley_
_The Border Watch_

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR SERIES. The period is from 1754 to 1763 and the central characters are Robert Lennox, an American boy; Tayoga, an Onondaga Indian; and David Willet, a hunter:

_The Hunters of the Hills_
_The Shadow of the North_
_The Rulers of the Lakes_
_The Masters of the Peaks_
_The Lords of the Wild_
_The Sun of Quebec_

THE TEXAN SERIES. Three stories of the Texas struggle for independence, with an American boy, Ned Fulton, in the foreground:

_The Texan Star_
_The Texan Scouts_
_The Texan Triumph_

THE CIVIL WAR SERIES. The principal battles of the Civil War are covered. In four of the stories Dick Mason, who fights for the North, is the leading character; in the other four his cousin, Harry Kenton, fighting on the Southern side, is featured:

_The Guns of Bull Run_
_The Guns of Shiloh_
_The Scouts of Stonewall_
_The Sword of Antietam_
_The Star of Gettysburg_
_The Rock of Chickamauga_
_The Shades of the Wilderness_
_The Tree of Appomattox_

INDIAN WARS OF THE WEST AND SOUTHWEST. Not a series:

_Apache Gold_
_The Last of the Chiefs_ (Custer’s defeat)
_The Quest of the Four_ (Mexican War)

THE GREAT WEST SERIES:

_The Great Sioux Trail_
_The Lost Hunters_

THE WORLD WAR SERIES. John Scott, a young American in Germany when the war opens, and Phillip Lannes, a young French friend, are the central figures:

_The Guns of Europe_
_The Hosts of the Air_
_The Forest of Swords_

HISTORICAL ROMANCES. More definitely for older readers. Not in series:

_A Soldier of Manhattan_ (French and Indian War)
_The Sun of Saratoga_ (Burgoyne’s surrender)
_The Wilderness Road_ (Pioneers west of the Alleghenies)
_My Captive_ (Revolutionary romance)
_A Herald of the West_ (War of 1812)
_In Circling Camps_ (Civil War)
_The Last Rebel_
_The Candidate_ (the romance of a political campaign)

SOURCES ON JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

“Joseph A. Altsheler and American History,” by Anne Carroll Moore. Pamphlet published by D. Appleton & Company.

Article by Anne Carroll Moore in The Bookman for November, 1918. Reprinted in _Roads to Childhood_, by Anne Carroll Moore.

“Some Worthwhile Books,” by Robert Page Lincoln in The Review.

“A Kentucky Writer of Historical Novels,” by John Wilson Townsend, in the Lexington (Kentucky) Leader for 18 May 1912.

BOOKS BY THOMAS DIXON

1891 _Living Problems in Religion and Social Science_
1894 _Sermons on Ingersoll_
1897 _The Failure of Protestantism in New York_
1902 _What Is Religion?_
1902 _The Leopard’s Spots_
1903 _The One Woman_
1905 _The Clansman_
1905 _The Life Worth Living_
1907 _The Traitor_
1909 _Comrades_
1911 _The Root of Evil_
1912 _The Sins of the Father_
1913 _The Southerner_ (Abraham Lincoln)
1914 _The Victim_ (Jefferson Davis)
1915 _The Foolish Virgin_
1916 _The Fall of a Nation_
1918 _The Way of a Man_
1920 _A Man of the People._ Play. (Abraham Lincoln)
1921 _The Man in Gray_ (Robert E. Lee)
1924 _The Black Hood_

SOURCES ON THOMAS DIXON

“The Men Who Make Our Novels,” by George Gordon, page 249. Moffat, Yard and Company (now published by Dodd, Mead and Company).

Articles on the photoplay, “The Birth of a Nation,” made from _The Clansman_ are too numerous to be cited. The reader may consult the READERS’ GUIDE TO PERIODICAL LITERATURE for 1915-16.

BOOKS BY STEPHEN CRANE

1895 _The Red Badge of Courage_

SOURCES ON STEPHEN CRANE

_Stephen Crane: A Study in American Letters_, by Thomas Beer. Alfred A. Knopf: 1923.

BOOKS BY EVERETT T. TOMLINSON

(For more complete list, see _Who’s Who in America_: 1924-25)

1908 _Scouting with Mad Anthony_
1915 _Places Young Americans Want to Know_
1916 _The Trail of the Mohawk Chief_
1917 _The Story of General Pershing_
1918 _Fighters Young Americans Want to Know_
1920 _The Pursuit of the Apache Chief_
1920 _Scouting on the Border_
1921 _The Mysterious Rifleman_
1921 _Young People’s History of the American Revolution_
1923 _Scouting on the Old Frontier_
1923 _Stories of the American Revolution_
1924 _Scouting in the Wilderness_
1924 _The Pioneer Scouts of Ohio_

SOURCES ON EVERETT T. TOMLINSON

“The Historical Story for Boys,” by Everett T. Tomlinson. Booklet published by D. Appleton & Company.

_Who’s Who in America._

BOOKS BY ELMER RUSSELL GREGOR

JIM MASON STORIES. The hero is a young frontiersman.

1923 _Jim Mason, Backwoodsman_
1923 _Jim Mason, Scout_
1924 _Captain Jim Mason_

WESTERN INDIAN STORIES. The hero is White Otter, a young Sioux chief:

1917 _White Otter_
1920 _The War Trail_
1922 _Three Sioux Scouts_

EASTERN INDIAN STORIES. The hero is Running Fox, a young chief of the Delawares:

1918 _Running Fox_
1920 _The White Wolf_
1922 _Spotted Deer_

BOOKS BY FREDERICK TREVOR HILL

(For more complete list, see _Who’s Who in America_)

1909 _On the Trail of Washington_
1911 _On the Trail of Grant and Lee_
1914 _Washington the Man of Action_

BOOKS BY BERNARD MARSHALL

1921 _Cedric the Forester_
1923 _The Torch Bearers_
1923 _Walter of Tiverton_
1924 _Redcoat and Minute Man_

15. The Fireside Theatre

i

As the cost of the theater mounts up—the price of seats, the price of achieving Broadway productions—the Fireside Theater audience is steadily recruited. If there has existed a prejudice against reading plays, it is melting. The mere force of conditions would tend to destroy such a prejudice. The path to Broadway becomes steadily more difficult and the path away from Broadway narrower—all because it costs too much to produce a play on Broadway, and far too much to take the play, once so produced, on the road. Soon the Broadway theater will survive as the horse survives; and Broadway productions, inspired by the same motives as the production of horse races, will be nobly upheld by the same justificatory excuse—it will be argued that they improve the breed of plays.

It does no harm to have a few horse shows or to have a few Broadway productions; but the truth must be stated that the theater in America no longer depends upon the amusement business in the vicinity of Forty-second Street. To an extent never before equaled, plays are now published in America regardless of their production; are bought and read; are read aloud for an exceptional evening’s entertainment; and are acted under license, and with payment of very moderate fees, by people to whom a play is a play and not a pair of high-priced tickets.

For amateur actors, many of them amazingly capable, there are now available plays of every length and of every conceivable variety of type, settings, and casts; of extreme, moderate and very slight demands upon the actors’ skill; tragic, comedic, farcical. And for readers of plays there are certain immutable advantages that have been pointed out before but will bear stressing again, such as that the performance always begins on time, and at _your_ chosen time, and that the actors, being your own creatures, are always ideal.

I shall try to speak first of some anthologies of plays, then of plays by individual authors, and finally of a few books about the drama and the theater.

ii

First I would put Montrose J. Moses’s ample works. His _Representative British Dramas: Victorian and Modern_ is not only a complete history of the British stage, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to 1914; it presents the complete texts of twenty-one English and Irish plays superbly representative of its century. _Representative Continental Dramas: Revolutionary and Transitional_ does much the same thing for Europe as a whole. Eight European countries are represented in this anthology, which contains the complete texts of fifteen plays, with a general survey of the development of Continental drama and individual bibliographies. But the greatest demand is for anthologies of one-act plays; a demand richly met by the following standard works:

_Representative One-Act Plays by American Authors_, compiled by Margaret G. Mayorga, contains the complete texts of twenty-four, all of which have been produced in Little Theaters. Among the dramatists included are Percy Mackaye, Stuart Walker, Jeannette Marks, George Middleton, Susan Glaspell, Eugene O’Neill, and Beulah Marie Dix.

_Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays_ edited by Frank Shay and Pierre Loving, is an international selection of astonishing variety and exceptional merit.

_Twenty Contemporary One-Act Plays—American_, edited by Frank Shay, is an anthology which affords variety of choice for acting and ample variety for the reader.

Barrett H. Clark’s _Representative One-Act Plays by British and Irish Authors_ contains complete texts of twenty one-act plays. Some of the authors are Pinero, Jones, Arnold Bennett, Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Granville Barker and Lord Dunsany. Mr. Moses is the compiler of _Representative One-Act Plays by Continental Authors_. Maeterlinck, Arthur Schnitzler, Strindberg, Andreyev, Franz Wedekind, Sudermann, von Hofmannsthal, Lavedan are some of the playwrights whose work is included; and the book is equipped with bibliographies.

Frank Shay is the compiler of _Twenty-Five Short Plays: International_, in which is much exotic work—plays from Bengal and Burma, China and Japan and Uruguay, as well as from countries with whose drama we have more contact. But as an example of Mr. Shay’s selections we may note, from among the writers whose work is fairly familiar, that Austria is represented by a Schnitzler piece, Italy by one of Robert Bracco’s comedies, Hungary by Lajos Biro’s “The Bridegroom,” Russia by an example of Chekhov and Spain by Echegaray.

I may at this point advantageously call attention to Mr. Shay’s _One Thousand and One Plays for the Little Theatre_, and his new _One Thousand and One Longer Plays_—not anthologies, but exhaustive lists. The plays are listed alphabetically by authors and by organizations, and the title, nature of the work, number of men and women characters, publisher, and price of each play is given.

Certain other books, though offering a number of one-act plays, have too few inclusions to be described as anthologies. Such are _One-Act Plays from the Yiddish_, translated by Etta Block and presenting half a dozen effective pieces; _Three Modern Japanese Plays_, translated by Yozan T. Iwasaki and Glenn Hughes, and showing the direct result of Western influences on the Japanese theatre; and _Double Demon and Other One-Act Plays_, by A. P. Herbert and others, one of the British Drama League series.

Colin Campbell Clements, whose _Plays for a Folding Theatre_ is known to most amateurs, has a new book this season called _Plays for Pagans_, containing five entertaining short plays, all easy of stage production. Another such group is to be found in _Garden Varieties_, by Kenyon Nicholson, six plays, most of them farcical and amusing.

Certain other one-act plays I shall speak of later in this chapter. But the record of excellent anthologies is not yet completed. _A Treasury of Plays for Children_, by Mr. Moses, provides fourteen dramas with the abundance of incident and action which young people demand but with considerable literary merit besides. Mr. Shay, again, is the compiler of _A Treasury of Plays for Women_, eighteen in all, requiring only women to cast or containing only such male characters as may easily be enacted by women; and also of _A Treasury of Plays for Men_, twenty-one altogether, which men may stage without feminine help. _A Treasury of Plays for Men_ also offers a working library list for the Little Theater and a bibliography of other anthologies.

ii

In coming to the work of individual playwrights, I am afraid the method of conscientious enumeration must to a great extent go on. Granville Barker’s work is almost too well-known to require special comment. His plays, some one of which is almost certain to be found in any comprehensive anthology, are published in seven volumes, each a single drama except the _Three Short Plays_. Anatol, to be sure, is simply Mr. Barker’s splendid version of Arthur Schnitzler’s gay satire on a gilded youth of Vienna. Probably _Waste_, at once intimate in its discussions and intensely serious, is the best-known drama by Barker; but _The Madras House_, with its humors of feminine psychology, and _The Voysey Inheritance_, that fine study of middle-class English family life, are both popular. The others are _The Marrying of Ann Leete_, at once a comedy and a satire, and the three-act play called _The Secret Life_, a play of present-day England touched with philosophy and mysticism and occasional cynicism, but of the same distinctive quality as Barker’s other work.

Three plays by Lewis Beach have been published. _A Square Peg_ presents the tragic results of a mother’s unflinching rule of her family. _The Goose Hangs High_ is a comedy of family loyalty and affection which brings the younger generation face to face with its elders; it has been a success of the last New York season. But the one to which I want to direct attention especially is _Ann Vroome_, a play in seven scenes giving the story of a girl’s long wait for happiness when she postpones marriage to care for her parents. This play has a very fine acceleration of dramatic interest, of emotional intensity; and its literary quality is of a high order. It is evident that Mr. Beach does nothing badly.

The history of Owen Davis has been told many times, but I do not suppose its impression of the extraordinary is ever lessened. He wrote, for years, melodramas of the “Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model” order; I am by no means sure he did not write “Nellie.” In those days he supplied the theaters of the Bowery and other avenues no better as to art if less notorious. It should be said that however cheap were these works, they were infinitely more respectable and of a better moral character than some pretentious affairs playing uptown. Mr. Davis had two reasonable purposes—to learn play writing and to make necessary money. When he had accomplished both, being still a young man, he turned to work of a different description. His play, _The Detour_ (1921), the story of a woman’s never-dying aspiration and hope, was one of the finest things of its season. Clear-cut, dramatic, with comedy and pathos interwoven, it depicted mental and spiritual force pitted against solely material ambition in a way that those who saw or read it did not forget. The evidence was clear that a new American dramatist of the first rank had been born. _Icebound_ (1922), had immediate attention and very marked critical praise, crowned by the award to it of the Pulitzer Prize by Columbia University as the best American play of the year.

The most successful American playwright of his day, Clyde Fitch was also one of the ablest. The Memorial Edition of the _Plays of Clyde Fitch_, edited, with introductions, by Montrose J. Moses and Virginia Gerson, and published in four volumes is a gallant and important affair. The edition is definitive and contains three plays that were never before in print, “The Woman in the Case,” “Lovers’ Lane,” and that most important of the Fitch plays, “The City.” The fourth volume of this edition contains Mr. Fitch’s address on “The Play and the Public.”[78]

The four volumes of _Representative Plays by Henry Arthur Jones_, edited, with historical, biographical, and critical introductions, by Clayton Hamilton, assemble in a splendid library edition the most interesting work of the British dramatist. Henry Arthur Jones wrote some sixty or seventy plays, printed mainly in pamphlet form—“scrips”—for the use, primarily, of actors, professional and amateur. These Mr. Hamilton sifted, at the same time making an effort to indicate the range and variety of Jones’s work. As a consequence, _Representative Plays_ opens with a celebrated old-time melodrama, “The Silver King,” and illustrates the stages in the author’s progress until he arrived, in the composition of “The Liars,” at a really great accomplishment as a master of modern English comedy. Mr. Hamilton’s introductions carry the reader’s attention from play to play along a continuous current of historical, biographical and critical comment. Probably the best-known inclusions are the plays in the third volume: “Michael and His Lost Angel,” “The Liars,” “Mrs. Dane’s Defence,” and “The Hypocrites.”

Of Cosmo Hamilton’s _Four Plays_ I have already made mention[79] and perhaps I should have spoken of Percival Wilde when dealing with one-act plays. Mr. Wilde’s work is itself an anthology of the one-act play. This New Yorker was for a while in the banking business; on the publication of his first story he received so many requests to allow its dramatization that he thought he would investigate the drama himself. That was not more than a dozen years ago; yet now Percival Wilde is commonly said to have had more plays produced—or rather, to have had a greater number of productions—in American Little Theaters than any other playwright.

His books to date (of this sort) are five. _Eight Comedies for Little Theatres_ contains “The Previous Engagement,” “The Dyspeptic Ogre,” “Catesby,” “The Sequel,” “In the Net,” “His Return,” “The Embryo,” and “A Wonderful Woman.” Then there are his other collections—_Dawn, and Other One-Act Plays of Life Today_ (six), _A Question of Morality, and Other Plays_ (five), and _The Unseen Host, and Other War Plays_ (five), and _The Inn of Discontent and Other Fantastic Plays_ (five).

George Kelly, a young American born in a suburb of Philadelphia, had the daring to satirize the Little Theater movement in America in “The Torch-Bearers,” which had a New York success. In this past season his play, _The Show-Off_, has not only been a memorable success but has perhaps had more unqualified praise than any drama in years. “I might as well begin boldly and say that _The Show-Off_ is the best comedy which has yet been written by an American,” writes Heywood Broun in his preface to the published play; and this does not much exaggerate the note of the general chorus. The committee named to recommend a play for the award of the annual Pulitzer Prize selected _The Show-Off_; and the overruling of their choice by the Columbia University authorities was the subject of considerable controversy not entirely free from indignant feeling. What is this play? “A transcript of life, in three acts,” the titlepage truthfully calls it. The chief character, Aubrey Piper, liar, braggart, egoist, is almost dreadfully real. It is perhaps possible, however depressing, to regard him as a symbol of all mankind, bringing us to realize the toughness of human fiber, as Mr. Broun suggests. But it seems to me much more likely that the play’s great merit and supreme interest lies in another point that Mr. Broun makes: there is no development of character in Aubrey, but only in ourselves, the audience, who come to know him progressively better, and finally to know him to the last inescapable dreg. Most critics have tended, I think, to overlook the splendid characterization of Mrs. Fisher, Aubrey’s perspicacious and unrelenting mother-in-law. The play is too true for satire, too serious for comedy, too humanly diverting for tears. It is certainly not to be missed.

_The Lilies of the Field_, a comedy by John Hastings Turner, author of several novels, including that very engaging story, _Simple Souls_, is one of the British Drama League series and will probably have a New York production this season. The desire of twin daughters of an English village clergyman to become the wives of young men met in London—young men who toil not, neither do they spin except at dances—produces the complications, which are both entertaining and somewhat satirical. Of the other British Drama League plays, _The Prince_, by Gwen John, deals with Queen Elizabeth, and is “a study of character, based on contemporary evidence,” while Laurence Binyon’s _Ayuli_ is drama in verse, telling a picturesque story of Eastern Asia. Mr. Binyon has made studies of Oriental art and his drama is of quite exceptional literary quality.

Of novel interest is _The Sea Woman’s Cloak and November Eve_, a volume containing two plays by the American writer, Amelie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy), that are as Irish as work by Lady Gregory, Yeats, or J. M. Synge. “The Sea Woman’s Cloak” is based on an old legend of Ganore’s mating with a mortal; “November Eve” tells how Ilva, who is fairy-struck, saves a soul the godly folk won’t risk their own souls to save.

_Dragon’s Glory_, a play in four scenes by Gertrude Knevels, is based on an old Chinese legend, and makes very amusing reading and a most actable comedy. Yow Chow has purchased the finest coffin in China (“Dragon’s Glory”) and the action of the piece centers about this treasure, in which the estimable Yow Chow reposes until a crisis which is the climax of the play.

The two series known respectively as the Modern Series and the Little Theatre Series consist of plays published in pamphlet form at a low price for the convenience of amateur theatrical organizations. Included in these series are separate plays by such authors as Booth Tarkington, Christopher Morley, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eugene O’Neill, Stuart Walker, Floyd Dell, Rupert Brooke, and others, to a present total of thirty titles. The Modern Series, edited by Frank Shay, has two particularly striking new titles in _Lord Byron_ and _Autumn_.

_Lord Byron_, a play in seven scenes by Maurice Ferber, is of the genre of Drinkwater’s _Abraham Lincoln_ and Mr. Eaton’s and Mr. Carb’s _Queen Victoria_. Byron is one of the most dramatic of the possible subjects for a biographical play, and Mr. Ferber’s work will undoubtedly be frequently staged and very much read at this time of the Byron centenary.

_Autumn_, in four acts, by Ilya Surguchev, translated by David A. Modell, is the picture of jealousy between a young wife and an adopted daughter. “This is one of the strongest plays I have ever read,” says Frank Shay. It is our first introduction to the work of the Russian author and part of its novelty consists in the last act, which “achieves a monotony that is real and genuine. It does not bring husband and wife together in happiness, but shows that there is nothing else for them to do but to go on.”

But the other new titles in the Modern Series deserve brief mention. _Words and Thoughts_, by Don Marquis, presents John and Mary Speaker, who utter the usual banalities of the world, and John and Mary Thinker, who utter their true and less pleasant thoughts. John L. Balderston’s _A Morality Play for the Leisure Class_ pictures a rich collector’s boredom in heaven when he finds that his treasures there have no monetary value. There is an O. Henry twist to the ending. Walter McClellan’s _The Delta Wife_ is a genre play of the Mississippi River mouth, in type resembling _Hell-Bent fer Heaven_. _The Lion’s Mouth_, by George Madden Martin and Harriet L. Kennedy, deals with the relations of blacks and whites. A white doctor ignores a black child in his efforts to save a white baby. An old mammy has an invaluable herb cure; but finding that the doctor cares nothing for her grandson’s life, she refuses to save the white infant. Wilbur Daniel Steele’s _The Giant’s Stair_ is a study in mood and atmosphere, like many of his short stories. Before the play opens a man has been murdered. A terrific storm is raging. The scene is between the widow and her demented sister and the sheriff. _Action!_ by Holland Hudson is a swift-moving, melodramatic comedy. The son of a silk dealer returns from selling airplanes to protest that the life of a silk salesman is dull. His objections are interrupted by the entry of two silk loft burglars and two bootleggers—followed by Federal officers and policemen with drawn weapons.

The new titles in the Little Theatre Series, edited by Grace Adams, include Edna St. Vincent Millay’s _Aria da Capo_ and her _The Lamp and the Bell_.

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s work is known throughout America. _The Lamp and the Bell_, a Shakespearean play written for a Vassar College anniversary, has for its theme woman’s friendship, and is very nearly unique among compositions for an occasion in having solid literary and dramatic merit. Its fresh, vigorous, creative quality is enriched by some lovely lyrical inclusions. _Aria da Capo_, Miss Millay’s bitterly ironic, beautiful and interesting one-act fantasy, has been played, one is tempted to believe, everywhere; and will for years be played again and again. No contemporary Pierrot and Columbine composition excels it, if, indeed, any matches it.

Mary MacMillen’s _Pan or Pierrot_ is a play for children, to be acted out of doors. And I must again call attention to John Farrar’s charming plays for children in _The Magic Sea Shell_.

iii

Books about the theater are various, of course, ranging from æsthetic studies down to the most practical handbook for amateurs. Of the latter, I should certainly put first Barrett H. Clark’s _How to Produce Amateur Plays_, now in a new and revised edition. This manual is as nearly indispensable to amateur actors as anything can be. It tells how to choose a play, how to organize, the principles of casting, and the methods of rehearsing. It gives very necessary information about the stage itself, lighting, scenery and costumes, and makeup. There is also a list of good amateur plays and information about copyright and royalty.

Another book that will be particularly welcomed by schools and social organizations is Claude Merton Wise’s _Dramatics for School and Community_, which covers much the same fields as Mr. Clark’s work.

I have already spoken of Percival Wilde’s astonishing success as an author of one-act plays; it makes his book on _The Craftsmanship of the One-Act Play_ the last word on the subject. But the special value of Mr. Wilde’s book is that it considers everything having to do with the construction of the one-act play from the point of view of the stage director as well as that of the author.

Granville Barker’s _The Exemplary Theatre_, though by one of the best-known men of the group interested in and influencing modern dramatic theory and esthetics, is preëminently a practical book. It considers the theater as a civic institution and has a valuable chapter on the inner and outer organization of a repertory theater; but the chapters on a director’s duties, choosing the best plays, training the company, scenery and lighting, and audiences are of widespread applicability.

A mention of books about the theater is fated to omit many excellent volumes, but can scarcely fail to include a series of books which give a complete circumspection of contemporary drama. The most recent volume in the series is _The Contemporary Drama of Russia_, by Leo Wiener, professor of Slavic languages and literature at Harvard. This entirely new study is likely to create a commotion, for it belies utterly the conclusions generally arrived at as to the relative value of the work of such playwrights as Chekhov, Gorki, Andreyev, Solugub, Evreinov and others, and it brings into prominence many names never heard of before outside of Russia. Its picture of the origin and development of the Moscow Art Theater is not the one of popular legend, and should probably be narrowly compared with that given by Constantin Stanislavsky in his _My Life in Art_[80] and with other accounts. Professor Wiener has relied, however, upon letters, theatrical annals, and other contemporary records. His bibliographies contain fairly full accounts of plays from Ostrovski to the present, lists of books and articles on the contemporary Russian drama, and lists of all English translations of plays.

_The Contemporary Drama of England_, by Thomas H. Dickinson, covers adequately the history of the English stage since 1866. Ernest Boyd’s _The Contemporary Drama of Ireland_ presents the Irish literary movement and the work of Irish dramatists. _The Contemporary Drama of Italy_, by Lander MacClintock, traces the development of the modern Italian theater from its inception down to the present day, and has interesting chapters on Gabriele d’Annunzio and the writers now popular in Italy. Frank W. Chandler’s _The Contemporary Drama of France_, a longer work than the three preceding, presents a survey and interpretation of French drama for three decades, from the opening of the Theatre-Libre of Antoine to the conclusion of the world war.

16. A Reasonable View of Michael Arlen

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There is a book called _These Charming People_. In making this statement I pause for an uncertain time. It is necessary to allow a little interval for readers—quite as necessary as it is for the orator to give his audience its innings. Readers do not create the same interruption for a writer, and that is in itself a pity. That fact defeats much writing; for the writer has rushed on before the reader’s mind has had a chance to seethe a little and settle, passing on to a comparatively calm acceptance of the next assertion.

But you can take anybody’s word for _These Charming People_—anybody’s, that is, who has read it; and the number of persons who have read it is very large and increases steadily. The truth is, this book and its author have become fashionable; and when a book and an author have become fashionable, some persons will go to any length. Now it is known that Michael Arlen is the author of _These Charming People_, but who knows who Michael Arlen may be? Is there a View of Michael Arlen? In the favorite adjective of one of Mr. Arlen’s characters, is there a reasonable view of the presumptively charming person?

Yes.

The main perspective is before us. Looking down it, we discern that two years (and less than two years) ago, nobody in America who was anybody in America (or anywhere else) had heard of Michael Arlen. I will not conceal the dark fact that two books of his, entitled _A London Venture_ and _The Romantic Lady_, had been published in America.

However, two years ago (as I write) there was published in America a novel called “_Piracy_.” No reason existed why people should buy it and read it, apart from the usual totally inadequate one of the book’s merits. Yet people did buy it and read it. People said: “This is rather nice!” “_Piracy_” sold. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Spanish Main. If it took life—and perhaps it did take a life or two, socially speaking—it did so, in Mrs. Wharton’s words describing the methods of old New York society, “without effusion of blood.”

And early this year (1924) there was published a book called _These Charm_—Exactly.

Well, it was so gay, so well-mannered, so witty, so far more than so-so that women of the most varied taste (and even strong prejudices) raved over it, and men of the most invariable taste bought as many as six to a dozen copies to give away to their friends.

The success of Michael Arlen’s new novel, _The Green Hat_, has thus been rendered a mere matter of dispersing the good news. It will not do to broadcast it; one must be a little particular in matters of this sort. At the most, it is permitted casually to mention the fact that a new novel by Michael Arlen is about. Quite of course, one cannot decently say more than that _The Green Hat_ is a well-polished affair; for still more of course, it isn’t the hat but the head beneath it which counts.

The head belongs to Michael Arlen.

(As far as _The Green Hat_ goes, the woman of the green hat was Iris March, “enchanting, unshakeably true in friendship, incorrigibly loose in love,” as the disturbed reviewer for the _London Times_ puts it. “Everything she does has an unnatural elegance and audacity,” he went on. But what had she done? She had broken a good many hearts before marriage and one afterward; she had turned a lover into a husband and then into a cynic; and what she did to Napier Harpenden and his young wife should have been unpardonable. _Should._ “It is with a sense of having been cheated that we witness her final whitewashing.” You see how upset he is, though one cannot say he is outraged, can one, when he talks about a lady like that?...)

ii

Londoners apparently know him as a dark, handsome, suave person who circulates in Mayfair. Travellers away from London report his presence at the correct season in Paris, Monte Carlo, and Biskra (not to mention the Riviera). He is outwardly one of the gay rout. He is inwardly—— Well, I don’t know whether he would want me to mention.

Librarians (some librarians) are relentless persons, however charming. They ferret. They discover things, and then they root them out. Or at any rate, they make Records. Among other things of which they make Records are the True Names of Authors. Was Mr. Tarkington, in infancy, Newton Booth Tarkington? Then it goes on the librarian’s card. Was Joseph Conrad born Teodor Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski? Then no well-trained librarian ever completely ignores the fact. An author, in the circumstances, cannot take too much pains to be born and christened aright.

Occasionally the librarians make a grievous mistake—as when they identified Rebecca West as Regina Miriam Bloch. Caught in this astounding error, I believe they have now insisted that she is Cecily Fairfield. Yet they must be aware that both in England and America the law permits anyone to change his name at will. If he be consistent in the change, and if he use the new name and induce those who know him to use it, it becomes his lawful name. The sole purpose of going to court about a change of name is to make it a matter of public record—important when the title to property comes up for search. Rebecca West is—simply Rebecca West.

All this is to a point, for already the librarians have rushed to affix to Michael Arlen the name Dikran Kuyumjian. Not only do they tack this name on him, they give it preference. I have before me a clipping from a periodical which is widely relied upon by librarians in making their records and buying their books. And this periodical begins a notice of _These Charming People_ as follows:

KUYUMJIAN, DIKRAN (MICHAEL ARLEN, pseud.)

Where they got it, goodness, or rather badness, only knows. I suppose they chanced to learn that Michael Arlen is of Armenian blood. I have nothing to say against Dikran Kuyumjian as an excellent Armenian name. But I imagine Mr. Arlen may have something to say to the founders, editors and reporters of this periodical. I can only hope that, as his English is polite and polished, and as they appear to be versed in a foreign tongue, he will say it in Armenian.

iii

Of course, the fact that he _is_ an Armenian lends a joyous piquancy to one of the tales in _These Charming People_. You remember the one where Mr. Michael Wagstaffe impersonated greatly? It is called “The Man With the Broken Nose,” and as your copy of the book has been borrowed and never returned, I will quote it for you:

“The dark stranger walked silently but firmly. He was a tall young man of slight but powerful build; his nose, which was of the patrician sort, would have been shapely had it not once been broken in such a way that forever after it must noticeably incline to one side; and, though his appearance was that of a gentleman, he carried himself with an air of determination and assurance which would, I thought, make any conversation with him rather a business. There was any amount of back-chat in his dark eyes. His hat, which was soft and had the elegance of the well-worn, he wore cavalierly. Shoes by Lobb.

“At last a picture rose before our eyes, a large picture, very blue. Now who shall describe that picture which was so blue, blue even to the grass under the soldiers’ feet, the complexions of the soldiers’ faces and the rifles in the soldiers’ hands? Over against a blue tree stood a man, and miserably blue was his face, while the soldiers stood very stiffly with their backs to us, holding their rifles in a position which gave one no room to doubt but that they were about to shoot the solitary man for some misdemeanor. He was the loneliest looking man I have ever seen.

“‘Manet,’ said Tarlyon.

“The dark young stranger was absorbed; he pulled his hat a little lower over his left eye, so that the light should not obtrude on his vision....

“‘Come on,’ I whispered to Tarlyon, for we seemed to be intruding—so that I was quite startled when the stranger suddenly turned from the picture to me.

“‘You see, sir,’ he said gravely, ‘I know all about killing. I have killed many men....’

“‘Army Service Corps?’ inquired Tarlyon.

“‘No, sir,’ snapped the stranger. ‘I know nothing of your Corps. I am a Zeytounli.’

“‘Please have patience with me,’ I begged the stranger. ‘What is a Zeytounli?’

“He regarded me with those smoldering dark eyes; and I realized vividly that his nose had been broken in some argument which had cost the other man more than a broken nose.

“‘Zeytoun,’ he said, ‘is a fortress in Armenia. For five hundred years Zeytoun has not laid down her arms, but now she is burnt stones on the ground. The Zeytounlis, sir, are the hill-men of Armenia. I am an Armenian.’

“‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Tarlyon murmured.

“‘Why?’ snarled the Armenian.

“‘Well, you’ve been treated pretty badly, haven’t you?’ said Tarlyon. ‘All these massacres and things....’

“The stranger glared at him, and then he laughed at him. I shall remember that laugh. So will Tarlyon. Then the stranger raised a finger and, very gently, he tapped Tarlyon’s shoulder.

“‘Listen,’ said he. ‘Your manner of speaking bores me. Turks have slain many Armenians. Wherefore Armenians have slain many Turks. You may take it from me that, by sticking to it year in and year out for five hundred years, Armenians have in a tactful way slain more Turks than Turks have slain Armenians. That is why I am proud of being an Armenian. And you would oblige me, gentlemen, by informing your countrymen that we have no use for their discarded trousers, which are anyway not so good in quality as they were, but would be grateful for some guns.’

“He left us.

“‘I didn’t know,’ I murmured, ‘that Armenians were like that. I have been misled about Armenians. And he speaks English very well....’

“‘Hum,’ said Tarlyon thoughtfully. ‘But no one would say he was Armenian if he wasn’t, would he?’”

iv

One of the six most famous American men novelists wrote about Michael Arlen a year or so ago, as follows:

“He is one of the phenomena of our time. You may or may not like phenomena”—this seems a little gratuitous. “But anyway, you probably like an original story, so in Michael Arlen’s case you can compromise on that. He himself does not compromise on anything, though he did once say that ‘discretion is the better part of literature.’ Since then, however, his novel, ‘_Piracy_,’ in which half London society figures, has run into many editions. The other half is no doubt wondering what he will say next.

“Michael Arlen is 25 years old; and, having served the usual terms at an English public school and University he is, so he says, entirely self-educated. There was also a war. And yet, though no human eye has ever seen him at work, he has written four successful books.

“The first, which he published at the age of twenty, was his memoirs and confessions, for he thought that he would be done with them at the beginning. Many people thought that the book, _A London Venture_, was by George Moore under a pseudonym; some papers stated the fact with authority. Since then he has been more frequently compared to Guy de Maupassant.

_Photograph by Maurice Beck and Helen Macgregor, London._]

“Michael Arlen believes in working hard and living hard. He lives in Mayfair. Most of the summer he spends between Deauville and Biarritz, and most of the winter he may be found on the Riviera. The spring he spends in Venice. He also likes dancing and baccarat, and is a tournament tennis player.

“It is his considered opinion that if one had no enemies one would have no time to do any writing at all. So he has collected quite a number, whom he embitters by the amount of good work he does, while he amuses himself and his friends by never appearing to do any at all. That is, of course, a pose; but it is not a pose that everyone has the ability to wear. Try it and see.

“The New Statesman has called him ‘the romantic comedian of our time’; adding that he has no present equal in ‘the _dandysme_ of the soul.’ While the Daily Telegraph has said of him: ‘He concerns himself with people who are bored to death unless they are in some sort of mischief. The ladies carry their frailty as the gentlemen carry their drink—like gentlemen. Michael Arlen writes with the truculence of a Mohawk and the suavity of a Beau Nash....’

“This young man is among the last of those who believe that manners are worth while as manners. The chivalry of daily life is to him the king of indoor sports. And he has written that ‘a gentleman is a man who is never _unintentionally_ rude to anyone.’”[81]

Now who is the famous American novelist who could have written thus and thus of Mr. Arlen? Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in Main Street, Ascalon. We are not allowed to reveal his chaste identity. If he had an Armenian name, perhaps....

As a matter of fact, Michael Arlen was born in a Bulgarian village on the Danube. When he was five years old his parents decided to move to England. After he had been at an English public school the usual term of years he went to Switzerland to learn English. He was then seventeen. After he had been seventeen for some months, his parents called him back to Manchester, where they lived. He got as far as London. His parents then abandoned him with rather less than the customary shilling. He started to write. His first book, _A London Venture_, was a book of confessions, as at eighteen he had nothing else to write about. His confessions confessed little except poverty and loneliness.

He was foreign, young, careless of literary cliques, stayed up dancing all night and worked all day. London got to hear about him. He got a name in Fleet Street by never going to see an editor in his office. Michael Arlen always asked the editor to come outside and face him over a cocktail.

_The Romantic Lady_ arrived, greatly disappointing the publishers, as she was a book of short stories. Arlen said she would get on and she did, in moderation.

“_Piracy_” was perhaps the book of a young man who had lived hard and fought hard, with his tailors. It enabled him to pay them; but it was Arlen’s opinion that he had not yet begun to write. In an interview he said that so far he had been playing scales in public. _These Charming People_ came on, but the author was writing his big novel, _The Dark Angel_, and gave little heed to anything else. _The Dark Angel_ took him a year. He destroyed it. He realized that it was not the advance on “_Piracy_” which he and the most intelligent part of his public expected. _The Green Hat_ more nearly satisfies him.

v

But already there is a word minted. “_These Charming People_,” observes Mr. Philip Page, in some nondescript London newspaper cutting, “is very Arlenesque.” Mr. Page preferred it to “_Piracy_”—and it is indeed better work—although he missed the fun which “_Piracy_” afforded “of celebrity spotting, and the satisfaction of being able to say to myself, with a glowing feeling of being in the swim: ‘Here is Lady Diana Cooper!’ or ‘Here is Mr. Eddie Marsh!’” It is to be feared that most Americans cannot have Mr. Page’s warm sensation of culture, but in our uncultured way it is quite possible for us to enjoy such a portrait as the following, from “_Piracy_”—for we have him in America, too:

“The poetry Pretty Leyton discovered was often good, for his was a delicate and conservative taste; but it would have been easier to appreciate the good if one could only have discovered it among the bad, for his was also a delicate and kindly nature. While as for the young poets, of whom many called and all were chosen, he was continually begging his women friends, particularly Lois and Virginia, not to be ‘_too_ cruel’ to them, for they were so sensitive and worthwhile. To see and speak to Pretty Leyton in a crowded room was really very comforting, sometimes—which was just as well, since he was always in every room that happened to be crowded, saying: ‘Isn’t it a marvellous party?’ He gave all his women friends beautifully bound copies of _Tristram Shandy_, which he said was _the only_ book.”

And now—what shall I say? I could quote the processional of admiring, envious and rapturous adjectives applied to Mr. Arlen’s work. I could quote other notes of his fashionable progress as a person as well as a writer; but it would be repetitious. Besides, you will prefer to form your own adjectives and perfect your own legend; which is right and proper, and ever so charming of you. Kindly note that the correct name and address is Mr. Michael Arlen, 14, Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W. 1. Ask to be put through to Grosvenor 2275. But only in the Season, only in the Season.

BOOKS BY MICHAEL ARLEN

1920 _A London Venture_
1921 _The Romantic Lady_
1923 _“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days_
1924 _These Charming People_
1924 _The Green Hat: A Romance for a Few People_

SOURCES ON MICHAEL ARLEN

Review of _These Charming People_ by Arthur Waugh in the Daily Telegraph, London, for 6 July 1923.

Curtis Brown, Curtis Brown Ltd., 6, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, W. C. 2.

17. Palettes and Patterns in Prose and Poetry

i