The New York herald., 1922-12-11
THE REVIEWING STAND
BY Alexander Woollcott

r. OF Hook above him. Blackman up
T.. Cookson down l.. Starkey L. G. :
below Hook
But the printed texts are wont to
have much airier directions, such as
the famous one from some Barrie play
or other: HE looks into his teacup
and thinks of his uncle in Australia"
And OF course they abound in~.the
miniatures he loves to paint. Con-
slider. for example, his portrait OF Mr..
and Mrs. Coadc In Dear Brutus." 1t
reads
Coady. as she Is Familiarity called
and as her husband also Is called,
each having for many years been
able to answer for the other. is a
rounded old lady with a beaming
smile that has accompanied her from
childhood. II she lives 20 be hum
dred she will pretend to the census
man that she is only ninety mine. She
has no other vice that has not been
smoothed out of existence by her
placid life, and she has but one COM
plaint against the male Coady. the
rather odd one that he has long ago
forgotten his first wife. Our Mrs.
Coady mover knew the first one, but
il is she alone who sometimes looks
at the portrait OF her and preserves
in their home certain mementos of
her. such as a lock OF brown hair,
which the equally gentle male Coady
must have treasured once but has
now forgotten. The first wife had
been slightly lame. and in their brief
married life he had carried solicit
ously rost for her foot. He had
got so accustomed to doing this that
after a quarter of century with our
Mrs. Coady he still finds footstools
for her as If she were lame also. She
has ceased TO pucker her face over
this, taixing It as a kind little thought
less attention, and indeed with the
years has developed a friendly limp.
1t is chiefly because he is so thor
ough and so painstaking in changing
his plays from acting to reading YER
sions that Barrie has always been re-
luctant to undertake tho work, think
ing up all manner OF sly and deceitful
excuses to quiet his publishers on the
subject That is probably why the
list is still glaringly incomplete. You
not only miss little Mary" which he
has quite possibly forgotten. but you
also miss "The Little Minister
Peter PAN 1.-THE Legend of Leo
nora" and MARY Rose" These have
never been published-at least not in
America. And certain Of his, shorter
pieces are not to be had. 1t is our
great regret that we have never been
able to lay hands on one sketch Of his
that sounded delightful when rumors
of it appeared five or six years ago
in the English papers. 1t was called,
as we remember it now, THE Best
Bedsteod," and proffered a solution to
the mystery. left unsolved by Shake
speare's will--the document which be-
queathed his second best bedstead to
his wife. The other one, according to
Barrie, was left to Mary F'ytton and
so turns up in Edinburgh in our
time. One day tug at the mattress
splits it and out pours stream of
manuscript, all the odds and ends Of
scenes which Shakespeare had never
produced and never published. There
is one gay fragment showing a meet
ing between Mary Stuart and the sour
Elizabeth. Mary was brazenly taunt-
ing her jealousy. Men did prefer
Mary. Elizabeth glowered and asked
sarcastically what she had to say to
the fact that Raleigh had flung his
coat into the puddle to make a foot
way for her. Pooh, POOH" said Mary
just before they beheaded her, shed
have carried mo across!'
All in all IL is "a Kiss for Cinder-
ella" which makes the best reading.
And since Franklin p. Adams has
been advertising for the greatest love
letter ever written. let him consider
the claims OF the mysterious Nmissive
which the policeman wrote at the sta
ton house and sent TO Cinderella She
let us see only one line of it. 1t was
the line which said: There are
thirty-four policemen sitting in this
room. but I'd rather have you. my
dear