Chapter II: Part 2

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

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

T.

* * * * *

DRAM.BAC.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A.E.

* * * * *

TWO VIEWS.

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

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

* * * * *

A LEAP-YEAR RECORD.

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

* * * * *

"THE PREMIER AND HIS FUTURE.

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

Answer adjudged correct: "I knowest not."

* * * * *

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

_À la_ cart, we presume.

* * * * *

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

* * * * *

"CLOTHES, MY DEAR! DON'T MENTION CLOTHES. YOU OUGHT TO BE IN THE FISH LINE, WHY, I RUNS THROUGH A SET O' FURS IN ABOUT A MONTH!"

* * * * *

A NOTE TO NATURE,

_accounting for my previous silence in an unusually temperate March and also presenting an ultimatum._

Ye great brown hares, grown madder through the Spring!
Ye birds that utilise your tiny throttles
To make the archways of the forest ring
Or go about your easy house-hunting!
Ye toads! ye axolotls!

Ye happy blighters all, that squeal and squat
And fly and browse where'er the mood entices,
Noting in every hedge or woodland grot
The swelling surge of sap, but noting not
The rise in current prices!

But chiefly you, ye birds, whose jocund note
(Linnets and larks and jays and red-billed ousels)
Oft in those happier springtides now remote
Caused me to catch the lyre and clear my throat
After some coy refusals!

Ay, and would cause me now--I have such bliss
Seeing the star-set vale, the pearls, the agates
Sown on the wintry boughs by Flora's kiss--
Only the trouble in my case is this,
I do not feed on maggots.

Could I but share your diet cheap and rude,
Your simple ways in trees and copses lurking;
But no, I need a pipe and lots of food,
A comfortable chair on which to brood--
Silence! the bard is working.

Could I but know that freedom from all care
That comes, I say, from gratis sets of suitings
And homes that need not premium nor repair
Except with sticks and mud and moss and hair,
My! there would be some flutings.

So and so only would the ivory rod
Stir the wild strings once more to exaltation;
So and so only the impetuous god
Pound in my bosom and produce that odd
Tum-tiddly-um sensation.

And often as I heard the throstles vamp,
Pouring their liquid notes like golden syrup,
Out would I go and round the garden tramp,
Wearing goloshes if the day were damp,
And imitate their chirrup.

Or, bowling peacefully upon my bike,
Well breakfasted, by no distractions flustered,
Pause near a leafy copse or brambled dyke,
And answer song for song the black-backed shrike,
The curlew and the bustard.

But now--ah, why prolong the dreadful strain?--
Limply my hand the unstrung harp relaxes;
The dear old days will not come back again
Whatever Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Does with the nation's taxes.

Lambs, buds, leap up; the lark to heaven climbs;
Bread does the same; the price of baccy's brutal;
And save (I do not note it in _The Times_)
They make exemptions for evolving rhymes,
Dashed if I mean to tootle!

EVOE.

* * * * *

* * * * *

THE METHODS OF GENIUS.

(_BY OUR SPECIAL LITERARY PARASITE_.)

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

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

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

* * * * *

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

_After the Day: Germany Unconquered and Unrepentant_ (JENKINS) is the kind of thesis-book which it is wise to read in a deliberately incredulous mood. Mr. HAYDEN TALBOT is an American newspaper man of immense resourcefulness but, I should judge, of a not conspicuously judicial habit of mind. That, perhaps, is hardly a newspaper man's business. He is after copy, and certainly there's good enough copy in his interviews with Count BERNSTORFF and Dr. RATHENAU, and one must admire his feat of getting out of these and seven other German publicists, including MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, the draft of a manifesto to the people of America, composed in the hope, vain as it happened, that the KAISER would break his long silence and sign it. It is the author's theory that it is the inner camarilla, working for a speedy restoration of the monarchy, that is responsible for the certainly uncharacteristic reticence of Amerongen. Mr. TALBOT also interviewed HINDENBERG, whom he found a "broken-down, inconsequential, garrulous example of senility" LUDENDORFF, who was very stiff and proud and rude; and the _fiancée_ of the man who sank the _Lusitania_. His general idea of Germany is summed up in the remark of Mr. MANDELBAUM, of New York: "All this talk about Fritz being down and out is all bunk!" Germany is full of energy and hate; she will soon be a monarchy again; will undersell the world; is assiduously preparing for air supremacy as the way to _revanche_. I take it that this is not so much a book as a _réchauffé_ of newspaper articles, which alone will account for its formlessness and frequent changes of plane. Mr. TALBOT, confessing to a total ignorance of the German tongue, seems quite unconscious that this imposes certain limitations on his capacity to make an adequate survey of a difficult problem.

* * * * *

I may confess at once that I finished the first chapter of _The Woman of the Picture_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) in a mood of slight derision, induced by Mr. G.F. TURNER'S allowing one hero to say of the other that he had "the interminable limbs" of an aristocrat. To the end of the book indeed I was uncertain whether such occasional lapses were meant to illumine the character of the supposed speaker or were unintentional. But again to quote, this time a phrase in which Mr. TURNER clearly shares my own delight, "before we were through with the affair" such details had ceased to be of moment. The plain fact is that _The Woman of the Picture_ is the most breathless, irresistible piece of convincing impossibility you have read for ages. I decline to struggle with any transcription of the plot. On the wrapper you will observe the woman stepping bodily out of the picture, like the ancestors in the whisky advertisement; this, however, is a symbolic rather than an actual presentment. But there is plenty without it: a rightful heir, mountain castles amid the eternal snows, a villain (with sorceries), half-a-dozen attempted murders and the most hair-lifting duel imaginable. Soberly considered the whole business is a riot of delirium, belonging flagrantly to that realm where all the world's a screen, and all the men and women merely movies. But the unexpected charm of the book is that with the possible exceptions noticed above) it is told with a touch of distinction, even of subtlety, that invests its wildest audacities with an atmosphere of fantastic truth. In short, if Mr. G.F. TURNER has done nothing else he has at least enabled the fastidious to enjoy the thrills of a shocker while retaining their self-respect.

* * * * *

In the first of the three stories, each about a hundred pages in length, which make up _Gold and Iron_ (HEINEMANN), it is hard to escape the conviction that Mr. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER between the lines, "So you thought that CONRAD was the only JOSEPH who could throw a man and woman together on a mysterious coast in the most strangely romantic circumstances, and provide a thoroughly groolly scrap into the bargain. Well, here's another little _Victory_ for you." He seems definitely to challenge that air of the extraordinary and the inevitable combined which Mr. CONRAD so subtly conveys. It is a big effort, and I don't feel that the author quite brings it off, yet I cannot think of anyone but Mr. CONRAD who would have come nearer to doing so, and the fight in the dark in this story is one that even after the War will make a reader catch his breath for half-a-dozen pages at least. In the second and third stories, which actually deal with gold and iron (the first of the three is called "Wild Oranges," though perhaps "Blood Oranges" would have been a better title), the writer returns to a happier _métier_, and deals with an America remarkably interesting and wholly novel to me, an America where foundries and railways are in their infancy and crinolines are worn. Saloons, bowie knives and bags of gold-dust are all too familiar to us, but who, on this side of the Atlantic at any rate, ever remembers the quiet towns with Victorian manners to which the diggers belonged and returned? Both "Tubal Cain" and "The Dark Fleece" are excellent yarns and wonderful pieces of pictorial reconstruction as well.

* * * * *

After reading _The Searchers_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), I seriously think of myself joining His Britannic Majesty's Secret Service. All the fun and firearms, and ever, at the conclusion, a startling surprise for your friends and admirers, among whom you stand cool, calm and collected. _Anthony Keene-Leslie_ did not deceive me when, upon his first introduction as a secret servant, he modestly disclaimed the thrills and excitements commonly attributed to his trade. I knew that many pages would not be turned before he would land us in the middle of some crimson intrigue; mysterious strangers, disguises, cryptic and invaluable manuscripts, urgent telegrams, codes, Italian hidden hands, Scotland Yard, pseudo-taxicabs, clues and things. But let others beware of Mr. JOHN FOSTER, a most ingenious manipulator of the old stock-in-trade and possessing a rare sense of humour. For the reader to pit his wits against the author's is, in this instance, to be completely "had" and to become under the necessity (about page 265) of taking off his hat, not only to the secret servant but to a mere minion of the "Yard" also. Two minor points emerge from a close study of the book. The first is that the author is undoubtedly a barrister himself; if I am wrong on this point I finally withdraw my threat to join the Service. The second point is that he knows his Scotland even as well as he loves it. In the result you have two merits, which together amply discount the element of cheap sensationalism: one merit is the logical development of the story, and the other is its beautiful setting. I don't know whether it is due to the Scottish climate or to the legal atmosphere that the author omits all reference to the feminine sex or affairs of the heart; but anyhow it seemed right and meet that women should be left at home when men were engaged upon such violent and dastardly business.

* * * * *

From certain internal evidences, mainly orthographical, I am led to suppose _The Branding Iron_ (CONSTABLE) to be of Transatlantic origin. This, no doubt, explains my unfamiliarity with the name of Miss KATHARINE NEWLIN BURT, also certain minor points, notably the fact that the story, though by no means badly told, suffers from what I can only call a plethora of plot. As I followed the developments of its intrigue and tracked the heroine from untutored savage, wife of the wild Westerner whose excusable suspicions caused him to brand her as private property, to the moment of her triumph as the bejewelled idol of theatrical New York, the conviction grew upon me that here was a tale surely predestined to be the screen that covers a multitude of melodramatics. Presently indeed the suggestion became so insistent that I went further and began to wonder whether I was not in fact reading a "story-form" of some already triumphant film. Certainly the resemblance is almost too pronounced to be fortuitous; from the sensational branding scene, through cowboy stunts, to the up-town playhouse, where a repentant and wife-seeking hero recognises his mark upon the shoulder of the leading lady--and so to reconciliation, slow fade-out, and the announcement of Next Week's Pictures. But though it is impossible not to suspect Miss BURT of having an eye to what poetic journalism calls the Shadow Stage, this is by no means to belittle her mastery of the colder medium of print; and I hasten to acknowledge that, upon me at least, _The Branding Iron_ has left a distinct though possibly fleeting impression of good entertainment.

* * * * *

A YOUNG SPRING POET HAS TROUBLE WITH HIS MOUNT.]

* * * * *

CANE OR BIRCH?

"House Porter wanted, to live in or out, able to manage
beating apparatus.--Apply, Stating wages required, to
Headmaster, ----- school."--_Local Paper_.

* * * * *

"The total cost of the British delegation to the Peace
Conference at Paris from December, 1918, to 31st September was
£503,368."--_Liverpool Paper_.

But it is only fair to say that in the last month they seem to have put in a bit of overtime.