The times., 1898-12-11


doubled his royalties by introducing a
single line here and there throughout his
plays. The goldsmith in THE Comedy of
Errors" could easily have earned his sal
ary by driving up TO deliver the Dromio's
chain in wagon painted "All sorts of
holiday presents marked to half price at
Jare, the jewelers." Two or three of his
battle scenes might have been made prac-
tical and impressive by the erection of
signs telling the location of certain local
undertakers. Falstaff could have sug-
gested the propriety of using a paten,
anti-fat medicine. and Cleopatra might
easily have said. while holding the asp TO
her bosom. that people who INDUCED In
Bromo-Homo never saw snakes.
How great triumph of art
would it have been for Shylock
to say when informed that the
bond did not permit OF his shedding
drop of biood-how easy for him to say,
There is no fear of that. Rusty's Steel
plated Bread Knife cuts so fine that
there's no room for bloodr' And then,
after an impressive silence. he might add,
Forty cents apiece. or four dollars
dozeni"
Had Shakespeare but known he uld
have arranged so that elevators shcud
have superseded his rope ladders: extra
editions of the daily newspapers have
supplanted his messengers and passes fo-
Davis and Keogh shows his often usel
potent poison So might he have ex-
changed every one of his old contrv-
ances for newer things and thus have
not only encouraged the inventive genius
of the age but helped himself as we'll
Think OF the possibilities In the trans
posed line. "A bike, A bike, My king
dom for a bike,'
M 10 r-.e H.,
even before that. so the great Shakes
peare could not have profited by these
ideas He was forced TO write melo-
drama without Siberian martyrs or
wronged Observation-Disclosures without
footstools, lost heiresses, railway wrecks.
fire engine effects and red-sealed pap rs
The glorious William could not have
ships blown up in his plays for the very
simple reason that during his life there
was nothing but air to bow them up. SC
eordingly every time he thought that his
audiences were getting weary with the
monotony of having only ten people XII /
ed to an act he was obliged to look W
historic battle or SO and let the oppos ng
generals come out front and tell alb Ut it.
This was a fearful handicap and one
from which the palmy Offering has never
recovered
Shakespeare could not compose rustic
sketches because domesticity in his day
consisted largely in a mans ability to
keep other people off his soil or undar
1t. The tender pathos of a freside scene
would have been greatly narred by the
presence of two dozen sturdy bow1nen
distributed about the back drop flirting
with the female supers and looking for
arrogant lords with gold-paper helmets
and red flannel kits. There was no
method of producing snowstorms in the
period of the bard, and the draw peculiar
to pieces of this sort did not exist any
more then than 1t does now. Half the
force of the present rural idyl is in lis
homeliness and what-what is home with
out property turkey and a kitchen
rangs with a stove pipe thar carries two
tons of smoke a minute into the green
room and gives the stage hands bad
cases of water-in-the-eyes?
Really strong drama-dramas like "The
Sporting Duchess" and The Conquer
ors'-could not have been written in the
time Of the poet for reasons of modesty.
The costumes of the day did not permit
OF heroires being dragged ali over the
theater. Had Mark Antony handled
Cleopatra as Ipanoff handles Fedora, all
the ladies in the audience would have
gotten up and gone out. Romantic plays
could not have been edited then
because Anthony Hope and Edward
Rose had not yet set to work
making the history of previous ages and
fencing was not yet fine art, while pat
riotic efforts may be seen to have been
a,,physical impossibility when 1t is con-
sidered that the United States had not
then had any trouble with Spain and
Lieut. Hobson was still an unknown fac
tor
The absence of French tars and the lack
of Dat hot Ian
farces; the rarity with which eccentric
uncles made wills barred pure comedy
from the field. and the refusal OF the gen.
try to believe that highwaymen We're no.
bles in disguise dealt a deathblow to
comic opera. Two centuries ago Ravy
and Caddy would have been hanged TO the
proscenium arch long before the first act
of tErminie" was over There We're no
ballet girls. telephone girls. matinee girls
bicycle girls or girls from Paris 10 furnish
material for musical comedies, and
Well. that was not all by great deal
In fact. it may be said that no man ever
labored under greater difficulties that Gid
William Shakespeare. The material of to-
day-the material without which no mod
ern could achieye-did not exist for him.
Not a single one of the up-to-date endeav-
ors now on the stage could have been
written in his time-unless one excepts
the jokes used in Have.ly's Minstrels. Bill
Shakespeare did not even possess a type
writer,
And so it is that the youthful aspirlnt
for the honors of a playwright should
have profited by studying the primitive
matter in Modjeska's repertoire. He may.
now turn the true state of affairs over in
his mind-if there is room enough-and
remember that IL the Bard used about all
of the old plots and things that were then
was nothing else in sight. There is no
reason why the modern should suffer by
that operation. Thomas Edison and the
French government are working over
time to provide new dramatic material for
those who desire to use it.
No handsomer present could be imag-
ined than is holiday reminder being sent
about just now with neat little card in
closed bearing the line, "A Merry Christ
mas from Maude Adams and Charles
Frohman." The gift is a handsome edi-
ton of j. NJ. Barrie's Little Minister"
bound in vellum with gold-embossed COW
ers and gold-edge leaves
The work, which was especially pub
lished by r. H. Russell, contains SI5 pages
and is beautifully printed on the best pa
per- 1t has upward of sixty full
page Illustrations, many of them drawn
by C. Allen Gilbert, and others taken
from poses by Miss Adams and members
of her company. Six engravings. repre-
senting scenes which exist in the play.
but do not occur in the book are enclosed
and the whole securely packed in neat
box The entire volume is not only a
prize to the bibliomaniac. and rare one
at that, but thing of beauty to any
one who looks upon such things with a
purely critical eye. No one will receive