The record-union., 1892-06-25

p. Dunlop, writing from New York
undsr date of June 18th, says:
"Whew! The weather has been so hot
that those nailed to the cross, like the
wicked thieves, without even vinegar
soaked sponge, and have TO remain ar
their desks instead OF lettering by the
seaside, or enjoying bruised mint by the
DabDllng brook, are soured, and the sum-
mer amusemenus come in for a certain
amount OF candor never given when 1t is
JOY and not torture to go into play
house. To be perfectly candid in crltl-
cism Is, perhaps, always difficult, whether
ii blows cold or blows warm-and to tell
the truth is always dangerous. Even IN
conversation, when only one person list
ems, and the consequences of rash frank
ness eau always be tempered by judicious
denial, it requires much moral courage to
say exactly what one thinks about any
play or any picture or any person more
especially when candor involves the adj
mission of some incapacity or personal
weakness. The amount of courage re-
quired is prOportionately greater when
Dne sets about being candid in black and
white, showing that the published words
cannot be recalled or wriggled out of, but
viii remain to make solid basis for libel
suits or personal retorts. / am therefore
rather thankful for the hot spell, and will
for once take "a header into candor, and
enjoy the luxury of telling the absolute,
solid, naked, pure, beautiful, downright
truth, which is this, that absolutely
nothing new has agitated the theatrical
surface in Gotham during the week.
Sydney Rosenfeld's Imagination and
VIM. tleron's 'Elysium,' both failures,
but doomed into momentary success,
have been withdrawn. They were of the
same kind, but Rosenfeld only suggested
adroitly that which Fleron actually put
on the stage. Both of them hug the idea
that they have written great plays, and
that an ungrateful public refuses to re-
cognize their great genius. 1t is fact
which no one will contest that great plays
are not always successful on first produe-
ion, but that they live despite failure;
and that successful plays are not always
great, but that they die despite success.
~ great play, a great work of art goes
down beneath the soil of fashion, and has
Its foundations in the solid rock of un-
changing, yet ever changing nature or
in the heart of humanity, which is pretty
much the same to-day when our Young
men walk about the street in prelatically
long frock coats, as it was when their an
cestorS made themselves equally smart
after their own way in stripes of wood,
and so bedecked appeared Infinitely less
ridiculous to the then bellies than the
masheresque gentlemen would have done.
These great plays appeal at once to those
who have ears to hear. or ewes to see.
their appeal adown the generations. The
successful play which pleases at the mo-
ment is generally intensely of its own
hour. This quality is very happily de-
fined and characterized as 'topicality.'
NO other word so conveys the meaning,
but neither Imagination nor 'Elysium'
ever really even gained that kind of sue
cess. Nothing so beastly immoral and
stupid as 'Elysium' has ever been
shoveled on the metropolitan stage, and
Rosenfeld's flip attempt deserves to be
killed in the bud"
THE GHOST DIDN'T WALK.
In the ghostly, glimmering, grimmy gloom
Ot damp and dismal dressing-room,
some actor-Inen by the gruesome CRATE
Wild tales of weirdness did relate:
And Ananias he rendered up
The Championship, the Belt and Gun:
For he saw in a minute
That he wasn't in il,
50 thought he had better, ere twas too late,
Resign and thereby escape the doom
OF getting left by the great Bluff Boom
The stories told were of spectres stark
And goings-on awful after dark;
OF ghosts in armor and clanking chains
0t headless horsemen and poundless plains;
OF broken trysts and unpaid bills;
O1 ghosts defiance
OF Sanital science;
Or ghOStly maidenS and ghOStiy SWANS
Who wandered about in a ghostly mark
IN a manner provoking grave remark.
But every one of that COMPANY grim
SAID ghosts had never appeared to him
The Lead never saw the Ghost of n Chance.
Tie Ghost OF Laugh did never enhance
The nimble wit of the Comic Man
With his portable hot-roast Chestnut-canI
And so they concluded
Not 10 be deluded
BY any nonSenSical tale OF Sedure
Ghosts didn't walk nowadays-Iet them trim
Their wits, and the lamp that burned so dim
Soon after, each sceptical, jeering pro.
Got outside his whisky, and turned TO 90.
Remarklng That no kind of ghostly talk
Would ever convince him that scepfres stoIl,,
Next day, at mystical twelve o. the clock.
1hey went 10 Treasury, gave loud knock
None came to the portal!
And then each mortal
Remembered he'd stated that Ghosts ,7iy,,,t
1UdUt ''
Found comfort in saying they said 'twouId he
sol W NC
THE CRITICS FUNCTION.