The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-28
BEN BOLTS BAD CHARACTER.
As Indicated by the First StnnEa of
Trilby's Chief-dOuVre.
From the New York Tribune.

from the New York Tribune.
81 am getting impatient" said the dis
contented man. with this craze over Ben
Bolt"
why" said the complacent man.
whats Ben Bolt to you. or you to Ben
Bolt?"
Il think" said the discontinued man,
that the first stanza. which is all Of the
song that have ever heard. is false and
commonplace in sentiment and I don't
like to see the whole public so excited over
such an unpleasant person to get along
with as this Sweet Alice. Why. only
think, She wept with delight when you
gave her smile that is when Ben Bolt
gave her a smile, and trembled with fear
at your frown, that is, Ben Bolts frown.
Now, what is a man to do with girl like
that? Evidently he must school himself to
keep his face perfectly eXpressionless, or
he Will have her either weeping or trem-
bling all the time Then. again 1 don't like
to see sensible girl throw herself away
on a brutal sailor who will seldom be at
home to look after her and will ill-treat her
when he is. while all the time there are so
many good, kind and generous men who
are willing to stay on shore and look after
their families"
Well" said the complacent man, that
ought not to disturb you in this case. for
you don't seem to give Alice credit for
being a sensible girl"
mo, I don't, but that wouldn't make
any difference; she would do just the same
If she We're sensible-as sensible, that is,
as girls ever are. They're all alike in that
respect. They won't look at the decent fell
lows, and then they take up with these
beasts of sailors, who beat them and then
desert them"
But aren't you going a little too fast
even now. If you have never heard any
more than the first stanza Of the song.
how do you know Ben Bolt was a sailor
at all?"
How do I know he was sailor? Why
because his name was Ben. Isn't a man
named Ben in a song always a sailor, and
isn't nearly every sailor in a song named
Ben? The last name helps it out. too. 1
can't tell just why, but you cant hear the
name Ben Bolt without thinking of
sailor. If his name had been Benjamin
Bolt he might have been a bank presi-
dent or a car-driver or anything else, but
not with such a name as Ben Bolt"
Very well, even granting that he was
sailor, he need not necessarily have
been brutal"
He need not, of course, but he was.
Why else should Alice tremble with fear
she was a morbidly sensitive person, any
way, and so she might be expected at Ben
Bolts frown to tremble with anxiety or
with sympathy or with sorrow, but no
woman trembles with fear at the froWn
of a man whom she knows WELL unless
her experience has taught her that his
frown Is a thing to be feared. On the
other hand 1t is clear that he seldom gave
her a smile, else she would not have wept
with delight when he did. Even in Alice's
morbid condition, a woman does not ac-
tually weep with delight at a pleasure
which she experiences constantly and reg
ularly. The passage is perfectly easy to
interpret and it shows clearly that as
a general thing Sweet Alice was ill-treated
by Ben Bolt.
again, 1 object to the statement that
Alices hair was so brown About how
brown does the supposed speaker or singer
wish us to believe that ii was? Is not hair
brown when 1t is brown, and is not that
the end of 1t? The fact is, l believe that
Alices hair was so brown simply because
she trembled at Ben Bolts frown. If she
had trembied at his wink her hair would
have had to be so pink And while we are
talking about things that were so much
whatever color they were, there is that
slab of the granite so gray, which was
fitted in the old church-yard, obscure and
alone for Alice to lie under. Now granite
is not any grayer than most other stones
and besides did you ever see a slab Of
granite in an old country church-yard?
Granite Is a very hard stone and difficult
to work 1t might be used in a region
where it abounds, but slate has always
been preferred in all the old church-yards
that have ever seen. l suspect Ben Bolts
friend really did not know the difference
between granite and slate. And then, what
force is there in his telling Ben Bolt that
she was buried obscure and alone? Does
he wish to imply that the neighbors were
in conspiracy to wrong and Cypress her
even after she was dead? In any ordinary
country church-yard, her granite slab, in
stead of being obscure, would be one of the
sights of the town, just because it was
granite.
You have made a mistake said the
complacent man, "in never reading the
song through. The last stanza is far the
best Listen to IL:
There is change in the things loved, Ben
Bolt,
They have changed from the old to the
new;
But I feel in the core of my spirit the
truth,
There never was change in you.
Twelve months twenty have passed. Ben
Bolt,
Since first we were friends, yet I hail
Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship
truth
Ben Bolt. of the salt sea gale.
There, didn't l tell you he was a sail
orr" said the disconnected man.
Eyes, but isn't there poetry in that stan
"a? And doesn't it show that Ben Bolt
was not the ruffian that you thought"
1.-THE stanza, taken by itself, is 20 times
as good as the first one, but II proves moth
ing in favor OF Ben Bolt. II only shows
that his friend who could admire him
must have been one Of his own abandoned
sort. as / suspected before because OF his
unkind ana un-called for inslnuations
against the neghbors"
The complacent man still felt that these
judgments were unnecessarily severe. and
tried one more little piece Of mitigation Of
damages. do you not think" he said.
that the present vogue Of this song Is due