The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-12-01

fill up certain space in order to appear UT abashed at the pay window on Mon- days
 was feeling awful blue over being so ignorant when it was up to me to say something about the coming of Mary Garden, for I have never seen her or heard her, and what's more I do not even know the smell of her, although the per- fume named after her has been press agented almost as much as she has been, and that is saying much for her person. ality has been put in the wash, squeezed and hung up to dry with other linen in the pitDess laundry of the press
 The following lines by a bard whose name is unknown to me pop in my head just here, and when that is the case tLey soon pop out in this column:
 q look like Mary Pickford,
 l camp like Valeska Surratt;
 I kiss like Norma Talmadge,
 Now. what do you think of that?''
 T dance like Anna Pavlowa,
 I dress like Lady Duff;
 But I smell like Mary Garden,
 My Lord. aint that enough?"
 
 It may be a bit curious to couple up Billy Sundae' and Mary Gardenia, '' but they have one quality in commo on which yokes them up together as the pair who have the greatest ability to get on the front page of any two performers in America. Billy gets on it on Mon- day. Tuesday, Wednesday and all the rest of the week days. and works it double time on the Sabbath; while Mary's garden is always overrun with camera men to snapshot her, and reporters to V rite her up. The preacher makes count less hundreds hit the sawdust trail, and the actress makes thousands line up at the box office.
 I would never have had the courage l to link the names of Sunday and Garden together if I had not read of Mary's fondness for William Jennings Bryan which to my way of thinking Is most unusual. If true, it's tribute to the great 'cornmoner::'' but if the work oi publicity man, it was stroke of gen jus to invent it. Her little honily on temperance was fine, and her tribute tc glass of water was great. I was won. dering why she had not been exploited and made an honorary member of the w. c. T. U. when I found out that she disclaimed being teetotaler, say inp. "I like ,,,y chap,naou for dippar reckon a few in this burg would De willing to qualify as prohibitionists and drink a cocktail of water as a chase, for a bottle of Mums extra dry, oI veuve Clicquot.
 I suppose the reason I was depressed just a few paragraphs back came iron the fact that had just put down the bril- liant chapters on Mary in James Hume ker's "Bedouns," for l realized that i was impossible for me to get into suci 1 fast company. and all that I could d. would be to stand on the side lines ant watch the brilliant artists in whose so l ciety he had placed the greatest BedouiI l of them all I was happy to be ner' 1 ST ectator. for it relieved me of bein' an arbiter of her art.
 l But just as was about giving up il despair my good angel called to mind tl,a very penetrating student of the stag' had observed, flor a man to be a dram atic critic is as foolish and inartis tic as it would be for man to be [ critic of epics or pastoral critic, or { critic of lyrics" the inference being tha his time would be better spent in en | loving them rather than in anaiyxing classifying. CT dissecting them. It wal some relief to know that after all oper; vas not written for the dramatic critics but for the public
 
 1 If it then be true that the vulgar spe cializaticn of criticism is m elaborat scientific knowledge of the stage. aimos as elaborate as that of the stage car penter and quite on a par with that O the call boy. I cannot qualify as an ex pert, but must remain in the ranks a aim of the true critic is to try and chron icle his own moods. and not to try ana correct the masterpieces of others, 2 place their interpreters on their proper pedestals. then l may have fightini chance to talk to the man in the stree about the great operas and the great op cratic stars.
 1 Fear in mind am not dramatic critic but the most uncTitical of mossbacks enjoying opera in kind of childish won der without having to bother my heas to classify the school of music of th piece being rendered. l like the bignes of it as presented in the opera houses 0 the world. I like the greatness of tn. audience. The stage setting appeals t, my love for pictures on large scale The stars dazzle me with their glitterini splendor. while the choruses overwhelp me with it's ocean of song. and tn orchestra pieases me with it's tonai ef fects But to give each part it's prope place is beyond me.
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