xt72rb6vx34d https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt72rb6vx34d/data/mets.xml Walker, Stuart, d. 1941. 1921 books b96-5-34068504 English Stewart Kidd, : Cincinnati : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Bierstadt, Edward Hale, 1891- Portmanteau adaptations / by, Stuart Walker ... ; edited, and with an introduction, by Edward Hale Bierstadt. text Portmanteau adaptations / by, Stuart Walker ... ; edited, and with an introduction, by Edward Hale Bierstadt. 1921 2002 true xt72rb6vx34d section xt72rb6vx34d

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PORTMANTEAU

ADAPTATIONS

By
STUART WALKER
Author of Portmanteau Plays and More Portmanteau Plays

Edited, and with an introduction by
EDWARD HALE BIERSTADT

ILLUSTRATED

CINCINNATI
STEWART KIDD COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Printed in the T'nited States of America
Thr Abinmbmt errs

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION, -

GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE, -

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA,

SIR DAVID WEARS A CROWN, -

NELLIJUMBO, - - -

APPENDIX, - - - -

Page
-- 7

- - 3'

- - I"3

- - '4I

- 185

- - 225

This page in the original text is blank.

ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing page
SCENE FROM "GAMMER" GURTON, - Frontispiece

HODGE AND DIccoN, - - - - - 48

THE INFANTA OF SPAIN, THE CHAMBERLAIN, AND
THE DUCHESS, - 1 20

THE DUCHESS OF ALBUQUERQUE, - - 136

THE KING, THE QUEEN, AND SIR DAVID, - 152

SIR DAVID AND HIS MOTHER, - - - - 152

THE SOLDIERY AND THE POPULATION, X - 176

THE KING'S GREAT AUNT AND THE KING'S COUN-
CILLOR, - - - - - - 176

This page in the original text is blank.

INTRODU CTION

"WANhat's in a name" asked Juliet, and truly
the reader of this book may well make the same
query, for of the four plays contained in it only
two can be considered in any wise as adaptations,
and about one of those I am rather doubtful.
However, the plan for the Portmanteau series,
made three years ago, included this title, and as
the book has been announced for manv months
past as Portmanteau Adaptations it was thought
unwise to make a change at the last moment.
Therefore, the book and I who named it, both ask
forgiveness if we have deceived. Our intent was
innocent, and, to complete the quotation with
which we began this apologia, "That which we
call a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.'"
The Portmanteau Theater with its plays was
born in New York City, and in the past I have
usually spoken of it largely in connection with
New York. This I can no longer do, for Mr.
Walker's great success in repertory in Indian-
apolis has meant in effect a change in head-
(luarters. It was inevitable that this should be
so. Broadway is a good thing to come back to,
but to remain there means either surrender,
bankruptcy, or stagnation. Repertory on Broad-
7

INTRODUCTION

way died with Augustin Daly, and though the
Portmanteau, like a raider on the flanks of an
army, has more than once dashed in and given a
telling blow in the shape of a success it would
be unwise to invite a pitched battle. There
would be nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Personally I have for years looked toward the
middle west, or as Indianapolis would doubtless
say, the middle east, for that revitalization in
point of view which we all realize is so essential
to the success of any art in America. And this
in spite of Main Street. For Main Street is
really no more typical of America than a sore
toe is typical of the man who happens to have
one. The Earth was born of Chaos; Christ came
out of Nazareth; and there are more things in
Main Street than are dreamt of in the philosophy
of Mr. Sinclair Lewis. For five summer seasons
the Stuart Walker Company has proved that
Indianapolis has a large and appreciative theater
going population, a population that likes new
things done in a new way as well as old things.
'During the season of 1921 the Stuart Walker
Company passed its six-hundredth performance
in Indianapolis. There are several unique points
about this company which should be noted.
It is the only company of the kind that has ever
gone intact from its home city (Indianapolis)
into New York and Chicago using the same
actors, lighting, and scenery. The company
does not depend upon the personality of one or
two people for its success. It is well rounded.
8

INTRODUCTION

The productions are immensely even; one does
not find a star supported by a dummy caste.
If there is no one in the company who fits exactly
into a part, some one is brought in from outside,
but this happens very rarely. In its first five
years the company has given over seventy-one
plays of which about thirty-four were seen for
the first time in the home city, and of which
fifteen were premieres. This is truly a remark-
able record; six hundred performances, seventy-
one plays, fifteen premieres. I do not know of a
single company in America to-day that can equal
it. Also, and this is of no small importance, the
prices of the company this last season were exactly
half those of the regular winter prices. Here
then is a company, well balanced, well trained,
adequate in every way, and playing excellent
repertory at half-price, and at a profit. And they
tell us that repertory will not pay in America!
Truly it will not pay when it is so calculated as
to please only one type of person, and that one
the smallest part of the public. The partial
repertory of the Stuart Walker Company is
listed in the appendix to this volume, and the
attention of the reader is particularly invited to
it, for it is deftly composed. It is psychologically
sound. It ranges from Dunsany to Harry James
Smith, and from Echegaray to Eugene Walter.
Very evidently there is something here to please
every one. And too there is an obvious effort
to choose the best in each type of play. There
is nothing haphazard, nothing left to chance.
9

INTRODUCTION

Likew ise a repertorv company will not succceel
when it is made up either of a collection of stars
with w-hate-ver-can-be-dra2Led-in for support or
when there is one star and the rest of the company
is composed of odds and ends. Both of these
things have happened, and both of them have
failed. There is no Duse or Coquelin in the
StUart Walker Companyr, and it is not even de-
sirable that there should be. The balance would
be destroyed at once. But, instead of this, there
are, to mention only a few, Blanche Yurka,
Elizabeth Patterson, Beatrice IMaude, McKav
Morris, Regina Wallace, George Gaul, Tom Pow-
ers, Margaret Mower, and Peggy Wood. When we
speak of e.enness on the A-Anmerican stage we are
more than apt to mean mediocrity, but in this
instance we have an evenness of excellence, a
company perfectly able to handle the romantic
play, the realistic, the poetic drama or anything
indeed that it is called upon to do, and handle
it proficiently. There can be nothing slipshod
here. The result is the most successful repertory
company in the country. When the lesson has
been thoroughly learned and digested we may
have more of them. In my opinion, however,
two unusual attributes possessed by MIr. Walker
himself have stroml-v militated toward his success.
He can see potentialities which are buried, and
he can bring them out and develop them. In
Portnanteauz Planvs I spoke of one of M\r. Walker's
first productions at the end of whicb a Broadway
manager asked him where on earth he had been
I0

INTRODUCTION

able to get his company, so many comparatively
unknown actors doing Such unusually good work.
Mr. Walker's reply, "I got six of them out of your
companies," tells the story. He saw, where the
other manager could not, that here were six
people who could really act if they were given
the chance instead of being buried in walking
parts. He took them, trained them or rather
helped them to train themselves, gave them
the opportunity to develop their capacities, and
they are unknown no longer. If Mr. Walker
ever decides to start a school of acting it will
be well worth going to. Naturally all this has
helped. The work has been done by a man who
has a great instinct for the stage, not by one who
regards the stage merely as a means of making
money, as one might think of a fish market for
instance. It is vitally necessary that a producer,
a director, a regiseUr have this instinct. It does
not require a fair to sell fish, but to put on plays
does require a certain intuitive knowledge of the
theater. A great deal can 1)e learned, but
the most important thing of all cannot be. Taste
is inbred or else merely superficial. The fact
that Mr. \Valker has both this instinctive taste
and knowledge has not only helped very largely
toward his success, but has likewise saved him
some thousands of dollars in the doing. I can
recall especially three plays, one of which cost
I,500 to stage, one 452, and one nothing at all.
They all succeeded. But this sort of thing can-
not be indulged in indiscriminately; one must
I I

INTRODUCTION

know absolutely when to spend money and when
not to.
From the foregoing it will be plain, if it is not
so already, that the repertory theater will not
only result in raising the standard of plays pro-
duced, but will also raise the standard of pro-
duction. Perhaps the most important single
factor in repertory is the amount of experimental
work that is possible. A play intended for a long
run can seldom afford to be an experiment: the
financial risk is too great. But in the repertory
theater all things are possible. It becomes at
once the place where plays, actors, scenery, new
modes of staging and whatever is likely to be of
interest is tried out. Byv its verv nature it can
afford to be progressive; the ordinary theater
cannot in most instances. It has all it can do
to hold its own without taking unnecessary
ch3.nces. The "little theater" has done much
for us along these lines, but its public is small
for the most part, and the range of its activity
strictly limited. There is one more possibility
likewise that I should like to recall now that we
are on the subject both of the Portmanteau and
of repertory, to which I referred in my intro-
duction to MWore Portmanteau Plays. The Stuart
Walker Company is safely established in a large
city situated geographically in a more or less
central position where the company has met with
emphatic success. Why not make the portable
Portmanteau Theater corelative to this repertory
company In this event any play which had
1 2

INTRODUCTION

made a decided hit in the home city could be
added to the repertory of the Portmanteaul which
could then be sent out in flying toUrs throughout
the country. All the old arguments in favor of the
Portmanteau would be jIst as pertinent as ever.
It could go anywhere and play anywhere. For
the small towns throughout the rural districts
it would be a god-send. 'These places cannot
afford to support a theater of their own; in many
instances thev have not even a town hall in which
to house the itinerant company. But the Port-
manteaul can be set up in a barn or a ball roo'm,
in anything in fact big enough to hold it. I know
that this idea has occurred to 'Mr. \Walker. In
fact I believe that it was his original suggestion.
There are certain practical difficulties that stand
in the wav of its accomplishment, however, that
must be cleared up first. I note it as a suggestion,
and I have no doubt that if the time ever does
come when it is a practical possibility it wvill
become a fact. Mr. Walker is not apt to hand
back when opportunity offers.
Both the theater and thc drama, as all other
arts, need room for growth, for expansion, for
development. Art forms are constn ltlv changing
and growing, indeed if they do not they (leterio-
rate and die. I do not mean that the old fornms
must be discarded, but simply that the current
must be refreshed with new life fromt timle to
time. With the ordinary theater and with the
ordinary company this is hardly possible. They
are in a rut and their only salvation lies in not
13

INTRODUCTION

being tempted out of it. But the possibilities
opened up by a good repertory company, and by
a practicable, portable theater are tremendous.
The rigid, confining lines fade at once, and the
whole structure becomes flexible and revitalized.
With these one can branch out in any direction
without fear of ultimate calamity. With every
year that has passed since that first production
of the Portmanteau at the Christodora House
the signs have ripened, and the indications have
become more evident. Progress has been at
least normal, and at times more than normal.
It is for the future to show the completed task.

II
The first play in this volume, GCammer Gurton's
Needle, is a real adaptation, which is fortunate
if only for the sake of the title of the book. Most
readers will probably know the play in its orig-
inal form, but until Mir. Walker adapted it for
his own use I doubt if it had been played for many
years except perhaps by English classes and
dramatic clubs in the universities. Certainlv
it was not available to the public. The form of
the play is antiquated, and the use of rhymed verse
makes its production doubly difficult. It is full
of action, however, and of that robust English
humor which culminated in Falstaff. Having
these, it has nev'er actually lost its appeal, and
with certain slight changes and modifications its
audiences find it as popular to-day as it was in
the i6th century.
I 4

INTRODUCTION

Gammer GCurton's NYeedle was acted sixteen
years after the even more famous Ralplh Roister
Doister at Christ's College, Cambridge. Though
the authorship is somewhat uncertain it is gen-
erally attributed to John Still, who, born in
1543, became Master of Christ's College, and
finally Vice-Chancellor of the University. If
Still really wrote Gaminer GCiuton's Needle it
must have been in his youth while still an under-
graduate at the University, for in his later days
as Vice-Chancellor he held out strongly for the
Latin drama as against the English, mainrfaning
that the first was the more intellectual. To a
certain extent he was right, but nevertheless,
there is a certain flavor of the middle ages about
Gamnmer that strongly recalls the Latin comedies.
In the later years of his life, Still became a Bishop,
and he must have looked back with something of
regret to the bustling days when he wrote -1 Ryght
Pith/v Pleasaunt and Nler-ie Coinedie: Jti tu vled
Gammer GCruwi': ANedle. It is the second extant
English comedy properly so-called, and as such
has been handed over to students for far too
long. About the only actual evidence of author-
ship lies in the fact that the title page of the
edition of 1 575 states that the play was "made by
Mr. S Mr. of Art." As Still was the only Master
in Cambridge at the time the play was probably
acted whose name began with S, he has, justly
enough in all probability, been given credit.
At any rate, taken in connection with his later
dignities his authorship is piquante. Indeed
I1;

INTRODUCTION

it no longer matters, for there are no more royal-
ties to pay, and the play itself is here for all who
may enjoy it. It is written in rhyming lines of
from fourteen to sixteen feet, and, as anyone
will see who reads it aloud and rather rapidly,
this verse form is far more difficult for the actor
than blank verse even.
Diccon was more or less of a stock figure of
the period. In Gammer he is certainly human
enough, but in other plays we find him sometimes
invested with Puckish qualities that rise even to
the height of Devildom on occasion. The play
is broad, as broad as it is long in fact, but even so
it has required little enough change and excision
bv the deft touch of Mr. WN'alker to make it
perfectly actable even in a young ladies' seminary,
though hearsay informs me that this particular
criterion of delicacy holds good no longer.
III
The Birthdaly of the Infanta is a wholly charm-
ingz conceit so well suited to dramatic purposes
that one is rather inclined to wonder why Oscar
\Vilde as author of the story did not stage it
himself. \Wilde's fairv tales stand quite apart
from the rest of his work, however. His plays
are best when they are most artificial. Th e
Importance oif Being Earnest which hasn't a serious
line or situation in it is far finer than Ladv Winder-
mere's Fan, for instance, in which the pathos
nearly approaches bathos, and the tragedy of
which rings utterly false. The fairy tales have
i6

I NTRODUCTION

more sincerity than all of the rest of Wilde's
work pult together, even and including De Pro-
fundis. There is a very fine pathos in The Birth-
day of the Infanta. there is tragedy even, but so
delicate is the touch that the shadows are never
permitted to assume a deeper tone than grey.
There is an air of unreality that echoes an emotion
that is not actually there, but the echo itself
is poignantly lovely. The theme has been used
several times since it was first written, and I do
not know, I confess, whether the story was orig-
inal with XWilde or not. Alfred Noyes adapted it
for pure poetic form under the title of The Dwarf's
Tragedy without giving credit either to Wilde
or anyone else. His verses, however, were thor-
oughly delightful, and he missed none of the
manr opportunities for voluptuous color the
tale presents. The reader may remember Noyes'
description of the Princess when the Dwarf is
sent to her at the feast. I quote from memory,
and not quite accurately I fear, but I am without
present access to the poem in question.

"Roses, roses all around her, roses in her laugh-
ing face,
Roses where the glistening wine cup glowed
in honor of the chase;
Roses where the rosey jewels burned on snowy
breast and brow
Roses . . . and he burst out blindly through
the feast of rose and snow."

' 7

INTRODUCTION

It is certainly colorful, but though Mr. Walker's
dramatic version may be somewhat less rosey
it is none the less faithful to the original in at-
mosphere, and in effect.
I recall vividly Mr. Walker's original pro-
duction of the Infanta with Gregory Kelly as the
Dwarf. I cannot remember who did the scenery,
but I have no difficulty in remembering its beauty
as well as that of the costumes. The Birthday
of the Infanta leaves an impression as of music;
it is as though some lovely, melancholy strain
had drifted through the air and lingered there
to haunt one. The subtle fragrance and charm
which are so entirely characteristic of these en-
chanting tales of Wilde's are not absent from the
play. Nothing is lost, and there is nothing added
that is alien.
1V
The last two plays of the volume show Stuart
Walker in his most typical and successful vein as
a playwright. They are children's plavs; that is,
they are plays of children, but, as the author
himself says, they are for children from "seven
to seventy." That they are not only well liked,
but even eagerly looked forward to by audiences
ranging between these ages is proof positive that
there is nothing spurious about them. "You can
fool a man with a stuffed dogr, but yoLu can't
fool a dog." By the same token vou can trick
an audience of adults, some adilts, with a care-
fully prepared product that they take to be an

INTRODUCTION

echo from childhood. But it isn't. It is simply
what some clever writer knows that the average
unclever audience thinks it remembers of its
childhood. It isn't authentic in the least, and
viewed with the cold eyes of truth is more apt
to be childish than childlike. This is where
Mr. Walker's plays are different. The children
like them too. They recognize them. They know
that they were written by a child.
Six Who Pass While the Lentils Boil was, and
is, one of -he most successful plays for children
of all ages that has been written in many years.
Even the critics liked it; it even entertained the
managers. This is because it is real. It is as
real as Puss in Boots, or Little Red Riding Hood,
or Cinderella. Sir David WYears a Crown is the
sequel to Six Who Pass While the Lentils Boil.
Few plays have sequels; few could stand them.
But you can pick a fairy story up almost where
you dropped it, for the break automatically
repairs itself through the sheer creative force of
imagination.
Six W,'io Pass J'Jbhile the Lentils Boil is set
outside the palace not far from the square where
the Queen is to be beheaded for stepping on the
ring-toe of the King's Great Aunt. The play
ends with the Queen saved by David, thereupon
created on the spot Sir David Little Boy. The
scene of Sir David Wears a Crown is at one of the
Gateways of the King's palace, and the action
begins while the search for the Queen is still
going on. Thus this play begins not where the
I9

INTRODUCTION

other left off, but just enough before to knit the
two plays together. Six WNho Pass was a wholly
delightful fancy, but I confess that I like Sir
David even better. The slight undercurrent of
satiric comedy perceptible in the first play is
even more evident in the second. Mr. Walker
uses again the Prologue, the Device Bearer,
and You in the Audience, thus at the very outset
striking the key note of the performance. This
play has a bit more substance than the other.
The gentle and very pointed fun that is poked at
etiquette, at convention, at law and order never
goes so far that one feels the onus of a preach-
ment, and yet goes far enough so that no shade
of natural absurdity is missed. The Soldiery and
the Population, and the rope that Sir David fin-
ally removes by the simple expedient of coiling it
up are all simply, skillfully, and successfully done.
Many fairy tales have or have had a tinge of
satire, and in none of themn does it seem to belong
more naturally than Vere. Quite aside from this
vein is that human 2motion which reaches its
culmination in the last scene of the play between
Sir David, now a p ince, and his Mother. It
would have been very easy to have been maudlin
here, but the author has not for an instant fallen
into the pit temptation digged for him. The
sentiment is true, simiple and convincing. It is
born of that same tenderness that finds its outlet
at one time in gently re cking the conventionalized
inhibitions of society as it is constituted, and at
another in the direct expression of that sym-
20

INTRODUCTION

pathetic un(lerstanding with which the final scene
of the play is treated.
To my mind Mir Davoid WVears a Crowuz is an
excellent example of Mr. Walker at his best as
a playwright. His insistence on the fact that a
play is something to be played, and something
to play with; not a preachment, a symbol, an
allegory or whatnot. A child's ball is a symbol
of the globe if you choose, but most important
of all it is a ball that can be thrown and caught
again: toy ships, soldiers, houses, forts, castles
and all the other equipment of the miniature
world of childhood are, if you like, symbols of
the greater world into which children must one
day grow, but this is a detail, a perversion even,
for the prime purpose of these things is play.
Without them one can still make believe, but with
them one can believe more easily. The whole
idea behind the best of TMr. WNalker's plays is,
I think, let's pretend. And if one can pretend
all is well; but if one cannot, one's money should
be given back to one at the box-office for that one
has been lured into the theater under false pre-
tences. After all, what is an art and all art but
an exemplification and a natural expansion of
Let's Pretend Sophistication is only the elab-
orate mummery the juggler makes to distract our
attention from his real purpose. Th e Doll's
House, for instance, would be characterized by
the careless as an intellectual play. Tut, tut, and
fie for shame! That is only the mask. It might
as easily and with greaten art be written as poeti-
2 I

INTRODUCTION

cally as Peer Gvnt in which one must pretend
continually. There is that unfortunate type of
person who regards the theater as a natural
adjunct to the church, the law court, and to the
soap box of the propagandist on the street corner.
Sadly enough, some of these persons even write
plays, and more sadly still get them produced.
But here the pretense is still more flagrant, for
they only pretend to be plays. There is no play
in them really. This constant chase after hidden
meanings, symbols and the like is only the in-
cessant demand of the futile for futility. It is
as though one could not take pleasure in the
perfume of a flower or in the colors of a sunset
without straightway becoming wordy and dis-
cursive about perfumes and colors in general.
WNe know that the wag of a dog's tail expresses
pleasure; we do not demand that the dog wag
his tail according to a signal code like a Boy Scout.
And so if we demand that the Soldiery in Sir
David Wears a Crown stand for Militarism, the
Population for the Masses, the coil of rope for
Law and Convention, and so on and on, we do no
more than to limit and define the straw with
which we are tickled. If the play is really to give
us pleasure, however, if it is to awaken in us any
sense of beauty, we must take it as it is, as a play.
V
Comes ANellijumbo. This is not a sequel, but
it is reminiscent of another play of Mr. W\alker's
which for some time has been one of the most
22

I NTR 'RODUCTION

popular in his rcpertorv, that is Jonathian Alakes
a IVish. 't/llijunibo is of the same genre, in fact
it is not unlike a tabloid version of the earlier
and longer play. It too is of a child, and for
children. It is quite unlike Sir David Wears a
Croin, however, and to mind it is a less success-
ful bit of work, though I am quite prepared to
find that most audiences disagree with me. The
troulble that I find with it is that it is too ob-
vious. It is the story of a little blind boy, brought
up, so far as he has been brought up at all, by a
stiff and conventional aunt and uncle whose lives
are engulfed and encircled by Yeas and Nays,
and waho regard an imaginative flight as merely
a more elaborate method of lying. The boy is
very sensitive, and under the circumstances
equally repressed. To him comes his father-
his mother is dead-an explorer, an adventurer
in the Elizabethan sense, from whom Richard
has inherited all that has become perforce quies-
cent under the disciplinary regime of the aunt
and uncle. The story of how the boy and his
father find each other is the story of the play.
It is done sympathetically and deftly, but it is
done too obviously and directly for my own taste.
I feel as though a somewhat sentimental sermon-
ette had been hurled at me. As usual, TMr.
Walker's stage directions are simply asides in
characterization. This I believe is as it should
be if a play is to be printed. It has been wisely
remarked that actually to succeed a play must
be a success first on the stage and second in the
23

INTRODUCTION

library. Of course this is true enough. Other-
wise it cannot pass into literature, and if it can-
not pass into literature it cannot endure for
long. Look back over the centuries, and it will
be evident enough that the plays that have come
down to us, that have lasted, are the plays which
are not only successful dramatically, but which
are true literature in the bargain. Either this
or they are historical curiosities, and are gen-
erally unknown to the public. If only for this
reason it seems to me that the method, actually
inaugurated by Barrie on the modern English
speaking stage, of elaborating the old conventional
stage directions until they have an interpre-
tative value, a literary quality, is a step in the
right direction. It has been said in criticism of
this that it makes a play less like a play and
infringes on the privileges of the novelist. Ab-
surd. It does not in the least make a play less
like a play, but it does make it less like a prompt
copy. Go back to the old editions of the plays
published by French, and observe the 0. P.s
and the R. U. E.s and the R. L. E.s and S. C.s
and all the other abbreviations of that technical
jargon which has no value except for the technical
director of the play in question. And having
rid ourselves of that why not go a step further
and polish what is left to a semblance of bril-
liancy at least There is a danger in this, of
course: danger lest the unwary leave too much to
the stage direction, and include too little in the
24

I NTRODUCTION

dialogue, bUt Mr. \Walker is far too old a hand to
be trapped into such a fault.
iNellijumbo is a small tract in a dramatic form.
One cannot criticise it because it is a tract. Criti-
cism rests in the fact that it is so plainly a tract
that, in the reading version, at any rate, one
loses its illusion as a play. It is my belief that
material of this nature can be treated much more
successfully after the manner of Sir David J l'ears
a Crown. Either that or let the dramatic action
be pitched in so high a key that the sernmon rises
to the point of a diatribe by Saint Paul. And
somehow that seems unlikely. To make a bad
pun, and most puns are bad, the play as it stands
at present is too much like a curtain-lecture. It
should be entirely superfluous to point out that
this is simply a personal opinion. I have no
doubt that this play is successful in production:
for, good or bad, it is possessed amply of the quali-
fications which usually spell success in America.
Mlix pathos with humor, and the average American
audience will succumb to the spell for three years
running whether the pathos is spurious or not,
and ev-en though the humor is of the sentimental
varietv. There is a play of this type on Broadway
now. It has been there for three solid years,
and ten years from now it will be forgotten forever
and deservedly so. America is probably the most
sentimental nation on earth. It likes to think
it is moral. It isn't particularly, but the illusion
is dear to it. Hence the Rollo books and the
25

INTRODUCTION

Elsie stories. We show it in our politics; we dis-
play it in our social, and in our industrial relations,
and our more popular art reeks with it. It is all
that explains Harold Bell Wright, and that in-
sufferably nasty little prig Pollyanna. A nation
that will take such an author and such a book to
its bosom, and make seven days wonders of them
both cannot deny that it is sentimental. We do
deny it, of course, which simply proves our
sentimentality. We haven't even the courage
of our lack of convictions. To me N'ellijumbo
is possessed of a certain portion of this senti-
mentality, and it spoils the play for me. Par-
enthetically be it remarked that I can only afford
to be thus outspoken because Mr. Walker has the
ability of the true artist to take adverse criticism
without spleen. It is another factor, and no small
one, in making his career constructive from start
to finish; he will listen to any suggestion, any
criticism, and if he is convinced that he is wrong
he will admit it. In the present instance it is a
matter of different points of view, divergent
temperaments. And so far as NTellijumbo is
concerned one thing at any rate is sure:
the play is sincere, it is skillful, it is deft.
One may not like vanilla ice-cream, but that does
not in the least prevent a given sample of it
from being excellent of its kind. And too, if I
have been justified in what I have said of Ae/li-
jembo it is onlv fair to add that Mr. Walker's
other play which is somewhat like it in type,
jonathan Mfakes a Wish, is by no means charac-
26

I N'FRODUCTION

terized by the same faults, if faults thev are.
Jonathan has more plot, more direct action, less
time and opportunity for moralizing, so that the
lesson is indirect, and secon(larv to the actual
play. In Nellijumbro one cannot l)Ut feel that the
play is only an excuse for the lesson. And most
of us stopped liking less