The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-09-11
ADJUSTMENTS
.sIshmneIe Mt .shubert

Next Friday evening and Saturday aft
ernoon and evening the Shubert theatre
will offer dramatization of the powerful
novel. "Ishmael," which has been recently
dramatized. 1t is said to be a complete,
original and perfect production, with Vir-
ginia Howell in the leading role.
For the first time the works of Mrs. E.
D. E. N. Southworth will find place this
season on the stage, a dramatized YER
sion of "Ishmael' having been completed
by Miss Alice Z. Ives, author of 1.-THE
Brooklyn Handicap and 1.-The Village
Postmaster" The book from which the
drama has been made is generally re-
garded as the best of Mrs. Southworths
numerous literary productions, and GER
tainly as a study of character and as an
entertaining narrative of southern man
ners and customs in the days preceding
the war, when landed estates and the
American prototype of the English fox
hunting squire were the order of the
day in the country south of Mason and
Dixons line, it has not been surpassed by
any writer The book itself has had an
immense vogue since it was published
and is one of the few that have enjoyed
the distinction of great popularity with
successive generations, the younger ele-
ment taking to it with the same eager
interest as did their elders.
For the benefit of those whose memory
of the theme of "Ishmael' has been
dimmed by time, a brief resume of the
story will not be amiss. Ishmael is the
son of a rich planter and poor young
I'll ~ 10 "a &c
estate, with whom she has contracted
secret marriage. Her death follows
the birth of the child, and the infant is
left in the care of a maiden aunt, his
mothers sister while his father goes
abroad, driven from his native land
through circumstances that keep him
abroad for many years, during which his
son grows to manhood. The fathers eff
fort to provide for the child and the aunt
are frustrated through the ignorance of
a peasant woman who, failing to recog-
nize the value of a scrap of paper which
is really a check for a large sum, de-
stroys 1t and the aunt, too proud to
appeal to her brother-in-law for help, sets
out single-handed to raise the infant in
the face of direst poverty.
1shmae equips himself for the bar
and becomes the protege of Judge Merlin,
chief justice of the supreme court of the
United States Over his birth there is
a dark cloud, for neither the boy nor any
of his influential friends who love him
know the fathers identity, the secret
having been closely guarded through the
years by his vindictive aunt and at every
crucial point in his career the skele-
ton rises TO defeat or impede his ambi-
tious spirit.
Claudia Merlin, daughter of the chief
justice, is the center of his affections. and
she returns his love, but through an en-
envy is informed of the bar sinister cloud
ing his origin. Proud southern beauty
that she is, with all the pride of blood
and race, she deeply loving him, turns
from him nevertheless and is married to
the Viscount Vincent, young English
nobleman, who is visiting the national
capital and who wins her hand. Once
welded and gone to England, the viscount
reveals his true fortune hunting charac-
ter, and the young wife is subjected to
every insult and abuse of which interna-
tional marriages provide many coun-
terpart Separation results after she has
been saved from plot concocted against
her by her husband and his confederates.
through the efforts of her father and
Ishmael to whom she Is welded, follow
ing the violent death of Lord Vincent, and
after Ishmael has met his father, who
clears up all doubts as to the birth of his
son.