"Robinson Crusoe" is a treasure-house of situations, some of which gain a piquancy from the dash of the diabolical with which Crusoe's terrors invested them. Even where this is wanting there is plenty of bloodshed to take its place, and a happy combination of horrors is supplied by the cannibal feast which Crusoe interrupts. The youngest member of the troupe is, on the whole, the best victim; but, failing this, any pet animal sufficiently lazy or good-tempered to endure the process makes a tolerable substitute. "Masterman Ready," "The Swiss Family Robinson," and other cognate works, together with appropriate selections from sacred and profane history, are adapted with a shamelessness which would make a dramatic author's blood run cold.
Lions, tigers, and wild beasts generally are common objects of nursery imitation, either from a genuine admiration of their qualities or from the mysterious craving for locomotion on all-fours with which children seem possessed. This branch of the art, however, struggles under some difficulties. It has, of course, to contend with the undisguised opposition of authority. This is hardly a matter for marvel, and perhaps not even a matter for regret. A prudential regard for the knees of puerile knickerbockers and the corresponding region of feminine frocks may explain a good deal of parental discouragement in the matter; and there is little public sympathy to counteract this, for it is felt that the total decay of these mimes would not be a serious loss either to dramatic art or to peace and quietness.
In one sense, no doubt, these amusements of childhood are matters of little moment; but, in spite of their seeming triviality, they have a genuine importance which should not be overlooked. The spontaneous exhibitions of children at play often reveal latent tastes, tendencies, or traits of character to one who is able to interpret them aright. If this be so,—and it is no longer open to doubt,—it is clear that even infant acting may furnish hints and assistance of the highest value to an intelligent system of education. It is true, no doubt, that till quite lately any such possibility was steadily ignored; but it is only quite lately that anything like an intelligent system of early education has been attempted. The idiosyncrasies of a child, instead of being carefully observed, were either disregarded as meaningless or repressed as being naughty. No greater mistake could be possible; and this at last is beginning to be understood. The first struggles of a young consciousness to express itself externally are nearly always eccentric, and often seem perverse. But this is nothing more than we ought to expect. The oddities of a child's conduct are in reality nothing else than direct expressions of character, uncurbed by the conventions which regulate the demeanor of adults, or direct revelations of some taste or aptitude, which education may foster, but which neglect will hardly crush. The world contains a woful number of human pegs thrust forcibly into holes which do not fit them, and the world's work suffers proportionately from this misapplication of energy. The mischief is abundantly clear, but the remedy, if we do not shut our eyes to it, is tolerably clear also. Just as this condition of things is largely due to our unscientific neglect of variations in character and the wooden system of education which this neglect has produced, so we may expect to see its evils disappear by an abolition of the one and a reform of the other. If the world be indeed a stage, with all humanity for its corps dramatique it must surely be well for the success of the performance that the cast should take account of individual aptitudes, and that to each player should be allotted the part which he can best support in the great drama of Life.
Norman Pearson.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
"The Man who Laughs."
The degree of culture and good breeding which a man possesses may be very correctly determined by the way he laughs. The primeval savage, from whom we trace descent, was distinguished above everything else by his demonstrativeness; and there is much in our present type of social manners and conduct which betrays our barbarous origin. The brute-like sounds that escape from the human throat in the exercise of laughter, the coarse guffaw, the hoarse chuckle, and the high, cackling tones in which many of the feminine half of the world express their sense of amusement, attest very painfully the animal nature within us. It was Emerson, I believe, who expressed a dislike of all loud laughter; and it is difficult to imagine the scene or occasion which could draw from that serene and even-minded philosopher a broader expression of amusement than that conveyed in the "inscrutable smile" which Whipple describes as his most characteristic feature. Yet Emerson was by no means wanting in appreciation of the comic. On the contrary, he had an abiding sense of humor, and it was this—a keen and lively perception of the grotesque, derived as part of his Yankee inheritance—that kept him from uniting in many of the extravagant reform movements of the day. Few of us, however, even under the sanction of an Emerson, would wish to dispense with all sound of laughter.
The memory of a friend's voice, in which certain laughing notes and tones are inextricably mingled with the graver inflections of common speech, is almost as dear as the vision of his countenance or the warm pressure of his hand. Yet among such remembrances we hold others, of those from whom the sound of open laughter is seldom heard, the absence of which, however, denotes no diminished sense of the humorous and amusing. A quick, responsive smile, a flash or glance of the eye, a kindling countenance, serve as substitutes for true laughter, and we do not miss the sound of that which is supplied in a finer and often truer quality.
The freest, purest laughter is that of childhood, which is as spontaneous as the song of birds. It is impossible that the laughter of older people should retain this sound of perfect music. Knowledge of life and the world has entered in to mar the natural harmonics of the human voice, which not all the skill and efforts of the vocal culturists can ever again restore. It is only those who in attaining the years and stature of manhood have retained the nature of the child, its first unconscious truth and simplicity, whose laughter is wholly pleasant to hear. I recall the laugh of a friend which corresponds to this description, a laugh as pure and melodious, as guiltless of premeditated art or intention, as the notes of the rising lark; yet its owner is a man of wide worldly experience. It is natural that I, who know my friend so well, should find in this peculiarly happy laugh of his the sign and test of that type of high, sincere manhood which he represents; but it is a dangerous business, this attempting to define the character and disposition of people by the turn of an eyelid, the curve of a lip, or a particular vocal shade and inflection. Not only has Art learned to imitate Nature very closely, but Nature herself plays many a trick upon our credulity in matters of this kind. Upon a woman who owns no higher motive than low and selfish cunning she bestows the musical tones of a seraph, as she sheathes the sharp claws of all her feline progeny in cases of softest fur. Rosamond Vincy is not the only example which might be furnished, either in or out of print, in proof that a low, soft voice, that excellent thing in woman, may have a wrongly persuasive accent, luring to disappointment and death, like the Lorelei's song, to which the harsh tones of the most strong-minded Xantippe are to be preferred.