Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Volume 26 December, 1880. by Various None (have you read this book txt) 📖
- Author: Various None
Book online «Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Volume 26 December, 1880. by Various None (have you read this book txt) 📖». Author Various None
With New Effects And Dresses.
I Have Cited _La Cigale_, Not Because It Is A Very Good Play--For It Is
Not--But Because It Shows The Present Carelessness Of French
Dramatists In Regard To Dramatic Construction. _La Cigale_ Is A Very
Clever Bit Of Work, But It Has The Slightest Of Plots, And This Made Out
Of Old Cloth; And The Situations, In So Far As There Are Any, Follow
Each Other As Best They May. It Is Not Really A Play: It Is A Mere
Sketch Touched Up With Parisianisms, "Local Hits" And The Wit Of The
Moment. This Substitution Of An Off-Hand Sketch For A Full-Sized Picture
Can Better Be Borne In a Little One-Act Play Than In a More Ambitious
Work In Three Or Four Acts.
And Of One-Act Plays Meilhac And Halevy Have Written A Score Or
More--Delightful Little _Genre_ Pictures, Like The _Ete De
Saint-Martin_, Simple Pastels, Like _Toto Chez Tata_, And Vigorous
Caricatures, Like The _Photographe_ Or The _Bresilien_. The Frenchman
Invented The Ruffle, Says Emerson: The Englishman Added The Shirt. These
Little Dramatic Trifles Are French Ruffles. In The Beginning Of His
Theatrical Career M. Meilhac Did Little Comedies Like The _Sarabande_
And The _Autographe_, In The Scribe Formula--Dramatized Anecdotes, But
Fresher In Wit And Livelier In Fancy Than Scribe'S. This Early Work Was
Far More Regular Than We Find In Some Of His Latest, Bright As These
Are: The _Petit Hotel_, For Instance, And _Lolotte_ Are Etchings, As It
Were, Instantaneous Photographs Of Certain Aspects Of Life In The City
By The Seine Or Stray Paragraphs Of The Latest News From Paris.
It Is Perhaps Not Too Much To Say That Meilhac And Halevy Are Seen At
Their Best In These One-Act Plays. They Hit Better With A Single-Barrel
Than With A Revolver. In Their Five-Act Plays, Whether Serious Like
_Fanny Lear_ Or Comic Like _La Vie Parisienne_, The Interest Is
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 75Scattered, And We Have A Series Of Episodes Rather Than A Single Story.
Just As The Egg Of The Jelly-Fish Is Girt By Circles Which Tighten
Slowly Until The Ovoid Form Is Cut Into Disks Of Independent Life, So If
The Four Intermissions Of Some Of Meilhac And Halevy'S Full-Sized Plays
Were But A Little Longer And Wider And Deeper They Would Divide The
Piece Into Five Separate Plays, Any One Of Which Could Fairly Hope For
Success By Itself. I Have Heard That The _Roi Candaule_ Was Originally
An Act Of _La Boule_, And The _Photographe_ Seems As Though It Had
Dropped From _La Vie Parisienne_ By Mistake. In M. Meilhac'S Earlier
Five-Act Plays, The _Vertu De Celimene_ And The _Petit Fils De
Mascarille_, There Is Great Power Of Conception, A Real Grip On
Character, But The Main Action Is Clogged With Tardy Incidents, And So
The Momentum Is Lost. In These Comedies The Influence Of The New School
Of Alexandre Dumas _Fils_ Is Plainly Visible. And The Inclination Toward
The Strong, Not To Say Violent, Emotions Which Dumas And Angier Had
Imported Into Comedy Is Still More Evident In _Fanny Lear_, The First
Five-Act Comedy Which Meilhac And Halevy Wrote Together, And Which Was
Brought Out In 1868. The Final Situation Is One Of Truth And Immense
Effectiveness, And There Is Great Vigor In The Creation Of Character.
The Decrepit Old Rake, The Marquis De Noriolis, Feeble In His Folly And
Wandering In Helplessness, But Irresistible When Aroused, Is A Striking
Figure; And Still More Striking Is The Portrait Of His Wife, Now The
Marquise De Noriolis, But Once Fanny Lear The Adventuress--A Woman Who
Has Youth, Beauty, Wealth, Everything Before Her, If It Were Not For The
Shame Which Is Behind Her: Gay And Witty, And Even Good-Humored, She Is
Inflexible When She Is Determined; Hers Is A Velvet Manner And An Iron
Will. The Name Of Fanny Lear May Sound Familiar To Some Readers Because
It Was Given To An American Adventuress In Russia By A Grand-Ducal
Admirer.
After _Fanny Lear_ Came _Froufrou_, The Lineal Successor Of _The
Stranger_ As The Current Masterpiece Of The Lachrymatory Drama. Nothing
So Tear-Compelling As The Final Act Of _Froufrou_ Had Been Seen On The
Stage For Half A Century Or More. The Death Of Froufrou Was A Watery
Sight, And For Any Chance To Weep We Are Many Of Us Grateful. And Yet It
Was A German, Born In The Land Of Charlotte And Werther,--It Was Heine
Who Remarked On The Oddity Of Praising The "Dramatic Poet Who Possesses
The Art Of Drawing Tears--A Talent Which He Has In common With The
Meanest Onion." It Is Noteworthy That It Was By Way Of Germany That
English Tragedy Exerted Its Singular Influence On French Comedy.
Attracted By The Homely Power Of Pieces Like _The Gamester_ And _Jane
Shore_, Diderot In France And Lessing In Germany Attempted The _Tragedie
Bourgeoise_, But The Right Of The "Tradesmen'S Tragedies"--As Goldsmith
Called Them--To Exist At All Was Questioned Until Kotzebue'S Pathetic
Power And Theatrical Skill Captured Nearly Every Stage In europe. In
France The Bastard Offspring Of English Tragedy And German Drama Gave
Birth To An Equally Illegitimate _Comedie Larmoyante_. And So It Happens
That While Comedy In english Literature, Resulting From The Clash Of
Character, Is Always On The Brink Of Farce, Comedy In French Literature
May Be Tinged With Passion Until It Almost Turns To Tragedy. In France
The Word "Comedy" Is Elastic And Covers A Multitude Of Sins: It Includes
The Laughing _Boule_ And The Tearful _Froufrou_: In Fact, The French
Melpomene Is A Sort Of _Jeanne Qui Pleure Et Jeanne Qui Rit_.
So It Happens That _Froufrou_ Is A Comedy. And Indeed The First Three
Acts Are Comedy Of A Very High Order, Full Of Wit And Rich In character.
I Mentioned _The Stranger_ A Few Lines Back, And The Contrast Of The
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 76Two Plays Shows How Much Lighter And More Delicate French Art Is. The
Humor To Be Found In _The Stranger_ Is, To Say The Least, Teutonic; And
German Humor Is Like The Simple Italian Wines: It Will Not Stand Export.
And In _The Stranger_ There Is Really No Character, No Insight Into
Human Nature. _Misanthropy And Repentance_, As Kotzebue Called His Play
(_The Stranger_ Was Sheridan'S Title For The English Translation He
Revised For His Own Theatre), Are Loud-Sounding Words When We Capitalize
Them, But They Do Not Deceive Us Now: We See That The Play Itself Is
Mostly Stalking Sententiousness, Mawkishly Overladen With Gush. But In
_Froufrou_ There Is Wit Of The Latest Parisian Kind, And There Are
Characters--People Whom We Might Meet And Whom We May Remember. Brigard,
For One, The Reprobate Old Gentleman, Living Even In His Old Age In That
Bohemia Which Has Paris For Its Capital, And Dyeing His Few Locks
Because He Feels Himself Unworthy To Wear Gray Hair,--Brigard Is A
Portrait From Life. The Baron De Cambri Is Less Individual, And I
Confess I Cannot Quite Stomach A Gentleman Who Is Willing To Discuss The
Problem Of His Wife'S Virtue With A Chance Adorer. But The Cold Baronne
Herself Is No Commonplace Person. And Louise, The Elder Daughter Of
Froufrou, The One Who Had Chosen The Better Part And Had Kept It By Much
Self-Sacrifice,--She Is A True Woman. Best, Better Even Than Brigard, Is
Gilberte, Nicknamed "Froufrou" From The Rustling Of Her Silks As She
Skips And Scampers Airily Around. Froufrou, When All Is Said, Is A Real
Creation, A Revelation Of Parisian Femininity, A Living Thing, Breathing
The Breath Of Life And Tripping Along Lightly On Her Own Little Feet.
Marrying A Reserved Yet Deeply-Devoted Husband Because Her Sister Bid
Her; Taking Into Her Home That Sister, Who Had Sacrificed Her Own Love
For The Husband; Seeing This Sister Straighten The Household Which She
In Her Heedless Seeking For Idle Amusement Had Not Governed, Then
Beginning To Feel Herself In danger And Aware Of A Growing Jealousy,
Senseless Though It Be, Of The Sister Who Has So Innocently Supplanted
Her By Her Hearth, And Even With Her Child; Making One Effort To Regain
Her Place, And Failing, As Was Inevitable,--Poor Froufrou Takes The
Fatal Plunge Which Will For Ever And At Once Separate Her From What Was
Hers Before. What A Fine Scene Is That At The End Of The Third Act, In
Which Froufrou Has Worked Herself Almost To A Frenzy, And, Hopeless In
Her Jealousy, Gives Up All To Her Sister And Rushes From The House To
The Lover She Scarcely Cares For! And How Admirably Does All That Has
Gone Before Lead Up To It! These First Three Acts Are A Wonder Of
Constructive Art. Of The Rest Of The Play It Is Hard To Speak So Highly.
The Change Is Rather Sudden From The Study Of Character In The First
Part To The Demand In The Last That If You Have Tears You Must Prepare
To Shed Them Now. The Brightness Is Quenched In Gloom And Despair. Of A
Verity, Frivolity May Be Fatal, And Death May Follow A Liking For
Private Theatricals And The Other Empty Amusements Of Fashion; But Is It
Worth While To Break A Butterfly On The Wheel And To Put A Humming-Bird
To The Question? To Say What Fate Shall Be Meted Out To The Woman Taken
In Adultery Is Always A Hard Task For The Dramatist. Here The Erring And
Erratic Heroine Comes Home To Be Forgiven And To Die, And So After The
Fresh And Unforced Painting Of Modern Parisian Life We Have A Finish
Full Of Conventional Pathos. Well, Death Redeems All, And, As Pascal
Says, "The Last Act Is Always Tragedy, Whatever Fine Comedy There May
Have Been In The Rest Of Life. We Must All Die Alone."
J. Brander Matthews.
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 77
The King'S Gifts.
Cyrus The King In Royal Mood
Portioned His Gifts As Seemed Him Good:
To Artabasus, Proud To Hold
The Priceless Boon, A Cup Of Gold--
A Rare-Wrought Thing: Its Jewelled Brim
Haloed A Nectar Sweet To Him.
No Flavor Fine It Seemed To Miss;
But When The King Stooped Down, A Kiss
To Leave Upon Chrysantas' Lips,
The Jewels Paled In dull Eclipse
To Artabasus: Hard And Cold
And Empty Grew The Cup Of Gold.
"Better, O Sire, Than Mine," Cried He,
"I Deem Chrysantas' Gift To Be."
Yet The Wise King His Courtiers Knew,
And
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