LOVE IN A MIST. [It has been said that one of the most remarkable characteristics of the year 1903 has been the number of proposals made in the rain.] CHARIVARIA. the columns of Hearth and Home that an advertisement headed "A Cure for she is the inventress of what is known PERHAPS the most pathetic result of times being bad was that a father, on his three little daughters rushing into his study the other day with the words 'Oh, Daddy, we want to give you a Christmas present," had to reply, "Ah, A certain reverend gentleman, in my dears, I am afraid I cannot afford delivering a discourse on Over-dressing one this year." last Sunday, was so carried away by his subject that, in his enthusiasm, he It is characteristic of the emancipa-worked his tie off. tion of women that the development of a Torturing Humours." Are crinolines coming in again? Several ladies were to be seen in balloons at the last meeting of the Aero Club at Paris. Lady of Uncertain Age (discussing dinner party). No, 1 cannot say it was very complimentary; they gave me to an Archæologist to take down. humour is not accompanied in them Servants, as their scarcity increases, with corresponding increase of get more and more exacting. Some Our Tobacconist: "Yes, Sir, that is reverence. "Yes," the young man was now object to being referred to as 2d. Will you take the farthing, or saying, "I accompanied him on his servants, and insist on being called have one of our cigars, Sir?" travels. He has written a book about "Paid Guests." them. I don't know what he is going to call it." "Well," said the maiden, It is said that Lord Rosebery's advo- A sensational confession has taken place. A lady, racked by the torments of her conscience, has acknowledged in ANSWER TO A CORRESPONDENT.-No, it is quite a mistake to imagine that the collection of a million used postage stamps is a waste of energy. As soon as he has got together the requisite number the collector will be admitted to any of our big asylums without having The writer of these notes has received to pass the entrance examination. Protection. NEW YEAR SUPERSTITIONS. In some parts of Lincolnshire it is considered most unlucky to be murdered by a dark man on New Year's Eve. In Lancashire, if an unmarried woman loses either leg in a railway accident on VOL. CXXVI. New Year's Eve, it is regarded as an A native of the Outer Hebrides would Dorsetshire folk firmly believe that if they meet a mad bull on New Year's morning it is an almost certain sign that they will shortly go on a journey. B In many homes of the North misfortune is looked for whenever the first New Year visitor happens to be a criminal lunatic. eye, Mr. GILBERT's Mikado, where the punishment was arranged to fit the crime. THE DARLING OF MOST OF THE GODS. WHEN an audience for half the night has sat enthralled by I must hope that Occidental influences have since 1877 such a spectacle as this latest triumph of Mr. TREE's enchant- mitigated the disabilities of women in the neighbourhood of ments, it is thankless and even idle work for critics to temper Tosan. their praise with reflections upon the dramatic merit of the For these scenes of "Old Japan," in which a little red play which happens to have been going on in the foreground. book about love (produced in London) is the only hint of One comes on these occasions to delight and educate the coming of European ideas, are laid in a period scarce a the and not to be made to think. And in any case the full generation away, and within the reign of the present question is one of artistic balance and proportion. In a Emperor. I noticed an announcement of the presence, on play of human character one does not want to be overmuch the first night, of the Minister of our Allies; but nothing diverted by the scenic background; and in a play whose was said about the Russian Minister. If the latter has seen i chief motive is spectacular the human interest should not the play by now, I do hope that no misconception, arising make too importunate an appeal. It suffices if this interest out of the barbaric nature of the spectacle, will encourage serves to engage, without absorbing, the mental sympathies, him to report too confidently to his Government on the leaving the senses free to play at large. Besides, there are mediævalism of Japanese methods. limits to the receptive capacities of even a British audience. Humorous relief, as the phrase is, was provided by the The Darling of the Gods is an ordinary melodrama, whose quaint courtesies and self-depreciation of Oriental phraseclaim upon our gratitude lies in its unassertive contribution ology; and the use of these gave an easy note of irony to! to the picture. To say, as one critic has said, that it would the terrible scene in Zakkuri's Sword-room; but to have have failed if it had been played in modern European cos-kept up the convention at the tragic ending in the Bamboo tume, is to compliment rather than disparage its qualities. Forest and to have put the words "Abjectly I ask your Whether from accident or design, the value of its moving pardon" in the mouth of Yosan, was perhaps an error of figures was justifiably plastic rather than dramatic. The judgment. artists will be publicly recognised at a dinner to be shortly given to this branch of the profession by their many admirers in the world of drama, literature and art. stately reserve of Mr. BASIL GILL'S attitudes as Kara of the The stage-management on the first night was marvellous; Samurai most notably illustrated this characteristic. Only and the swift, clean, unhesitating movements of all the rarely did the drama dominate its outward adorning, as in supernumeraries was a triumph of intelligent adaptability. the scene outside the Shoji of Yosan-by far the best scene I am glad to think that the brilliant work of the scenic in the play, and recalling, by the vivid directness of its action, that curiously Hellenic tragedy, The Cat and the Cherub; or as in the episodes of the Carp-fisher (Mr. HAVILAND) and of the outcast Geisha, whose impersonation by Miss MAUD HILDYARD had in it just a touch of SADI YAKKO'S art. But these were minor characters. The protagonists played throughout with quiet restraint and a fine disregard of their through excess or defect. And so with Mr. TREE's performown personal identities, like priests in a temple, properly awed and overshadowed by their environment. I have seen it written that the play suffered from the failure of the spectator to recognise his favourites from the start; that "he had not, as it were, the Miss LENA ASHWELL that he knew to help him to get on to the track of the story." Yet surely that was one of the most engaging features of the play. It so chances that there is no one who has recently been more embarrassed in her playing by what was expected of her as a matter of almost religious tradition than this same charming actress. I ventured to hint as much in reviewing Mr. JONES's Monte Carlo play. And here she was, fresh from a convent school, delightfully innocent and Japanese, and for the first time for many years absolutely without a past. It is true that, before the drama proper was over, by steady attention to her business she had acquired one,- -a sort of multopost futurum past, covering a matter of some thousand years in "the hells" (the longest stageinterval at which I remember to have ever assisted)--but by how unfamiliar a process! Not by the usual breach of female virtue, but by a really quite excusable flaw in that sense of honour which is popularly regarded as the exclusive birthright of the ruder sex. Already, in an earlier scene, she had trembled on the brink of a blasphemous falsehood, and had only saved herself by recourse to casuistry; and, even so, had betrayed her womanly contempt for the minor moralities by the ingenuous admission that "it is better to lie a little than to be unhappy much." As to her punishment, I never came upon a worse case of the miscarriage of poetic justice. Her lover, who owed the temporary preservation of his head to her betrayal (in exchange for his release) of the hiding-place of his comrades, himself threatens her with the sentence of death which, but for her intervention, he would not have been in a position to deliver at all. How different from the ideal conditions in I have said nothing of the individual acting of Mr. TREE. But then I have rarely been able to describe the appearance of anybody who has not been ill-dressed either ance, which left the audience entirely satisfied without the trouble of seeking a reason. Who the "Darling of the Gods" was I never rightly discovered, but I am sure that the Immortals of the Gallery, despite the noisy but negligible dissent of a small minority, must in their hearts have assigned to Mr. TREE that flattering title-rôle. O. S. EMOLLIENTS FOR MILLIONAIRES. AMERICAN STYLE. I. THE scene is Mrs. RONALD CAY's reception room, Fifth Avenue, New York. It is expensively furnished, in one of the several modes which the custom of the moment allows to be correct. Mr. PONTIUS WATTLE is sitting on an uncomfortable chair, his legs crossed, his hat in his hand, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. He is a man of medium height, about forty-five or fifty, rather dark, and looks a little like a Baptist clergyman who is not dependent on his salary. A maid comes in. The Maid. Mrs. CAY will be down directly, Sir. Mr. WATTLE'S sole comment upon this information is to uncross his legs, and to recross them, as Mr. HENRY JAMES would say, "in the opposite sense." After a few minutes he sighs deeply, and bestows with his right forearm a caress upon his hat. Mrs. CAY comes in. She is a flexible, gliding person, not yet forty, with a small head, and a business-like, decidedly pretty face. Her manner would not be bad if its ease were a little less determined. Mrs. Cay. You wished to see me, Mr. WATTLE. |