New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-02-09
By Haywood Broun

Whenever a man remarks give had
a mighty adventurous life, l have" we
usually set him down as former king
of the Coney Island carnival or re-
Gently returned delegate from an Elks
convention in Kansas City. 1t has been
our somewhat bitter experience that
the man who pictures himself as a
great adventurer is almost invariably
spurious. AS matter of fact, the rule
holds good for great wits, great lovers
and great drinkers. But it applies with
particular pertinence to romantic folk.
A wise professor at Harvard once re-
marked that he didn't believe that the
ancients realized that they were an
clients. We have somewhat the same
feeling about quaint people and ro-
mantle people and adventurous people.
OF course we must admit the exist
ence in life and in literature of anthem
tic but sophisticated romantic figures.
Cyrano was one and, to a lesser extent,
d'Artagnan. Porthos is on our side.
But the best example we can remember
is Huckleberry Finn. Tom Sawyer pict-
ured himself as a romantic figure.
Huck didn't. When Huck went avian
dering he thought it was because the
store clothes the widow had given him
were uncomfortable. 1t was actually
another itch, but he did not know it's
name. This to our mind is the essence
of true adventure. When a man comes
to recognize romance he is in a posi-
ton to bargain and parley. He is not
just happen to him. He has to go out
and seek them. He has lost his anna
teur standing.
Huck, who didn't know what it was
all about, had much more exciting adj
ventures than Tom and he was more
fascinating figure in the happening.
Jim would also come into our category
of true adventurers, and, to skip back a
bit, Tom Jones is almost type perfect
Just so Sancho Panza seems to us more
fundamentally romantic than Don Quix-
ote, and We have always been more
interested in what happened to Doctor
Watson than in the adventures of Sher-
lock Holmes. Sherlock foresaw things
and that is fatal to romance.
The Prodigal Son belongs in our list,
and Andrew Jackson, and Lots wife,
and Eddie Rickenbacker, and Lord Jim,
and Ajax, and Little Red Riding Hood,
and Thomas Edison, and the father of
the katzenjammer Kids, and most of
Bluebeard's wives and all the people
who refused to go into the ark.
While we are willing to admit that
there are other types who are sue
cessfuly romantic, in spite of self
consciousness, they are the exceptions.
We are hardly willing to accept them
in group. This brings US to Mrs.
Fiske's new play, mis- NeLv of
N'Orleans," at which we have been AIM
ing throughout the article.
There are nine characters in the play.
and the author pictures each Of them
as being distinctly aware that he is
an adventurous character, in a quaint
garden, in a romantic city, in a mad
story 1t is true that these people do
some romantic and adventurous things.
but never without first predicting that
they are going to be romantic, and then
explaining after it is all over that thew
have been romantic. From our point of
view there is too much challenge in
this Whenever q man or woman in a
play or in life promises that he is about
to do something quaint we have an ir
resistible desire to lay him to 5 that
it won't be any such thing. Then if
the decision is left to US we always de-
eide against him.
The method of the preliminary puff
and the subsequent official confirmation
Is decidedly mistake in the case of
The character portrayed by Mrs. Fiske
in Mia Nelly Of N'Orleans." Mrs.
Fiske showed herself quite capab]e If
carrying the role of spirited, roman
tic and adventurous belle, and It was
unnecessary to have her triumph 90
carefully prepared in advance hy the
predictions of her servants as to what
sne would do when she got her Jim
Crow up"
We might have been content to ac-
cepe some Of the otner characters az
sure enough romantic figures if thew
nad not been so confoundedly confident
tnat they were. They fairly chal-
ienged rs into disbelief. The antbor
70 our mind, was wrong from the begin
ming IN describing his comedy on the
programme as a comedy of "moonshine
madness and make-believe." Moonshine