Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1923-10-08

HHeS ana no acJlOn SalQ ali
not even promising first act
| eighth failure and season
more than half over rather
be a playwright and fail than a
| critic compelled to listen to has
beens and would-bes trying to put
over bad plays. Oh, for
just one more great first-night.
II there's a spirit world
why don't the ghosts of dead art
lists get together and inhibit bad
Dlaywrights from tormenting first
nighters? Astral board of
Immortals sitting in Unconscious
tweaking strings until gobbets and
sclerotics become gibbering idiots
every time they put pen to paper?
Fewer first-nights but
more joy also JOY Of send
ing producers back to cigar stands.
Thank God, no longer a
critic don't need to come
TO first-nights unless / want :.
can't keep away habit too
strong poor deyil of
colyumist must forage why.
did I become a columnist? More
money. Money! And l once a
rubesccnt socialist best.
parlor type Lord! ! wish
some one would die and leave me
q millonl"
Clavering opened his weary eyes
and glanced over the darkened 4
auditorium. visualizing a mass of
bored resentful disks: a few hope-i
full, perhaps, the greater number
too educated in the theatre not to
have recognized the heavy note Of
Incompetence that had doomed
like mufied fog-horn since the
rise of the curtain.
1t was typical first-night audi
ence, assembled to welcome a ia
verite actress in a new play. All
the Sophisticates Gas Clavering
had named them, abandoning In
tellectuals" and "Intelligentia"
% The FarIor SociallstsJ were
present: authors, playwrights, edi-
fofs ard young editors, columnists,
frarlatic critics, young publishers,
tha fashionable illustrators and
c.riao&ists, a few actors, artists,
sculptors, hostesses of the emil
acpt. sad a sprinkling of Green
wien Village to give a touch of old
2ohemia to what was otherwise
,l:aoss as brilliant and standardized
50 1Tonday night at the opera.
Twelve years ago, Clavering, i'm
rallied irrosistibly from dilapi-
dated colonial mansion in Louisi-
7na to the cerebrum of the West
srp World, had arrived in New
York: and run the usual gamut OF
tAe highnowered man from re-
porter to special writer, although
youth rose to eminence less rapid
y then than now. Dramatic critic
of his newspaper for three years
ftwo years at the wary, an envied,
quoted ard omniscient columnist
since his return from France.
IournaIistically he could rise no
;enev. and none of the frequent
'fst'n~uished parties given by the
ronhiaticates was complete with
eut the long lounging body and
saturnine countenance of Mr.. Lee
/ 1avaring. AS soon as he had set
foot upon the ladder of prominence
IIr. Clavering had realized the
value Of dramatizing himself, and
olthou&h he was as active of body
cs OF mind and of an amiable and
~enial disposition, as his friends
sometimes angrily protested, MS
world, that world of increasing I'M
portance in New York knew him
as a cynical, morOse, mysterious
creature, who. at party, trans
lerred himself from one woman's
side to another's by sheer effort OF
will spurred by boredom. Thf
unmarried women had given him
up as a confirmed bachelor, but
few still followed his dark face
with longing eyes. (He sometimes
wondered what role he would have
adopted if he had been a blond)
AS a matter of fact, he was in
tensely romantic, even after ten
Years of newspaper work in New
York and two of war; and when
his steelblue half-closed eyes
roved over a gathering at the mo-
ment Of entrance it was with the
evergreen hope of discovering the
consummate woman.
There was no affectGtion in his
idealistic fastidiousness. Nor, OF
late. in his general boredom. Not
that he did not still like his work,
or possibly pontihcatlng every
morning over his famous name to
an admiring public, but he was
tired of the crowd" the same old
faces. tired of the steady grind. OIL
bad plays--he, who had such a,
nass,onata love 81 the drama
somewhat tired Of himself. Hei
would have liked to tramp the
world for a year. But although
he had money enough saved ne!
dared not drop out Of New York
One was forgotten over night, and
fashions, especially since the war;
changed so quickly and yet So
subtly that he might be another
wear readiusting himself on his
return. Or find himself supplanted
by some man younger than him
self whose cursed audacity and ORA
matted youthfulness would have ac-