The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-11-23
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

Robert W. Chambers hands out
through the pages of the Cosmopoli-
| tan.
Life as it is not lived.
At least not by the great average.
And it is to be doubted by the few.
| Chambers is the apostle Of the cho-
colate cream.
| Although the chocolate cream, con-
cretely, was projected into the liter
airy limelight by the incompatible Mr..
George Bernard Shaw.
In Arms and the Man.
But this debut of the chocolate
cream was peculiarly Shawesque. That
is, while seemingly an innocent little
sweet filled with sugar and cream and
covered with chocolate it was really
filled with ginger and fireworks.
George Bernard Shaw is the line of
cleavage between the old and the new
on the modern stage.
| Some one said recently, and said
WELL that Arnold Benefits plays owed
their existence to Bernard Shaw.
-, That if Shaw had not been Arnold
Benefits plays would not have gener-
ated.
This is true.
For Shaw was that rarest among
artistic performers-a creator. An
originator.
| And Shaw's methods are fascinat-
ing.
The most serious when he is seem
ingly the most flippant, he rams home
his truth by way of epigram, wit and
paradox.
To drive a point home he will drag
himself before the footlights and turn
himself inside out for the delectation
of the audience who do not see that
they are being gently bamboozled in
to swallowing the noxious or distaste-
full dose by route of a spoonful of vim
egar.
Shaw sponsored the chocolate
cream in literature.
But Robert w. Chambers is a cho-
colate cream writer.
Between the two the chasm is vast,
deep and yawning.
After all the American public has
not got beyond the chambermaid
phase.
| 1t dearly cloves a lord"
Or, for us, member of the New
York Four Hundred
The Four Hundred has been meta
morphosed into the Smart Set but
Ward McAllister coined phrase
which is much more expressive and
enduring.
He didn't intend to coin it.
But he did
The most significant and important
things usually happen through acct
dent or fortuitous circumstance
The thing that is symbolic of our
alleged aristocracy to the uncou is ex-
pressed in the -Four Hundred.''
And they love to read about their
pallid and innocuous doings.
Robert W. Chambers is the Ouch.
ess' of America. What, by the way
has become of the Duchess novels
Howe we used to love to read 'em in
bed at night.
And you'll find yourself sitting
around burning the midnight electric
fluid the while you skim hypnotically
through the pages of Chambers last
banality.
And why?
Because Chambers lends a fine art
to the exploitation of the vacuous.
He debases his talents.
And smudges his art.
| For he has written worthi1y. And
"worthily'' is not used in it's SNUG
conventional sense.
But in its appreciation of the dig
nifty of the literary art.
And the latter is unspeakably de-
: graded when one of it's genuine expo
nents sidesteps his artistic RESPONSE
bilities.
However Chambers's stuff has one
merit.
1t sells.
And the selling quantity can neve,
be discounted. Because it argues, II
not an excellence, a quality of some
sort that is in demand.
Nowadays art goes by the board
It's thrown into the discard
Everything is measured by the rule
of the shekel.
If the fancy of the public fastens or
a legitimate artistic manifestation
then the latter is demanded.
But not for and of itself. For the
thing it is fancied to be. Chambers
tried out the public on a diet of arr
plus personality. The public rejected
it. Or rather didn't care for it. The
. public taste, nibbled, chewed more OF
less reflectively, swallowed and di
gested it with the rest of its susie
nance.
But it didn't ask for more.
So he experimental until he found
; recipe that would suit the average
. taste and not only suit it but tickle
2 it, and for which it would crave
Then he seated himself comfortably
and proceeded to ladle out the product
of the recipe in huge gobs.
The public cried and danced anG
, shrieked with delight.
: He stirs in more sugar
He sprinkles with more condiment
'More-mOre-mor
And the finale of the last tale pre-
) faces the announcement of the next
< 1t is a great game. And Chambers
knows how to play it.
But he writes not of men and WON
en- but of puppets. He is the exponent
} of the saccharine and the disciple O.