When the late George Butler, quite regardless of fact, and for the fun of the thing, telegraphed from Long Branch to Dion Boucicault at New York, that Billy Florence and Jack Raymond had been saved from a watery grave by a huge Newfoundland, Boucicault responded, “God is good to the Irish.” This sentence, so often quoted, passed, without its point, among the masses. What Dion caught on the nib of his pen and wired to the world was the fact that these two famous comedians, with their English names, were Irish by birth, instincts, and blunders. The people that present to the earth the only race that has wit for its national trait never had two more striking illustrations of the fact than in these stage delineators of genius. Raymond is in his grave, and the inevitable dust of forgetfulness is gathering upon his tomb. But Florence, so kindly known throughout the land as Billy Florence, is yet alive, and very much alive. The evidence of this fact is before us in a book entitled Florence Fables (Belford, Clarke & Co.). Those so-called fables are not fables, but fiction without morals, but full of interest, which is much better, and come to the reader in the shape of love-stories, odd adventures, and strange incidents at home and in foreign lands.
The book is sure of a wide sale, for the multitudes that have seen Florence in his merry performances, and learned to love as well as enjoy this finished comedian behind the footlights, will be curious to learn how he appears as an author. But they “who come to scoff” will hold on to enjoy. The name is enough to attract; the book itself is sufficiently charming to entrance the reader.
In the last issue of Belford’s we gave a specimen of the humor: to find the pathos and the true love the reader must consult the volume.
Divided Lives, a novel, by Edgar Fawcett (Belford, Clarke & Co.).—There is no more charming writer of English fiction than Edgar Fawcett, and the volume before us is one of his best. He builds upon the English method, animated by the French motive, and deepens the shallow affection of the first to the unfathomable depths of human passion to be found in the last. His dramatic ability holds one to the interest of his book whether 247 it has plot or not. Of course he has his faults. His characters are known to us mostly by name, labelled, as it were, and he will at any time sacrifice one or a dozen to work up a dramatic effect. Then he has affectations, not precisely of style, but of phraseology, that irritate; and he cannot resist putting smart speeches into the mouths of everybody. Here is an example:
“Indeed, no,” Angela replied, “there never was a more devoted friend than Alva is. To leave her charming home, and all her gay town life, for weeks, just that she may be near me! It is something to vibrate through one’s entire lifetime.”
This is said by a little girl to her lover, and the lover responds:
“It teaches me a lesson. What is easier than to misjudge our fellow-creatures, and how wantonly we’re forever doing it! We are all like a lot of mountebanks behind an illuminated sheet. The uncouth shadows we cast there are the world’s misrepresentation of us.”
As these young people were desperately in love with each other, but then just engaged, this sort of talk, however clever, is as much out of place and jarring on one as would be the murder scene from Macbeth.
Edgar Fawcett is given to a delineation of social life in New York. This is a wide and varied field, and the author makes it intensely interesting. We have called attention, however, to the fact that he is not altogether correct. The English motive, of turning the interest upon social caste, is not true when applied to our mixed condition. We have no aristocratic class, as recognized in England; and the assumption of such in real life is too ludicrous and unreal for the purpose of the novelist. Mere wealth without culture, and culture without wealth, contend in a mixed condition with each other, without supplying the interest to be found in earnest endeavor to overcome unjust distinctions and power. When Mr. Fawcett does deal with a class he is not always just. In his Miriam Balestier, published in the November number of Belford’s, by far the most artistically beautiful work from the pen of our author, he by implication attacks an entire profession that has held through generations not only the admiration but love of the public. There is absolutely nothing in the vocation of an actor that either degrades or demoralizes. On the contrary, there is much to elevate and refine—the work sustained by art found in painting and music, the thought and feelings of the poets; and while this is meant to amuse, the stage has been the most potent factor in not only furthering civilization and culture in the masses, but awaking in the hearts of the many the loftiest patriotism known to humanity. It has awakened a deeper feeling for the home, a firmer trust in the law of right, and a stronger faith in virtue than aught else of human origin. That taints, stains, and abuses have attached is no fault of the drama. One could as well attack the bar or the pulpit because a few unworthy members have disgraced themselves, as to hold the stage responsible for the recognized evils that have fastened themselves to a part. That we have senseless burlesques and lascivious exhibits of nakedness at a majority of our 248 theatres is the fault of the patrons, not the stage. The manager, like any other dealer in commercial wares, caters to the taste of his customers, and the stage is no more responsible for their productions than the street is for the wretched street-walker.
So long as citizens take their wives and children to witness the shameless productions, so long will the managers produce them, and when remonstrated with, shrug their shoulders, and ask, “Well, what would you?” The pulpit denounces the drama, but leaves untouched their congregations in their patronage of its abuse. The great city of New York, for example, lately entertained a convocation of Protestant clergymen, met to consider the sad fact that they were preaching to empty churches, and to devise means through which to awaken the religious conscience of the multitude. They went to their meetings along streets where every other house was a saloon, where the beastly American practice of “treating” makes each a door to ruin; and they passed corners where the walls were aflame with pictured advertisements of naked legs, bare bosoms, and faces fairly enamelled with sin. One reads their debates with amazement. Their clerical minds were troubled with what? The doings of “papists,” as Catholics were designated.