The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-04

drama-poison, class prejudice, amator.
intrigue, seduction.
The simple fact Island this forms tn.
justification Of m thesis-that in colleg
life pure and simple there ara no motivet
OF real dramatic calibre. Love? Parent
are against serious affairs with the under
graduate; and wise girls know that a
regards all the important things Of life h
Is a callow hedghng. The self-styled colleg'
mar himself knows well enough that, in hi
actual status in life II not in years, he /,
only a boy. Ambition-a career? Under
graduate life is a mere preparation, and a
that by no means vitality necessary.
One subject the college man takes will
absolute and final ea~rnestness, risking limi
n even life for it-athletics. No Joy Il
greater for the moment than victory, M
sorrow han defeat. But the public, Of
which audiences are composed, knows vel
enough that a game is a game, and nd
life; and the undergraduate knows this too
though he may not always be aware Of tht
fact. l remember one time when th'
college had fair hopes of winning the great
football game for the first time in ffteer
years. To many of US it meant, quits
| blICCIcly, u CUdnC6 10 IItb u pcdIlJ loNCN
Alma Mater from black disgrace. In the
excitement Of the final week before the
game every other thought and desire went
into allegiance. Since that time l have
learned in the confidence of the Preside
that not a few Of the undergraduates in
cluded a plea for victory in their prayers
But how make an audience of homely folk
believe in all this2 And by day We did not
believe In it ourselves. The all absorbing
hope found expression in betting; and when
we had bet all the money we had in view
! we took to throwing cold hands, not as
man against man, but impersonally, as
Yale against Harvard, to determine in adj
vance who was going to win. 1t was a
grim joke, but it was undeniably a joke
Even in the most serious aspects OF college
life, in short, there is no drama, only comedy
verging upon farce,
1t Is the neglect OF this primary fact that
makes "Strongheart" a ailur in any
artistic sense, and Brown at Harvard
a ludicrous neptitude. And it was the
realization of it tAat' made Mr.. AIDES little
speech memorable. Unquestionably the
college man does not deserve to be taken
with entire seriousness on the stage. 1t is
a pity that he did not feel this as author OF
the play as we'll as its apologist.
His central theme-a heroine who coldly
and with premeditated design makes a
catspaw Of an honest mans love-is es-
sentially serious. Noodoubt it has here its
amusing aspect, as characteristic of the
excuses of the athletic mania, but to any
sincere view it ia first and last dramatic;
- III =. z-.-o1,, -hat r. Ado yaft,,aa
to make it. The reason is clear enough.
To face its full import would have been to
make of it the dominant feature-a feature
quite inharmonious with the general tenor
of college life, and therefore with the spirit
Of the play as he was bound to conceive it.
In a word, the theme is at bottom as inept
as ~seductions of the other and more CON-
v%entionally melodramatic order.
What Mr.. AIDE has actually done is to
glide lightly and briefly over the intrigue,
with his attention chiefly fixed or its super
fetal comic aspect. Even at that many
people find it both unpleasant and inartistic.
The most enthusiastic admirers OF the play
are those who neglected to look beneath
the surface, taking the whole thing for
what it mainly is, a half cynical and alto
gether amusing presentation OF the more
obvious phases Of life in a fresh water COL
lege-a ~satirical genre comedy. THE
College Widow" succeeded, in short, in
spite of the dramatic element implicit in
its theme. and not because Of it.
Tho most successful Of college plays,
and the most harmonious artistically in
its kind, Is the one that has treated the
undergraduate in the, most frankly ir-
responsible manner-"Charley's Aunt" It's
kind is not exalted, In its bare outlines
the play Is a farce of the conventional,
perhaps mechanical, order; but it never
theless embodies the spirit of Oxford with
a broad fidelity which would scarcely be
imagined by those who do not know it.
Lord Bdbs.if that is his name-is only
a slightly heightened portrait of titled
weaklings who are to be found in any Of a
dozen colleges on the banks of the Isis.
The delighted levity with which his COM
ra des abuse him, and the perturbed and
half witted good nature with which he
accepts their horse play, was probably
studied from the life. and certainly repre-
SCENTS it with as much truth as breadth Of
comic force. The question is we'll worth
considering whether as a medium for pre-
senting college life on the stage farce is,
not more serviceable than comedy.
It is true that college life has its senti-
mental as well as its amusing aspect-the
freedom from restraint of the workaday
world, the warmth and the iollity Of the
comradeships of young manhood. 1t was
this sort of thing that bulked so large in
the stories Of college life OF the middle OF
the last centurv-"Tom Brown at Oxford"
and the Harvard story Of "Hammersmith"-
even "C%uerndale" with all it's callow wick
edness. But for some reason 1t has been
ne glected in more recent books, such az
C. NJ. Flandrau's Harvard Episodes"
and Jesse Lynch Williams's Princeton
Stories" On the stage it has appeared
as the mercst incident.
Not so in Germany, as all who have seen
Alt Heidelberg" remember. Perhaps the
Teutonic mind finds the expression of
sentiment more natural. 1t is certain that
the spirit of freedom in the university is
enhanced to it by the rigors Of the life
without-that of a government HI IF military
and half bureaucratic. There is also in
49, - .I.x. - -az. L.