Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-03-23
A COCKTAIL CHARACTER
Who is Trilby ?-SOme Attempt to
Enlighten the Novel Reading
Public on a Much VeXed
Question.

To the Editor of the New Mexican.
Santa Fe, Mch. 22.-Now that Chicago
is about to grovel before the imaginary
portrait of an improbable foot, it may
be we'll to throw little light on the gesta-
tion and exegesis of this scurrilous book,
a very poor work in itself owing to its
sIipshod com position, and achieving
an unenviable notoriety by the authors
attack on the foibles of an artist whose
unstinted hospitality he had enjoyed for
many years.
The prevailing curiosity as to Trilby's
personality seems rather irrational, not
to say morbid, but as some statements
calculated to annoy as well as deceive are
being constantly circulated in the Amerl-
can press, accompanied as in the st.
Louis Republic by an absolutely libslous
engraving, it seems right to give some
discreet information on the subject,
promising that the writer was we'll &C.
quainted with the Latin quarter when it was
tho QUARTER Latin, with very big capitals
indeed, at the time the scene opens, circa
1860, when the sham emperor, Napoleon
the Little and his beautiful wife were de-
liberately emasculating France by on
oouraging these "boys to be boys"
Trilby is really a composite or cock
tail character, the rock ingredient being
still alive, and therefore it would be mani
festly indiscrest to say more about the
lady than that she was unquestiouably
the Beatrice (Tri1y) of the Dante pic
lures to which modern art is 80 much in
debted. Du Maurier has given this away
in the portrait unwittingly sketched
above the celebrated catch-seutence, 81
believe you, nv boy"
In the early SIX ties this was for some
years the phase most often heard in Bo-
hemia, being jolly Paul Bedford's one
reply to Wright's reiterated inquiry,
"Didn't we, Jaek?" This "Trixy" or
"Trilby" has no singing voice, but an
other lady, as beautiful and as finely
built as herself, and also an Irish woman,
had and has glorious organ, and strange
to say, was not only the rage but the alb
solute idol Of the Russian, Hungarian,
Austrian and Italian operas contsmpo-
ranoousiy with the glorious creature i'm
mortalised ia Little Billee's exquisite
pictures; and it 10 more than noteworthy
that his real name was the stage pame of
this divine songstress. As this lady Is
also still living, Du Maurier's indiscre-
ton In linking these two fascinating
creatures with purely imaginary charac
tsrs, conversati ons and circumstances,
deserves censure even more severe than
Mr.. Whistler's condemnation. There
was kind of Svengali professor in the
Guildhall school of music in London, but
the Drury Lane tragedy is pure fable:
happily Trilby is not dead yet. The st..
Louis Republic makes most egregous
blunder In naming as the original Of
Trilbya most estimable lady, who was
always one of the ultra-respectable Brit
ish-matron type, incapable of Sitting"
except for her own portrait, and although
a very charming singer, by no means a
meteoric wondor.
"Trilby" contains one passage against
which I must energetically protest.; the
name given to the Chicago heiress is a
wilful insult TO the United States, and
makes it still more curious that the windy
city should be 10 impatient to debase it.
self, but, perhaps, like the fellow in the
play, Mr.. Stead's Eden likes to be kicked.
Tho book is disgrace to English
literature successful mainly because its
malicious tone panders to palates craving
for sensational novelty. 1t is not even n
holograph; the few noteworthy passages it
contains reveal the hand of a notorious
Philistins, whose 'words are smoother
than honey, and yet be they very swords"
He has, however, contributed the one
pearl in the puddle, a weighty chapter
that deserves to be rescued from the
muddls of meretricious muck, an utter
ance too serious for such frivolous book:
''Is it right for a grown man to play at
make-believe on grave questions with a
parson, merely because he is parsen! ~
W. II. GULLIFoRD.