Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-10-26

neutrality-suspicious. of Gazette and journal
NEW York. Oct. 20.-There are times
when am fully convinced that all men
are fools. 1t dawns upon me when read
the criticisms of play nf which men do
not understand the motive. A great many
years ago Dumas the younger brought
out play called LES ldes de Madame
Aubray." Frenchmen scoffed at it, women
read it, m9ryelled at ii and wondered who
the woman was behind the pen; size whis-
pered how women felt, what women did,
and how altogether irrational they were
They recognized themselves in the woman
who was at the head of a society to urge
the whitewashing of soiled doves but who
drew herself up with disgust when her own
son suggested that he should marry the
woman he had wronged. Men said this
was far-fetched; laughed at it; women said
less and thought more. To-day one of the
best known of the English playwrights,
Pinero, introduces to us the Second Mrs.
Tanqueray."
And My Master, the Critic, who knows
the world so well, the world as bounded on
the west by Sixth avenue on the east by
broadway, on the north by Thirty-fourth
street, and on the south by Twenty-third,
gets up on his hind legs and brays forth
There never was such woman" And the
women? The women are not saying very
much, but every now and then one who
dares wonders who the woman was who
told Pinero how women felt. NY Master,
the Critic, says such woman is coarse;
does he expect soiled dove TO have the
whiteness of lily? My Master, the Critic,
says men of the world don't marry women
like that, and that he thinks he knows the
world. If he will take the trouble to look
into the Peerage or in the county
gentry of England. ireland and Scotland
he will lind that it is men of the world
who marry such women. 1t is never the
respectable middle-class man; he marries
in his own set. 1t is the man who knows
1t all, and who loves even a soiled dove
well enough to think that by giving her
an honorable name he can make her as
white as her sisters.
REAL AND UNREAL LIFE PICTURES.
My Master, the Critic, sheds sloppy tears
over Camille; he blubbers over the
apotheosis of "Frou Frou," and yet he
says the Second Mrs. Tanqueray" is i'm
moral. There are people who say that
Balzac is immoral. Is every real picture
of life carefully painted in black and
white. showing the sin to be what it is,
immoral While pink and white picture
of an Hetaira refined and made interesting
by hetic flush and a Misunderstanding
cough TO pull at o1r heart-strings, is called
sympathetic and sad Tear away tie roses
and the fine froeks and the sickly senti-
ment from Camille, and what have you ?
n NOlhihuh hoHldlls NulSdT, DeleVlIlR tnaL
because she is dying she is in love with a
young man, and who, If she had been
cured would probably have measured her
love for him blythe depth of his pocket.
My Master, the Critic, does not like the
Second Mrs. Tanquerayr because, al
though he is not acquainted with her, she
1mpresses him as being real. He claims
she does not live here-she didn't sit far
from me the night / saw Mrs Kendall
play. and l wondered how long the real
Tanqueray would enjoy her. Mrs. Tan.
queray is well-known feature of English
life. She is largely the result of the
daughters of poor gentlefolk and OF
younger sons who cannot afford to marry
You can see her at the theatre sitting next
TO duchess, and very often of the two
she is the better dressed and the more re.
fined-looking. From the social stand
point, she knows exactly what is right
and she knows the people she would like
to go with, but as she cannot, she is forced
TO make friends with the women who will
accept her. OF course, she coarsens. DroI
your dove in a mud puddle and what will
be the result2 She is tossed around from
one to another; her soul and her body
alike being bruised.
IT SEEMS HARD TO FORGET THE PAST.
One day she meets Aubrey Tanqueray
he Is the man who IS gentle, kind and ioY
ing to her. He knows her life, but hi
love for her is sufficient TO make him be
'lieye that once she bears the honored mann
OF wife, the past can be blotted out ant
this woman, Some place between 80 and A
not young girl, as the critics persist in
saying-will be given another chance
Mrs. Tanqueray and her kind do not com
from the slums-the daughters OF clergy
men, OF country gentlemen, they are wei
educated and calculated to be com panion
to men. This man who was willing, be
cause OF his love, to give the woman an
MI ar n Ind rsagtg.
his wife is best described by his friend.
fanatic, woman who found her heayei
in her belief and her hell in her husband
woman who as the friend said, Away
wore thermometer in her stays and neye
let it get above zero. This is the woman
my Critic, who drives men to seek tn
second Mrs. Tanquerays. Men love womel
who are flesh ana blood, not prayer-book
bound in black velvet and point lace. Tn
child of this first marriage is girl, as IN
pleasantly offensive as her mother; til
sort of girl who is calculated TO treez
anything. and whose sense of what
wrong is so acute that she feels, as sh
says, the past of poor Paula. May til
good God preserve all of us from meetin
such girls! But as the man who love
Paula said, so many times, this girl wa
Just like her mother.
TRYING TO REFORM WOMAN.
When the Second Mrs. Tanqueray
neighbors, with that sweet charity belon
ing TO women, refuse to call upon her; an
when one does come, she makes it so plai
that she has come to see this beast of
girl, that woman with any pride at
M forgiyes Paula's bad manners, and wonde
that they are not worse. You or ], II
dear, general woman, would have had tn
visitor fired out the door, instead of peac
ably listening to the praises of the la
Mrs. Tanqueray. The daughter goes 0
with this neighbor to Paris, and there 81
meets young man who has fought
India, and by being what she calls
hero" for one week, he blots out the ia
that the rest of his life he has been ci
and coward, and this angel of a girl fc
gives him for having been mixed up
poor Paula's past, while after the fashit
of saints-female saints-she blames Il
woman who bears her fathers name.
OF course, after this, the only thing tn
Paula can do to make everybody comic
able in that family is to kill herself.
1t seems TO me pity that there isl
among the critics one who is duplex
brain. and who can look at this play al
see what the writer is trying to teach n
play is great, not pleasant; the truth We
seldom is. But when / hear people wi
permit their daughters to see ''Camille
lind fault with this play, wonder VIII
has become of the good sense in the worl
They will see base, bad woman rein
into an ANGEL they will have young &
wish that she might be like Camille.
BECAUSE IT WAS ALL so SWEET"
No girl will wish to be like Paula.
the beginning-young, pretty, attract,
the toy Of men-later on, the wife OF
honorable man, who yet had not be
able to kill her past for her. 1t seems
me, all through the play, one reads
scarlet letters THE Waves of sir il dealt