New-York tribune., 1921-09-05
d By
1OOIo Percy Hammond

unlike most plays rejected by the
managers, Don Marquis's Words and
Thoughts did not, eventually, reach
production and develop into the sea-
sons protuberant success. Therefore
Mr.. Marquis may not boast with the
other dramatists that after he had been
declined by George Tyler, the Ssfwyns,
Mr.. Brady, Charles Dillingham; end the
Theater Guild he. was accepted BY an
obscurity and ran for years. 8r Mar
ouis is not without satisfaction in the
n, n,atter. In the foreword to sCarter,"
a book of his good short stories, he in
perity. "'Words and Thoughts, he
says, twas written ten years ago-in
1911-- and has been offered to every
theatrical manager in America, and re-
fused by them all. still believe in it
as a thing that could be acted with
effect, and I am determined to get it
read, even if cannot get it produced.
The fact that it has been going the
rounds Of theatrical managers for ten
years is no indication that it has ever
been read"
Mr.. Marquis has reason for believing
that "Words and Thoughts" could be
acted with effect, since it's arresting
idea is worked out in plausible terms of
the theater, calculated to summon the
vagrant mind of the playgoer without
causing him too many mental pangs.
On enc side of the stage are John
Speaker and his wife; on the other are
Mr.. and Mrs. John Thinker They are
the same, except that the Thinkers
speak what the Speakers think. The
Speakers hide their ugly thoughts be-
hind visor Of hypocrisy, and the
Thinkers X-ray and reveal them by acts
and utterance as they really are. In
order to give the a1ngory the essential
qualities of the primer Mr.. Marquis
introduces the character of an ancient
cousin about to die and leave money
behind her. Mr.. Marquis's mystifica-
tion over the indifference of managers
to words and Thoughts" is made even
more excusable by the fact that an
identical idea, treated later and less
SIMPLY by Miss Alice Gerstenberg in
"Overtones," edited vaudeville and the
little theaters during several prosperous
seasons.
The essayist, Henry Seidel Candy.
discussing in 1.-THE Evening Post"
means by which to salvage the short
story from the f1otsam of minor liter
ature, recommends that the short story
be taken as seriously by authors, pub
fishers, readers and reviewers as are
fiction's longer studies and narratives.
Mr.. Candy suggests that short story
writer's shall do their most earnest
writings for small and critical audi
cnce instead of large and forgetful
one-and that this output shall be col
lected by publishers into volumes
wherein the discriminating reader may
find the best, without having to wallow
through innumerable magazines. If an
attempt is made to find and to hold that
audience, Mr.. Candy thinks, it would
develop, in it's most trivial aspect, into
new source of profits and royalties.
Mr.. Marquis's tales in the Garter"
collection may not measure up to MIR.
canby's hopeful standard of perma-
nence which, in English, is the briefer
works of Rudyard Kipling, but for the
casual and the undevout they are agree
able reading. They are, perhaps, the
slight elevation, the foothills which
precede and which prepare you for as
cension to Mr.. Canby's lofty summit.
If tricks of style, denouement and
climax are unworthy, then is Mr.. Mar
quis as unworthy as the best of his
kind. His improvisations are decorative.
adding his imagination's rouge now and
then to the gaunt and pallid truth. An