Chapter II: Part 2

"And judge me, Thou that sittest in Thy Heaven,
As I have shown no mercy, show me none!...
If ever a woman's beauty shall ensnare
My soul into such sin as he hath sinned"--

these passages, even if the title of the play had not prepared us, afford fair warning of the way in which things have got to go. In fact it is all very simple and straightforward, and (on the constructive side) Hellenic. Perhaps indeed the treatment is a little too direct, and the tragedy moves too quickly to its consummation (thirty or forty minutes suffice for the reading of it). It might serve its publisher (of the Bodley Head) as one of a series to be entitled: "Half-hours with the Best Sinners."

As a poem _The Sin of David_ cannot compare for beauty with _Paolo and Francesca_, though it contains isolated lines which recall Mr. PHILLIPS'S earliest drama, such as the plea of _Joyce_, the condemned officer--

"Her face was close to me, and dimmed the world."

or _Lisle's_--

"Thou hast unlocked the loveliness of earth."

But then, of course, the exotic manner would here have been an impropriety. This is not Rimini; it is the English Fenland; and all the characters, with the exception of _Miriam Mardyke_ (the BATHSHEBA of the piece), who was bred in France and had its sun in her blood, were of the Puritan pattern that does not accommodate itself very easily to the language of passion.

But all this we knew ten years ago, when _The Sin of David_ was first published; and the only new interest was the question of its adaptability to the theatre. Poetic drama seldom gains much by presentation on the stage, unless it is full of action; and there is little action in this play except of the inward kind. In almost the only case where quick movement is here demanded one becomes conscious of the intrusion of words. When he knows that the relief of Pomfret depends upon his instant action, _Lisle_ still finds time for conversations with his servant, with _Miriam_ and with the doctor, and for a couple of well-sustained soliloquies.

Certain lines, again, whose literary flavour, when read, makes us overlook their inherent improbability in the mouth of the character that utters them, take on, when spoken, an air of artifice. Such are the lines in which _Miriam_ describes her old sister-in-law, to her face, as

"living without sin
And reputably rusting to the grave."

And there is always the danger that actors will be content with a rather slurred and perfunctory recitation of lines that have no bearing on the action but are just inserted for joy as a rhetorical embroidery.

It may be a trivial criticism, but I think the play suffered a little from the appearance of the love-child whose death was to be the punishment for _Lisle's_ sin in sending _Mardyke_ to his death in a forlorn hope. The instructions in my book are contradictory. The time of Act III. is described as "five years later," and we are then told that "four years are supposed to have elapsed since Act II." Anyhow, the boy should be only three or four years old. Actually he is a girl (the stage must have it so) of some ten summers. You may say that all those years during which the lovers' passion has been purified by worship of the child's innocence, and "God has not said a word," add a dramatic force to the blow when at last it falls. But for myself--a mere matter of taste--I feel that the vengeance of Heaven has been nursed too long.

As for the interpretation, I must honestly compliment Mr. IRVING and Miss MIRIAM LEWES on their performance. It is true that I should never have mistaken Mr. IRVING for a fighting Roundhead, and he might well have sacrificed something of his personality for the sake of illusion. It is true, too, that he was more concerned about dramatic than poetic effects; yet, within the limitations of a very marked individuality, he did justice to the author by a performance that was most sincere and persuasive. Miss LEWES played her more difficult part with great charm and delicacy. Her manner, even under stress of passionate feeling, still kept the right restraint that _Miriam_ had learnt from her environment; but always we were made to feel that under the prim Puritan gown was a body that had been "born in the sun's lap," and held the warmth of the vinelands in its veins. Perhaps it was from France, too, that _Miriam_ had caught her strange habit of pronouncing "my" (a perfectly good word) as "me."

There is little so worth seeing on the stage to-day as _The Sin of David_, and I very sincerely hope that both the play and its interpreters may win the wide appreciation they have earned.

O. S.

* * * * *

It is unfortunate that Mr. ARTHUR ECKERLEY'S ingenious little farce, _A Collection will be made_, was only introduced into the bill at the Garrick two days before the withdrawal of the _Duke of Killicrankie_, and that, like the melancholy _Jaques_, it has had to share the ducal exile. I look forward to its early reappearance under happier auspices, and with Mr. GUY NEWALL again in the leading part.

* * * * *

"The father of a young lady, aged 15--a typical 'FLAPPER'--with all
the self-assurance of a woman of 30, would be grateful for the
recommendation of a seminary (not a convent) where she might be
placed."--_Times._

"Coaching required for Cambridge Little Girl."--_Times._

Is it the same little girl?

* * * * *

Illustration: A PROPOSAL FOR THE PURCHASE OF DONKEYS FOR PRACTISING AMMUNITION-SUPPLY IN THE FIELD HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE WAR OFFICE.

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE.

[_The armbone of a prehistoric lion has been discovered in Fleet Street during the excavations for the new offices of "The Daily Chronicle." Remains of other prehistoric animals were found some years ago near the same spot._]

READER, when last you went down Fleet
(Wait half-a-second. Thank you.) Street,
And gazed upon it from your seat,
Perched on a motor-bus,
Did you, I wonder, guess that there,
In ages long ago, the bear
Contended for the choicest lair
With the rhinoceros?

Where now the expectant taxis prowl,
And growlers, still surviving, growl,
And agonised pedestrians howl,
Seeing the traffic skid,
There lions roamed the swampy glade,
There the superb okapi brayed,
And many a mighty mammoth made
Whatever noise it did.

It pleases me to pause and think
That where to-day flows printing-ink
All sorts of beasts came down to drink
Clear waters from a spring.
I like to reconstruct the scene;
I feel existence must have been,
Before the rotary machine,
A more delightful thing.

I like to think how, westward bound,
Tigers pursued their prey and found
The Strand a happy hunting ground,
Seeking tit-bits by night.
Reader, will you come there with me
When London lies asleep? Maybe
Their phantoms still prowl stealthily
Down by the Aldwych site.

* * * * *

SOCIETY NOTES.

Lady Diana Dingo was in the Park yesterday, walking with Lancelot, her new ant-eater, and the latter, who has happily recovered from his severe attack of measles, is now quite tame, and was wearing bronzed toe-nails and a large blue ribbon under the left ear.

The Countess of Torquay and her sister, Mrs. Pygmalion Popinjay, were at the Earl's Court Exhibition on Wednesday. The Countess's crested toucan, Willy, was much admired.

The Ladies' Park Pet race at Ranelham next Friday is expected to prove an exciting event, especially as Stella, Lady Killaloo, has entered her large crocodile, Horace--called after her late husband--who is known to prove rather fractious at times.

Mrs. Halliday Hare is in deep mourning for her bandicoot, Maud Eliza, who was unfortunately set upon and eaten last week by the Hon. Mrs. Joram's young jaguar during an afternoon call at the house of a mutual friend of their mistresses. Mrs. Hare is leaving town at once, and her house will be closed until late in the autumn.

The iguana worn by Miss Bay Buskin in the second Act of _The Belle of Bow Street_ is a delightful little creature, and accompanies his mistress everywhere. While on the subject of the theatre, we are glad to learn that the cages now being erected behind the stage at Galy's Theatre will soon be ready, when there should be no further cause for complaint about the rapacity of some of the larger carnivora owned by certain ladies of the chorus.

The recent fashion of having one's pet emu coloured to match one's frock is dying out, and armadilloes with gilded trotters are becoming the vogue.

* * * * *

COMPULSION.

"Very well," said the lady of the house, "don't let's do it. Nobody can force us to go to the seaside if we don't want to."

"It's too late," I said, "to begin to agree with me now."

"It's never too late to realise how reasonable you are."

"Yes, it is. The agreement is signed; half the rent has been paid; Sandstone House has got us by the legs, and, whether we like it or not, we've got to go there next week."

"We might try the effect of a death-bed repentance."

"No," I said, "we're dead already. We died when the blessed agreement was signed."

"Well, then, let's write and say our aunt from British Columbia is about to arrive here unexpectedly on a visit to us, and that sand and seaweed and prawns and star-fish are simply death to her. We can wind up with a strong appeal to the landlord's better nature. No true landlord can wish to be responsible for the death of anybody's British Columbian aunt."

"You're quite wrong," I said. "Landlords just revel in that kind of thing. Besides, he will not believe in our aunt. He will say that she is too thin."

"But the aunt I'm thinking of is stout and wheezy. She is a widow; her name is Aunt Wilhelmina; except ourselves there's nobody in the world left for her to cling to. No marine landlord can dare to separate us from Aunt Wilhelmina."

"It's no good," I said. "I'll admit that your Aunt Wilhelmina----"

"She's only mine by marriage, you know; but I love her like a daughter."

"I admit," I continued, "that Aunt-by-marriage Wilhelmina may some day be useful to us. We will put her by for another occasion. But she can't help us now."

"Well, go ahead yourself and suggest something, then."

"I could suggest a thousand things. Suppose we just pay the rest of the rent and don't go."

"The man," she said with conviction, "is mad."

"I thought you'd say that, and I know you'd say the same about any other suggestion of mine, so I shan't make any more."

"You mustn't be sulky," she said.

"I never am. I'm reasonable, but, as usual, you'll realise it too late. Besides," I added, "it's you who've brought us into this fix."

"I?" she said with an air of wonder. "How can I have done that?"

"I'll tell you," I said firmly, for I saw that my chance had come. "For weeks and weeks past you have been engaged in shutting up avenues and closing loop-holes. Wherever there was the tiniest way of escape from the seaside, there you were with your walls and your fences, until at last you'd got me safely penned in."

"You didn't struggle much, did you?"

"No, I was like the man in _The Pit and the Pendulum_, and you were--whoever it was that made the walls close in on him."

"I refuse," she said, "to be called a Spanish Inquisition."

"You may refuse as much as you like, but that's the sort of thing you've been. How you worked on my domestic affections and my household pride! When Helen forgot to go to her music-lesson you said the poor child was evidently run down and wanted a breath of sea-air. When Rosie lost her German exercise-book, and when Peggy fell off her bicycle, you worked both these accidents round into an imperative demand for salt water. When John was bitten by a gnat you said the spot was bilious and things would never be right with him until he got into a more bracing climate; and when Bates tripped up in the pantry and broke a week's income in plates and dishes you said he needed tone and would get it at the sea. Seaside, seaside, seaside! I couldn't get away from it."

"Oh, but you haven't been there yet, you know. You're shouting before you're hurt."

"No," I said, "I am not--I mean I am hurt, but I'm not shouting. I'm just whispering a few salutary truths."

"And there's another thing," she said; "it must be terrible for you to know what a designing person your wife is."

"Madam," I said, "my wife is as heaven made her. I will not permit her to be abused. She has good impulses. She means well. Her plain sewing is quite excellent."

"Spare me," she said, "oh spare me. I will never go to the sea again."

"But you _shall_ go to the sea," I said. "Everything is settled. The agreement is signed; the tickets are all but taken. John and Peggy are panting for pails and spades. Do you think I want to stand in the way of their innocent pleasures? We will all try for shrimps while you sit on a heap of sand and tell us not to get too wet, or that it's time for tea, and have I forgotten the thermos-flask again."

"Horatio," she said, "I can see you paddling in my mind's eye."

"But tell me," I said, "when do we start."

"We start on Tuesday. The whole lot of us together, you know, servants and all. Won't that be fun?"

"Ye--es," I said, "it will--I mean it would if I could go with you, but unfortunately----"

"_What!_" she said, "you mean to desert us?"

"No, no, I can never desert you, but I've got two solemn engagements on Tuesday--meetings in the City."

"Then I'm to take the whole party, am I?"

"Yes, dear," I said. "And I'll join you next day."

"You've won," she said.

* * * * *

KITTY ADARE.

Sweet as a wild-rose was Kitty Adare,
Blithe as a laverock and shy as a hare;
Mid all the grand ladies of all the grand cities
You'd not find the face half so pretty as Kitty's;
"'Tis the fine morning this, Kit," says I; she says, "It is,"
The day she went walking to get to the Fair.

She was bred to give trouble, was Kitty Adare,
For she had my heart caught like a bird in a snare;
O, her laugh was the ripple of quick-running water,
And--the seventh-born child of a seventh-born daughter--
She wore the green shoes that the fairies had brought her
To help her go dancing that day at the Fair.

She'd the foot of a princess, had Kitty Adare,
And the road fell behind her like peel off a pear;
She was into the town with the lads and the lassies,
And the shouting of showmen and braying of asses,
And on to the green where the best of the grass is,
With the sun shining bright on the fun of the Fair!

She was light as a feather, was Kitty Adare,
And she danced like a flame in a current of air;
O, look at her now--she retreating, advancing,
And stepping and stopping, and gliding and glancing!
There wasn't a one was her marrow at dancing
Of all the young maidens who danced at the Fair.

O Kitty, O Kitty, O Kitty Adare,
Till the music was beaten you danced to it there;
And the fiddler, poor fellow, the way that he was in,
Him sweating for six and his bow wanting rosin,
He was put past the fiddling a month--all because in
A pair of green shoes Kitty danced at the Fair!

* * * * *

Illustration: _Cheerful Householder (to burglar)._ "BY THE WAY, WHEN YOU GO DOWNSTAIRS YOU MIGHT LET THE CAT IN; SHE'S BEEN SPOILING MY SLEEP."

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

If memory serves me, the publishers of _World's End_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) described its theme as one of unusual delicacy, or words to that effect. I should like to reassure them. The particular kind of marriage of convenience which it concerns (marriage for the convenience of the wronged heroine, by which the virtuous hero gives his name to the child of the villain) may be, indeed is, a delicate matter, but--in fiction at least--by no manner of means unusual. Nor can I see that its present treatment by AMÉLIE RIVES (Princess TROUBETZKOY) lends it any degree of novelty. No, let me be just; perhaps _Richard Bryce_, the wicked betrayer, does strike a somewhat new note, at least in his beginnings. _Richard_ was the product of art superimposed upon dollars. He was so cultured that the humanity in him had dwindled to a negligible quantity; and thus, when poor _Phoebe_ wanted him to "do the right thing by her," he sent her instead some charmingly modern French verse--which she could not understand--and finally took ship for Europe in mingled alarm and boredom. You will have gathered that the scene is laid in America. Perhaps this explains the hero. _Owen Randolph_ was one of the strong and silent. He was so silent that, though he knew perfectly well all that had happened, he married _Phoebe_, and allowed that unhappy lady to suffer chapters of agonized apprehension as to his attitude, when half-a-dozen words would have set her at ease on the subject. He was, moreover, so strong that, when eventually the theme of their relations with _Phoebe_ did crop up between himself and _Richard_, the latter spent some months in hospital as a consequence. However, he recovered, and things were thus able to reach the kind of ending which was expected of them. There are parts of _World's End_ that are worthy of a better whole, but that is the best I can say for it.

* * * * *

I believe that _Paul Moorhouse_ (LONG) was never really predestined to end unhappily and that his suicide was a conclusion as little premeditated by the author as it was apparently by the hero. If such ends must be, they should be a climax demanded by relentless logic: some sort of culminating event should occur which, added to what has gone before, leaves no alternative. _Paul_, however, had survived for years under the stress of all the circumstances which finally constrained him to make an end of himself; and, had he stayed the course--only another hour or so--he would have found that all had turned out for the best and that adequate arrangements had been made for his permanent happiness. No doubt these things happen in real life and I cannot accuse Mr. GEORGE WOUIL (a most discerning author) of any inhuman treatment of his puppet; yet I wish that he had been more kindly disposed and had spared me a bitter disappointment. Having known _Paul_, man and boy, for upwards of ten years, I had become sincerely attached to him; as assistant time-keeper, foreman and works-manager he showed a spirit true to the real Black Country type. He had his moments of weakness when he went astray after the manner of his kind; but he always became master of himself again and, when he had to, paid like a man the price of his misdeeds, never pausing to discover the overcharge. As for _Joan Ware_, his intended and his due, she was a dear; poor dear!

* * * * *

I do not think that you will believe _The Story of Fifine_ (CONSTABLE), although Mr. BERNARD CAPES takes some pains to give it an air of actuality; but if you are like me you will not be greatly concerned about that. Purporting to be the ill-used daughter of a mad French marquis, _Fifine_, in that _naïve_ and charming way which has always been so dear to the hearts of novelists, came to live at the bachelor abode in Paris of the sculptor _Felix Dane_ (his half-sister, who was keeping house for the marquis, provided the introduction), and, calling each other "cousin" and "gossip," these two shared rooms together in perfect simplicity of soul and held several conversations which reflect, I suppose, Mr. BERNARD CAPES' views on the plastic arts and life in general. And why, in passing, he should continue to heap ridicule on staid Victorian respectability I cannot for the life of me imagine. The plucky and unorthodox thing nowadays surely is to make game of Bohemianism. But, anyhow, the happy moment for me arrived when _Felix Dane_ suggested (on the grounds that the marquis would soon discover his daughter's hiding-place) a holiday tour through Provence. Mr. BERNARD CAPES in Provence is Mr. BERNARD CAPES at his best. How the lovers (for that--perhaps you roguishly guessed it?--they gradually became) paid visits to Nîmes, to Aigues-Mortes, to Arles and to Paradou les Baux, and met _M. Carabas Cabarus_, the native minstrel, you must read for yourself, for I cannot give a faint idea of the eloquence with which their fairyland is portrayed. And if the plot ends as artificially as it began, and with an unnecessary tragedy thrown in, I suppose for the sake of that idyll in the very nesting-place of idylls I must shrug my shoulders and forgive. After all, it does not matter much who _Fifine_ really was, nor what happened to her. Suffice it that Mr. BERNARD CAPES has conducted her to Arles.

* * * * *

_The Caddis-Worm_ (HURST AND BLACKETT) is an appropriate enough title for Mrs. DAWSON SCOTT'S novel, but I confess to having grown a little restive at its appearance on the top of each of 352 pages. "Episodes in the Life of Richard and Catharine Blake" is the alternative title, and to the average human reader possibly a more significant one. _The Caddis-Worm_ is quite in the modern manner, having no plot--or what has been contemptuously called "anecdote." I have, however, a more genuine grievance against Mrs. DAWSON SCOTT, and it is that she seems inclined to be a propagandist without the requisite robustness. A little more vigour in her protests against the iniquity of British laws, and her theme might have allured me. As it is, the troubles of _Catharine_ with her peremptory _Richard_ only made me want, but not very keenly, to take and give her a good shaking. Whereas, with a little more encouragement, I believe I should have been quite anxious to kick her husband from the top to the bottom of several flights of stairs. Drastic methods were taken by the author to bring _Richard_ to his senses; in fact, at one time he made a sort of corner in disasters. But unless a sanatorium exists where patients are treated kindly and firmly for swollen-head I do not think that _Richard's_ cure is likely to be permanent. That, however, does not affect my view that Mrs. DAWSON SCOTT has given us a book which is full of clever writing and fairly shrewd observation.

* * * * *

"It was a wild wet night, though the month of May was well begun." Without caring very much about the month of May, I felt on reading these introductory words that the story called _My Lady Rosia_ had excellently well begun. I am sorry to add, though, that it does not carry on quite so bravely as you might expect from such a start. My own suspicion is that _Lady Rosia_ is one of many novels that owe their existence to a summer holiday. I haven't the slightest knowledge of the facts, and still less wish to incur a libel action, but, by my way of imagining it, Miss FREDA MARY GROVES found herself one day in the Winchelsea country, fell very naturally in love with its jolly old houses, and determined there and then to write a story about them. So here it is, with a mildly romantic hero, _Bernard_, a heroine in the title _rôle_ who is as pretty and persecuted as heroines should be, a villain (_Lord Segrave_ by name--even, you see, in those Black-Princely days peers were a bad lot), some conflicts not quite so exciting as they might have been, and the rest of the mixture as before. You perhaps catch already my chief ground of complaint. Frankly I do not think that Miss GROVES' pen is quite sufficiently dashing for this sort of thing. Historical and adventurous romance, if it is to earn my vote, must keep me out of breath the whole time. It should never be allowed to slacken pace; and (to be entirely candid) _My Lady Rosia_ sometimes ambles rather heavily. I forgot to add that it is published by WASHBOURNE, printed on detestable paper, and contains some pleasant illustrations of the places mentioned in the story. In few, the best I can say of it is that it would make a charming gift for the young Person (if she still survives) on the occasion, say, of a family holiday to Hastings.

* * * * *

Illustration: _The Optimist (who has just been struck by a passing motor-car)._ "GLORY BE! IF THIS ISN'T A PIECE O' LUCK! SURE, 'TIS THE DOCTHOR HIMSELF THAT'S IN UT."

* * * * *

The John Bull Breed.

_The South African Farmers' Guide_ pays a pretty compliment to a well-known family in describing a typical South Devon bull as the "property of Major APTHORP, a magnificent example of this breed."

* * * * *

WANTED.--A Tame Tory who will undertake to write scathing criticisms on the policy of his own party. Meals supplied on premises. Sleep in. Address, Offices of _Westminster Gazette_.

* * * * *