Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-10-02
NYM CRINKLE'S NOTION
AS Set Forth in Philosophic Con.
trast of Actor and PIgilist.
Poetic, Kesined and PUPPY" Frank
Bangs Compared With the rjn-
ad0iterated Masculinity
of Sullivan.
Ny1n Crjnkle in New York World.

an extent that they could not tolerate the
sight of blood, and one of their philosophers
explained to the European missionary the
horror and disgust which they felt for our
rude forms of criminal execution. They had
improved very much Oh hanging and decap-
itation, and when they wished to punish an
offender they stripped him naked, took him
out into the desert and tied him to stake in
the whitening sun, after placing food and
water just out of his reach. Here ne was
left to roast and to starve slowly, while the
black, poisonous ants consumed him.
This was considered a great and refined
achievement
Modern sensbility of the magnificent kind
acts Oil this savage line. 1t abolishes violence
but enhances cruelty.
If we had any means Of actually measuring
the force and extent of cruelty as we measure
less subtle energies, think it would be found
that the dove-eyed coquette, who is equally
compounded of sensitiveness and heartness,
inflicts more suffering than the brawny but
magnanimous gladiator.
Your Tearle and your Bangs are fair repre-
sentatives of sentiment that will not look
passively upon prize fights. 1t shudders at
mashed noses and closed eyes and gaping
wounds.
But it is wholly obvious to the elemental
virtue there is in old-time contempt for phys
ical suffering. One must perforce feel sort Of
admiration for the victim who 'comes up
smiling" in spite Of a smashed nose and
closed eye.
For in that endurance and defiance is
quality that advancing civilization is robbing
us Of.
No one can read back without being amazed
AZ t,a fu1o ,.1ith
''took punishment" When they believed a
thing, fire could not burn it out of them.
When they undertook thing, physical pain
never daunted them.
In getting rid of physical violence, which
was perhaps good thing to do, have we got
rid of our capacity to endure it-which may
be an unfortunate thing to dos
In refusing, according to the sentimental
code, to smash noses and close eyes, may we
not have fallen into worse habits-of smash
ing regulations and closing up careersa
Even in the moral world it has come to be
an accepted doctrine that the hero in our
days is not the man who defends truth in
ar1nor, but the man who believes in her, in
his closet, and that ''wind" and bottom" ara
best shown in not reading what your enemy
says about you in print.
Mr.. Frank Bangs, I do not believe would
put any mans head in chancery and ''fib"
AWAY his feathers with savage glee He is
essentially refined, sensitive, polished His
superb masculinity was never degraded to
the level of physical violence. He is living
exponent of the poetry, the chivalry, the
romance of that gentle and winsome thing
we call the drama.
And he is gentle and winsome, himself,
He is, moreover, of our day and generation.
believe he is great actor. His Mark An
tony was decorous combination of the
Farnese Hercules and the Gannymede of
Jove. When he delivered the Grafton it re-
minded you of statue Of granite with mu-
sic box in its throat He came upon the
stage like the herald Mercury new Lit upon a
heaven-hssing hin, and when he was not act
ing he blushed and famed himself with
winsome grace that no bodice could with
stand.
Women fell in swathes before his form.
With the single exception of Walter Mont.
gomery, whose limbs still walk in the mem
DRY of theatrical habitues, nobody that we
have could strip" to the work Of Shakes
peaye with such cuticslar and adipose adj
vantage.
The suspicion among men that this mag
nifcence was pulpy does not have any
weight Suppose it was? Hardness of mus
Gle is of no special value in seeming. Mark
Antony does not knock men out with his
limbs, but his logic. 1t isn't science but
sophistTy that we admire in him.
And that is just the quality that will not
work in Mr.. John L. Sullivan's plays. He
has got to be all that he appears to be. Even
pretense of muscle must demonstrate itself
Every assumption of manliness, courage, en-
I, 49, |. ga
such inexorable heartless application of strict
elemental justice is anywhere else applied to
man. There must not be a faSehood in a
single sinew. If there is lie in his blood or
a weak spot in his breast his antagonist will
find it out and five or ten thousand inplaca-
ble judges will recognize it in q minute
Don't you think there is a certain basis Of
honesty in this work?
This is what Oscar Wilde meant when he
came back from California and reported that
the finest picture Of manliness he had seen in
America was brawny miner with a sledge
driving q spike. He went about among the
saloons and clubs inspecting the magnificent
fellows who lean against pillars, with their
thumbs In their waitcoats and yawn-but
he never again felt quite satisfied with them.
So it was with me. After I saw Sullivan
polish off the Maori (by the way that word is
properly pronounced Mow-ry). l somewhat
lost my faith in Bangs
It seemed to me that my idol was made OF
ice cream and had stood too long in warm
atmosphere
A base and sickening admiration Of the
frank barbarism of the past crept over me az
compared it with the Stalled muscrllarity
of the present A fearful doubt grew up in
my soul Of the solidity Of the current Mark
Antonys, and an apprehension seized Inc
that some day the hairdresser would cut one
Of them and he would collapse with squeak
like rubber balloon.
II tried to shake off tliis agnosticisrn. ]
said to myself, this is rank heathenism; brace
up, old fellow, and keep abreast of the times!
After all, this is an age of parachutes, not of
pyramids. The real thing is vulgar; what
we want, even in muscles, is the ideal thing.
It's the pulp of appearance. not the sinew OF
sincerity, t. 1t wins.
turn firm the Mark Antony. posing there
in his role of injured innocence, to my robust
| friend, John L. Sullivan, who has nothing
but honest muscles and square animal proves