The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1895-11-30

Ting in strange lands that they may add
the hoy all TO the. royal collection, the
good rights that the queen is saying tc
| Sir 5Lancelot seem far more interesting.
Ellen Terry as GllineVere seems to me
abgolutajy peerless. Every womalll5
emotion which this trying and tragic situ-
atfnn could call#fcrth is shown so we'll
and 50 si..:::si11;f and strongly that U1le
might he dumb and tietf, vet understand
the tale without missing a comma OF q
senicolGH IL he could see. =
Villains oversee this Little episode, and
! it gets i3:,lo the papers, ltlt is, OF course,
! regarded as 4 sensation.
t One Of the great drawbacks about going
on crus5.al..s and things like, that, it seems
to me, ::as that the ladies Of the court had
| so Little to occupy their minds that it was
llmnst like marrying and leaving ones
wife at the hotel while one goes OIL ti7e
road to sell goods. The ladies OF the court
had noting to read iii those days, and Of
courxa they could not eulbroider all OF the
time. They yearned for society, and even
aueeIss. snt tired locking out OF a window,
waiting All watching Tor the absent one.
W]lo, even ii he came, might come in an
ambulance.
Another young lady, a sweetheart Of
Iianeelot's. is first to discover the truth,
and seaing that the knight gives her no
hope but goes regularly to court every
morning, as though he had been sub
poenaed, at last in wild despair throws
herself in the branch and gets drowned.
In her dead hand is a note which prac-
tically ltells,t the story and all is discovered.
The king, of course, could not otherwise
believe it, but, coming as it does. he sees
that even excalibur will not help him out
of this. The Light Of a whole life dies
when love is DONE and so King Arthur.
who has walked through ali other great
sorrows and calamiries without faEer-
ing look, turns pale in the presence OF his
desolated hearthstone.
Guinevere is renorseful, but the king
sees that there is already more remorse
in the house than they can possibly use,
and so he hardly knows what to do.
The queen is placed in Jail, but that Of
course does not help matters. A vile
traitor us11rps the throne and proposes to
ueen Guineyre while she is in Jail, but
she speaks severely to him and bids him
begone. He then orders that she be, ex-
ecuted This order he gives in the grand
hall at Came!ot, which seats 200 down
stairs alone The usuper occupies an ex-
pansiye throne, made in New York.
He tells Gy7ineyere that unless some
knight will come forward and fight fo-
her good name she will be q dead queen
in a. short while. M.t
There seems no hope for her until at
last strange knight--sort Of an off
knight, as it were--conles in en- n1asQue
and offers to battle for the honor OF the
queen. ......
When his visor is removed it is djscoy-
cred that he is Henry Irving, who has at
tracted great deal OF attention in New
York by being able to charge So per seat,
for orchestra chairs, and 81 for those at
the rear Of the balcony.
The surprise is great among the
knights, but knew him ct once by his
legs. Whether King Arthur wore the
calves Of his legs in front or not Wot
not but I recognized him even with his
visor down and would at once know min
even in bloo1rers.
The king at last lies nlortally wounded
and Mr. Irving has ii sort OF dying grunt
that is something new in the way OF a
stage death. It is realistic, but seems to
come more from the heart OF man who
has tried to llarmoniza a lobster salad
with whisky sour, and found, when it
was too late, that peace is impossible
Compared with the death Of Little Eva,
Irving's death is highly painful and 'tn-
satisfactory it does nor Indicate a hope
beyoud the grave, AS little Eva S does, but
geems on the other hand, to convey che
idea, of acute Inflammation. rather than
peace and rest. --- ...- .e. 80
Little Eva, OF course. has the advan-
4oc, wnita YaStfJ( Hpqt n nod
while Irving must practically die with
his boots OH, but there is an agony, a
wealth Of moaning and tearing up Of the
grass by the roots, a. sort OF nameless
gnawing at the shrubloery and digging OF
the spurs into the gravel, which, in the
death OF Little Eva, Is wAolly absent.
1T is more like the death of Cleopatra
Els played by Miss Fanny Davenport. She
dies hard, and even at So per seat in the
orchestra gives good satisfaction. Her
actual suffering is first~rate II the box
office had been open when I went Out |
would have cbeerfnlly added ST. so we'll
did I feel repaid. AS it was. could only
do scra ething for charity as I passed the
hospital box by the door.
Bui somehow one fealss that Irving Is
not going 70 die, but that with the right
kind of tl1ing-say, Il good, red hot chol-
era. mixture of some kind-he would re-
cover; while little Eva impresses you at
once with the fact that she will never get
we'll. even before she tells Uncle Tom OF
the angels she can see Just over the pros
ceniu,n box waitiag 10Y her.
But IT last all is over. King Arthur
is no more. re + ;@
ExcaIibur is returned to the magic
rlere, and old Merlin comes out TO ss.y,
II told you sc.'
The black barge bears away forever
the body OF the mysterious king, whose
birth and death alike f,artake OF the
strange aud the improbable
1t is a. good play, well given. and
though sad III spots and entirely devoid
of I'epa1tee all the way through and
though Iryings death is as painful as
one connected with a trolley car over
sight, yet came away we'll pleased and
glad that Mr.. Irving was determined to
keep faith with the public as to introduce
this new and attractive though lingering
death.
How He Prayed.
An exchange gets off the following: Il
is said that one Of the engineers of. q car-
+, ~, limo IN the railrnaH ,Eac fa1Jad ,,no,,