Chapter II: Part 2

We plunged into the action quickly enough. A breakfast-gong--a sip of coffee--a bite of toast--and _Nigel Parry_ locks up his morning's love-correspondence; _Helen_, his wife, breaks open the drawer and peruses the damning letter; _Nigel_ returns and catches her red-handed. After this we took a long breath and lingered over the moral aspect of the situation. Indeed, during the next ten years nothing occurred except the separation of the couple; the reported decease of the other woman (whom we never saw, dead or alive), and the marriage of the boy _Parry_ with an actress bearing the ascetic name of _Ursula_. We now left the old trail in pursuit of this red herring; and for the rest of the play, up to the last moment, our attention was concentrated on the attitude of the elder heroine to her daughter-in-law, to whom she had taken a profound dislike at sight.

But something had to happen if the author was to bring about a reconciliation of the original pair and so justify the symbolic title of her play. Thinking it out, she seems to have recalled that it is customary in these cases to let an accident occur to some junior member of the family, over whose prostrate body the old ones may kiss again with tears. Accordingly, no sooner had mention been made, quite arbitrarily, of an automatic pistol, alleged to be unloaded, than old stagers knew by instinct that _Ursula_ would shoot herself inadvertently. This occurred with such promptitude that even the author recognised that we should not be satisfied with so ingenuous an episode. Complications had therefore to be devised at all costs. Young _Parry_ must be kept in ignorance of the fact that the episode was due to his stupidity in leaving the weapon loaded. So _Ursula_ invents a story to show that the wound in her thigh was due to a fall downstairs. It is true that blood-poisoning--not amongst the more familiar sequelæ of a fall downstairs--supervened. But the legend served well enough on the stage. Among other effects it increased the irritation of the mother-in-law, who felt that the accident indicated a criminal carelessness in one who was about to make her a grandmother, a condition of things that had been brought home to us in the course of some female conversation flavoured with the most pungent candour. When the truth came out, the proved devotion of the young wife causes an _entente_ between her and her mother-in-law, accompanied--for reasons which I cannot at the moment recall--by a parallel reconciliation between the senior couple. Personally, I felt that the threatened "Indian Summer" was not likely to be much warmer than the ordinary English kind.

Perhaps the most intriguing feature of the play was the author's attitude toward her own sex. Mrs. HORLICK frankly took the man's point of view. Never for one moment did she attempt to encourage our sympathy for _Helen_ as a wronged wife. Commonly in plays it is the woman, married to a man she never loved, who claims the liberty of going her own way and getting something out of life. Here it is the man who is the victim of a marriage not of his own making (as far as love was concerned), and the author, through the mouthpiece of the woman's confidante, makes ample excuse for his desire to snatch some happiness from fate.

_Nigel Parry_ Mr. ALLAN AYNESWORTH. _Helen Parry_ Miss EDYTH GOODALL.]

Unhappily Mrs. HORLICK has much to learn in stage mechanism. The motive of her exits when, as constantly, she wanted to leave any given couple alone together, was insufficiently opaque. She began very well and held our interest closely for some time; but long before the end we should have been worn out but for the childlike charm and attractive _gamineries_ of Miss DOROTHY MINTO as _Ursula_. Mr. ALLAN AYNESWORTH, who acted easily in the rather ambiguous part of _Nigel Parry_, seemed to share our doubts as to the chances of Mrs. HORLICK'S achieving popularity at her first attempt, for he confided to us, in a brief first-night oration, that she was engaged on another play which he hoped to secure.

But no one will question the serious promise of her present comedy, and I trust that in any future production she may be assisted by as excellent a cast. For they all played their parts, however trivial in detail, with great sincerity. Miss GOODALL was the only disappointment, though the fault was not altogether her own. At first she was very effective, but later her entries came to be a signal for gloom, like those of a skeleton emergent from the family cupboard.

"PRINCE IGOR."

All is fair in Love and War, and the only ethical difficulty arises when they clash. This was the trouble with _Vladimir Igorievich_, heir of _Prince Igor_. Father and son had been taken in battle, and were held captive in the camp of the Tartars; but, while _Prince Igor_ felt very keenly his position (though treated as a guest rather than a prisoner and supplied every evening with spectacular entertainments), _Vladimir_ beguiled his enforced leisure by falling in love (heartily reciprocated) with the daughter of his captor, _Khan Konchak_. An opportunity of escape being offered, _Prince Igor_ seizes it, but _Vladimir's_ dear heart is divided between passion and patriotism, and before he can make up his mind the chance of freedom is gone. A study of the so-called "libretto" showed that this was the only thing in the opera that bore any resemblance to a dramatic situation. Figure, therefore, my chagrin when I discovered that the character of _Vladimir Igorievich_ had been cut clean out of the text of the actual opera. I could much more easily have dispensed with the buffooneries of a couple of obscure players upon the _goudok_ (or prehistoric hurdy-gurdy), who wasted more than enough of such time as could be spared from the intervals.

There was no part of adequate importance for M. CHALIAPINE, so he doubled the _rôles_ of _Galitsky_, the swaggering and dissolute brother-in-law that _Prince Igor_ left behind when he went to the wars, and _Khan Konchak_, most magnanimous of barbarians. Neither character gave scope for the particular subtlety of which (as he proves in _Boris Godounov_) M. CHALIAPINE is the sole master among male operatic singers. But to each he brought that gift of the great manner, that ease and splendour of bearing, and those superb qualities of voice which, found together, give him a place apart from his kind.

Of the rest, M. PAUL ANDREEV, as _Prince Igor_, gave his plaint of captivity with a noble pathos. As for the chorus, it sang with the singleness and intensity of spirit which are only possible to a national chorus in national opera, and which (I hope) are the envy of the cosmopolitans of Covent Garden.

The _clou_ of the evening was the ballet, already well-known, of the Polovtsy warriors, executed with the extreme of fanatic fervour and frenzy. The art of M. MICHEL FOKINE can turn his Russians into Tartars without a scratch of the skin. BORODINE'S music, taking on a more barbaric quality as the action travelled further East, here touched its climax, and the final scene, where _Prince Igor_ returns home and resumes the embraces of his queen, (a model of fidelity), was of the character of a sedative.

"DAPHNIS ET CHLOË."

Those who complained--I speak of the few whose critical faculties had not been paralysed by M. NIJINSKI--that in _L'Après-midi d'un Faune_ the limitations of plastic Art (necessarily confined to stationary forms) were forced upon an art that primarily deals with motion, will have little of the same fault to find in _Daphnis et Chloë._ Here there is no fixed or formal posing, if we except the attitude adopted (after a preliminary and irrelevant twiddle) by certain Nymphs to indicate, appropriately enough, their grief over the inanimate form of _Daphnis_. The dances in which, to the mutual suspicion of the lovers, _Chloë_ was circled by the men and _Daphnis_ by the maidens, were a pure delight. There was one movement, when heads were tossed back and then brought swiftly forward over hollowed breasts and lifted knees that had in it an exquisite fleeting beauty. But memory holds best the grace of the simpler and more elemental movements, the airy swing and poise of feet and limbs in straight flight, linked hands outstretched.

In the _pas seul_ competition M. ADOLPH BOLM as _Darkon_ did some astonishing feats which made the performance of M. FOKINE as _Daphnis_ seem relatively tame and conventional; and if I, instead of _Chloë_, had been the judge I should have awarded the palm to the former. I am sure that _Chloë_ was prejudiced, though certainly _Darkon_ was a very rude and hirsute shepherd, and had none of _Daphnis'_ pretty ways.

The dancing of the brigands was in excellent contrast with the methods of the pastoral Greeks. I will not, like the programme, distinguish them as "Brigands with Lances," "Brigands with Bows" and "Young Brigands." To me they were all alike very perfect examples of the profession; though I admit that the flight of their spears was not always as deadly as it should have been, and that one of the arrows refused to go off the string and had to be thrown by hand into the wings.

It is not easy at a first performance to take in everything with both eye and ear, and I shall excuse myself from attempting to do justice to M. RAVEL'S music. But I was free (the curtain being down) to listen to one long orchestral passage which followed the capture of _Chloë_. It was of the nature of a dirge, and it seemed to me to suggest very cleverly the sorrows of a poultry-yard. I suppose _Chloë_ must have been in the habit of feeding them and they missed her.

I hate to say one word of disparagement about a performance for which I could never be sufficiently grateful. But I agree with a friend of mine who complained to me of the way in which _Pan_ was presented. It was this beneficent god who caused a panic among the brigands and so enabled _Chloë_ to return to her friends, though I don't know why he ever let her be captured, for he was there at the time. Well, I agree that he ought to have been represented by something more satisfactory than a half-length portrait painted on a huge travelling plank of pasteboard, which was pushed about from Arcadia to Scythia (if this was the brigands' address) and back again, appearing in the limelight, when required, like a whisky sky-sign.

O. S.

* * * * *

* * * * *

TEMPORA MUTANTUR.

[Suggested by recent correspondence in a leading journal.]

WHY USE SPECS?

_A Centenarian's Testimony to the Editor of "The Chimes."_

SIR,--I was 117 on the 1st of April and have never used any artificial aid to eyesight, yet I can read the articles for ladies on the Court Circular page of your splendid publication without turning a hair. It is true that I am, and have always been, of an iron constitution, having practically dispensed with sleep for the last sixty years. For some considerable time I have been able to do without physical sustenance as well, owing to the extraordinarily nutritious nature of the contents of your superb South American Encyclopædias.

Yours faithfully,

NESTOR PARR.

A PERFECT CURE.

_To the Editor of "The Chimes."_

SIR,--Is my experience worth recording? Until two or three years ago I was entirely dependent on spectacles, and suffered unspeakable inconvenience if I happened to mislay them. But since I became a subscriber to your unique and unparalleled organ I have found my eyesight so marvellously improved that I am now able to discard glasses entirely. The extraordinary part of the business is this, that if I take up any other paper I am utterly unable to decipher a word. As my wife cleverly put it the other day, of all the wonderful spectacles in the world the new _Chimes_ is the most amazing.

Yours gratefully, VERAX.

FROM AN ARTIFICIAL EYE-MAKER.

_To the Editor of "The Chimes,"_

SIR,--An extraordinary case of recovery of sight was brought to my knowledge yesterday by an esteemed customer. About thirty years ago I supplied him with an artificial eye to replace one which he lost while duck-shooting in the Canary Islands. About six months ago he lost the remaining sound eye through a blow from a golf-ball. I accordingly fitted him with a second artificial eye, and you may imagine my surprise when he came round to my place of business a few days later by himself and read aloud to me the whole of your admirable leading article on "Braces _v._ Belts." The therapeutic effect of high-class journalism on myopic patients has, I believe, been noted by Professor Hagenstreicher, the famous German oculist, but this is, I believe, the first instance on record of a patient recovering his sight after both eyes had been removed.

I am, Sir, etc., ANNAN EYAS.

CATARACT ARRESTED.

_To the Editor of "The Chimes."_

SIR,--Yesterday, which happened to be my ninety-seventh birthday, I spent in reading your wonderful Potted Meat Supplement from cover to cover. As there is more printed matter in it than in Mr. DE MORGAN'S latest novel you might expect to hear that I am suffering to-day from eye-strain. On the contrary the symptoms of incipient cataract, which declared themselves a few months ago, have entirely disappeared, and I was able to see the French coast distinctly this morning from my house on the sea-front.

Yours truthfully,

_Folkestone._ JUDITH FITZSIMONS.

FROM OUR OLDEST SUBSCRIBER.

_To the Editor of "The Chimes."_

SIR,--I was 165 last birthday. I was in the merchant marine for upwards of eighty years, and then became a Swedenborgian, but never had occasion to consult an oculist. I was born in the reign of George II., or was it Queen Anne?--I really forget which. My wife is 163, and we walk out, when weather permits, and seldom omit church on Sundays. We both still read your "Births, Deaths, and Marriages," and consider that they are the best.

Yours venerably, W. A. G.

* * * * *

Another Suffragette Outrage.

"Among the elementary and fundamental rights and duties are (_sic_)
the security of the person. But it is violated as much by he
(_sic_) or she (_sic_) who challenges assault as by he (_sic_) or
she (_sic_) who assaults."

The five "_sics_" are ours. The rest belongs to the leader-writer of _The Morning Post_, on whom militancy seems to have had a painful effect.

* * * * *

"A Central News telegram from Montreal states that Miss Edith
Shaughnessy, daughter of Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, was married at St.
James's Roman Catholic Cathedral yesterday to Mr. W. H."--_Morning
Post._

From the wedding presents, which were both numerous and costly: "Mr. W. Shakespeare to Bridegroom--Sonnets."

* * * * *

A correspondent in _The Exchange and Mart_ writes:--

"At night Tree-Frogs are active and utter various sounds, some a
pleasing chirrup (like mine), others a loud shriek."

We shall hope to hear the writer's pleasing chirrup in Bouverie Street some day.

* * * * *

ADVENTURERS.

It must have been off a pirate trip,
In a life forgot 'o me,
That I saw the Barbary pirate ship
Come close-hauled out of the sea;
She crawled in under a goat-cropped scaur
Beneath the fisher-huts,
And she sent a dozen o' men ashore
To fill her water-butts.

I clambered up where the cliff sprung sheer
Till I looked upon her decks
And saw the plunder of half-a-year
And the loot of her scuttled wrecks;
There were gems and ivory, plate and pearl,
And Tyrian rugs a-pile,
And, set in the midst, was a milk-white girl,
The loot of a Grecian isle.

As white as the breasted terns that flit
Was the smooth arm's rounded shape
As she idly played with a pomegranate
To anger a chained grey ape;
And her Sun-God's self for diadem
Had kissed her curls to gold;
But blue--sea-blue as the sapphire gem,
Her eyes were cold, sea-cold.

And, gleam of shoulder and glint of tress,
They sailed ere the sun went down
And sold her, same as a black negress,
For the marts o' Carthage town,
Where she lived, mayhap, of her indolent grace,
Content with her silks and rings,
Or rose, by way of her wits, to place
Her foot on the necks of kings.

The deuce can tell you how this may be,
'Tis far as I take the tale;
For it's lives upon lives ago, you see,
That the Barbary men set sail;
So I only know she was ivory white,
As white as a sea-bird lone;
And her eyes were wonderful blue and bright
And hard as a sapphire stone.

* * * * *

The New Rowing.

"Give a last pull at the oar with clenched teeth and knit
muscles."--_The Young Man._

_The Cork Examiner_ on Sir PERCY SCOTT'S letter:--

"'If a battleships is not safe either on the high seas or in
rabour,' he asks, 'what is the use of a battlesh?'"

To be more accurate, this is how one puts it to one's neighbour after dinner, when--the ladies having removed themselves, and the necessity for mere social chit-chat being over--we men are at last able to devote ourselves to the affairs of empire.

* * * * *

_Spectator_ (_to exhausted competitor reduced to running on trial hill_). "WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF THAT CAR RAN AWAY FROM YOU?"

_Competitor._ "THANK HEAVEN!"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

The title of a book should be a guide to its contents, a simple enough rule which some authors overlook in their anxiety to start being clever and eccentric on the very outside cover. The book-buying public will appreciate Miss M. BETHAM-EDWARDS' title, _From an Islington Window, Pages of Reminiscent Romance_ (SMITH, ELDER), and will gather from it that this is a book for those who prefer a long life and a quiet one to the short and thrilling. Incidentally I am relieved from divulging any of the plots in order to demonstrate the nature of the twelve short pieces embodied; enough to quote two typical sub-titles, "Mr. Lovejoy's Love-story" and "Miss Prime," and to put upon the whole the label of the author's own choice, "Early Victorian." Everybody knows where and what Islington is and the sort of minor tragedy and comedy that would be likely to occur in the lives of its inhabitants in the last reign but one. No one would look there for epoch-making crises, but many will find a longed-for relief from the speeding-up tendencies of modern romance. Lastly, but for a tendency at times to affectation, the style of the writer is as graceful and elegant as her themes are homely and serene, and that, I think, is all about it.

* * * * *

Mr. W. E. NORRIS is subtle; at least if my idea of the genesis of _Barbara and Company_ (CONSTABLE) is the right one. I believe, then, that Mr. NORRIS found himself possessed of plots sufficient for a number of agreeable short stories, but that, knowing short stories to be more or less a drug in the market, he very skilfully united them into one by the simple process of making all their characters friends of _Barbara_. Nothing could be more effective. For example, Mr. NORRIS thinks what fun it would be to describe a race ridden by two unwilling suitors, the prize to be the lady's heart, which neither in the least wishes to win. Promptly _Miss Ormesby_, the heroine, is asked down on a visit to _Barbara_, and the story is told, most amusingly and well, in a couple of chapters. Again, the pathetic and moving tale of _Miss Nellie Mercer_, the nameless companion, who blossomed into fierce renown as _Senorita Mercedes_, the dancer, and died of it. Why should not this same _Barbara_ have adopted the parentless girl in childhood? It is all simplicity itself. Perhaps you may object that the useful _Barbara_ shows some signs of being a little overworked, and that few women are likely to have had quite so adventurous a company of friends. In this case I shall have nothing to urge, except that, so far as I am personally concerned, Mr. NORRIS has such a way with him that if he chose to people _Barbara's_ drawing-room with the persons of the _Arabian Nights_ he could probably convince me that there was nothing very much out of the ordinary in that assembly. And, after all, pianists and writers and actors, all the kind of folk with whom _Barbara_ surrounded herself, are precisely those to whom short stories should, and do, happen. Next time, however, I hope Mr. NORRIS'S inspiration will be less fragmentary but equally happy.

* * * * *

_Johnnie Maddison_ (SMITH, ELDER) was nice. And here and now I wish to propose a vote of thanks to Mr. JOHN HASLETTE for having the uncommon pluck to create a hero neither handsome nor strong. Brave of course he had to be, or how should that which is written in the proverbs have been fulfilled, but "he was slight," "he stooped a little," "he had an ordinary face." (What hopes that brings to the hearts of some of us!) For the rest, he lived in Sta. Malua, to which tropical port came _Molly Hatherall_, intending to be married to a handsome scamp who spent all his salary as a mining engineer and all the money he could borrow from friends in losing games of poker to a man who made a profession of winning them. Why he should have wanted to do this (for it seemed to be his solitary serious vice) in a place like Sta. Malua I cannot imagine. But there it is. For one reason or another the marriage was delayed, and after a long mental struggle _Jno. Maddison_, who had fallen in love with _Molly_, decided to tell her what kind of man her idol of romantic chivalry really was. It raises, you see, a nice point of ethics, since _Edmund Serge_ was popular at the club and, except for the brand of the poker on his forehead, a pretty good fellow. Unfortunately Mr. HASLETTE rudely slices the knot of his difficulty by making _Edmund_ embezzle money and abscond at the critical point of the story. The telling of the yarn is a little humdrum, but gains from a comparative leniency in the matter of local colour--for I feel that Sta. Malua is the sort of place which might have been rather ruthless about this--and the suspended banns keep the interest fairly warm. But I am not sure that _Johnnie Maddison_ might not have been nicer if he had escaped a suspicion of priggishness and lost a trifle now and then at progressive whist.

* * * * *

In Miss ELEANOR MORDAUNT'S new volume called _The Island_ (HEINEMANN) all the tales have a common interest through their association with a corner of Empire easily recognisable by those who have ever seen it. I remember how greatly I have already admired Miss MORDAUNT'S power of vivid and picturesque scene-painting; there are several stories in this book that show it at its best. I wish I could avoid adding that there are others that seem to me entirely unworthy of their author, at least for any other purpose than that of boiling the pot. One of the best of the tales, "A Reversion," is both dramatic and realistic; it bears a strong resemblance to a sketch that recently made a successful appearance at the Hippodrome; indeed the good qualities of Miss MORDAUNT'S stories are precisely those that would help their development into excellent little plays. One thing that I cannot help wishing is that the writer had trusted a little more to my imaginative intelligence. There is a certain kind of detail that is best confided to this sanctuary, and Miss MORDAUNT'S difficulty seems to have been in realising when all the sayable things had been said. At least one of the stories plunges considerably beyond the limit of discretion and even good taste. But the heat and the colour, the thrills and the devastating _ennui_ of life for the English in the island, are as well rendered as anything I remember in the fiction of Empire. For this alone there should be a warm welcome for the collection, with all its faults, both from those who know the original and those who need help in imagining it.

* * * * *

_The Purple Frogs_ (HEATH, CRANTON AND OUSELEY) I can only describe as the most exasperating, not to say maddening, product of modern fiction. What on earth Messrs. H. W. WESTBROOK and LAWRENCE GROSSMITH, the joint authors, mean by it I have not the ghost of an idea. Occasionally signs are detectable that the whole thing is a practical joke; still more occasionally it even promises to become mildly amusing; and then again one is confronted with an incident (such as the visit of the armed maniac to the house of _Isambard Flanders_) serious to the point of melodrama. Not for pages and chapters did I discover any excuse for the title; and even then not much. But it appeared eventually that _Isambard Flanders_ was jealous of the friendship between his wife, _Cicely_, and _Stephen_, a young man who produced film-dramas; and that in order to score off them he wrote a novel called _The Purple Frogs_, in which he embodied his suspicions. The last half of the volume is occupied with this tale within a tale. Here possibly we have a key to the purpose of the collaboration. Anyhow, I permitted myself to form a theory that Mr. WESTBROOK (or Mr. GROSSMITH) had written a novel too exiguous for separate publication, and in this dilemma had appealed to Mr. GROSSMITH (or Mr. WESTBROOK) to provide a setting. But which wrote which, and why--these are problems that remain inscrutable. Yet another is furnished by the fact that Miss ELLA KING HALL has composed for the main story six "illustrations in music," duly reproduced. You may with luck be able to smile a little at the quaintness of these. But on the title-page they are said to be "arranged from the MS. notes of _Botolf Glenfield."_ And _Glenfield_, being only a character in the novel written by _Flanders_, couldn't possibly ... Help!

* * * * *

* * * * *

SERENITY.

A singular accident happened to-day,
Distressing to witness (I chanced to be there).
A motor-'bus entered a tea-shop, and lay
In some need of repair.

It was loaded with passengers, outside and in,
Who straightway indulged in much turbulent talk;
The latter declared that for less than a pin
They would get out and walk.

But the customers who, with deplorable zest,
Of tea and hot crumpets were taking their fill,
Regarding the scene as an innocent jest,
Simply laughed themselves ill.

Though I'm dreadfully nervous and suffer a shock
At the slightest alarm, through that terrible fuss
I was strangely composed and, as still as a rock,--
I lay under the 'bus.