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Benjamin
Franklin
Thompsons
Pocket.
That was his name when he first came to
Redding Springs, afterward known and
still known as Shasta City. And what a
splendid mass of splendid men in those old
days, men gathered there as in battle
charge against the golden spurs of knightly
and imperious Mount Shasta. Even a list
of the "cities" and towns would tire you,
and each town was a theater, a colos?eum ;
Middletown, Centervillc, Squawtown.
Mr.letown, Horsetown, Texas Springs and
a dozen more, all there within an hour's
ride of Shasta City. The miners were men
of Laconia. 1 hey could and often did put
a lot into one little word.
And now if you are going with me into
the California Sierra please leave behind
your dialect dictionary. There is not,
there never was, any dialect in the mines
there. "What we have of that vicious and
cheap stuff in our California literature
stepped into it right out of Dickens'. In
the Oregon Sierra the miners were not so
clean cut. There they were, many of
them, pioneers of pioneer parents, and
once had some dialect, but the man from
the Eastern States who started the Califor
nia mines was, as a rule, from the richest,
brightest and best family of his region, and
was the bravest and brightest and best
educated member of that family.
To break still another lance against this
JOAQUIN MILLER.
[Reproduced from his latest photograph.]
false and needless form of literature there
i- very little dialect outside of the darkies
in all of the United States. To insist on
so much of it is to insult the intelligence
of a country that spends more money on
free ichoois than all the rest of the .world
together.
But to get on with Benjamin Franklin
Thompson's pocket.
Thompson was a great fiddler. This, I
know, is now counted a great fault in a
man ; but there are plenty of men in Shasta
County still who can remember when
Dave Pittit, ignoring nominating conven
tions, saloons, cliques and clans and all
political parties of all sorts, took his fiddle
under his arm, and on foot and alone, fid
dled his way right into the heart of every
man in the mountains.
But to get on with B. F. Thompson's
pocket.
Thompson was a miner, from first to
last— a miner exclusively. He was a good
man. True, he would swear and he was
also a famous liar, especially about mines.
Of course he played poker, and this also
meant hard drinking and a shooting scrape
now and then, in which he put in some
very deadly work at times. But with these
minor exceptions he was an excellent fel
low.
In the spring of 1856, on the day when
we hanged Alexander Higgins for having
killed his partner and hidden him in a
prospect hole, Thompson had his last
shooting scrape. It was dramatic and pa
thetic; too much so to Lave full credence
at this remote day. and so must be passed
.over in silence. Enough to say it chanced
his whole nature. He drank no more,
gambled no more, did not shoot anybody
any more.- In short, he ceased to be socia
ble.
The boys up there always liked to play
poker with coin— gold coin. The piles of
golddust in buckskin bags is another fic
tion that must be perforated. The truth
is. when a big game was contemplated—
and that was every Saturday night till
Monday morning in each "city" — the boys
would go to the express offices with their
bags and put them up for all the coin in
Eight.
They bad a curious way of "coming to
the center." Now, it seems a silly thing,
but the eagle bird was always Kept in
sight. A poker-player of those days was
the most superstitious man born. He
would stack most of his money before
him, but there would be a loose handful
of small gold pieces right under his nose,
and when he would go to put up, either to
"ante," "go a blind," "buck" or "straddle
a blind," "call down" or "go better," he
always put a forefinger on the eagle bird
of a gold piece and pushed it to the center
of the pot, either tenderly, roughly, tim
idly or boldly, as he pleased.
Well, in time this wore both the date
and face from nearly all gold birds in and
about Shasta. If any stranger objected to
this sort of 'sawed-off" money he got a
"bluff" that taught him not to do it again.
The true gold was there, what little was
left of it, and the eagle bird. He was
made to believe, with an ugly muzzle
across the board fchat this was quite
enough. Quite right. The gold was there.
The eagle bird, in all his wide-winged
glory, was there, too. What mattered the
face and the date?
It was a good deal like that with Thomp
son after he ceased to shoot and be so
ciable. The gold was still there what was
left of him. You could hear his fiddle at
his cabin door away up amone the man
zanita bushes on the hill at the head of
Gamblers' Gulch. You could see the tall,
bent man shuffle down on his huge feet
like sledrunners to the store once each
week; and once each springtime, as the
seasons surged by, somebody planted
California poppies in a corner of the grave
yard back of town and made the place
look restful and quiet like, so that the
quail might pipe and call there and not
feel afraid; but that is all that was now
seen or known of Thompson.
The facetious postmaster once had a let
ter for Thompson with only the initials of
his Christian names, and so he spoke of
him as "Big Foot Thompson."
"The shoe fits him," said the rag-tag
and-bobtail end of town. And so Benja
min Franklin Thompson was soon all worn
off and lost to right forever in Shasta City,
like the date on the gold coin. He was
only Big Foot Thompson now. But how
liat old fiddle used to call out from that
igger pine hilltop over the manzanitas!
nd were I to tell you how I once stole up
there in the brush and saw a circle of
white-breasted hares standing about in the
white moonlight, only a rod below his big
feet, you would not quite believe it, and so
I will not tax your credulity. But lam
glad they came to him in his drear, hard
life of penance; for no man ever darkened
his cabin door now. The sight of those
timid creatures listening to the music of
the poor murderer opened a book to me
that has taught much, much; so much
more than can be told.
Do you know anything about pocket
mining? Everybody knows all about it
around Mount Shasta now, but they did
not know till Thompson taught them. The
fact is gold grows, grows as potatoes grow;
slowly, of course, but up out of the ground.
Up through ancient little quartz chimneys
gases come as the ages roll by. These
peculiar gases deposit in seams and
cracks and caverns of quartz certain parti
cles of gold. Ages roll on; glaciers, ava
lanches, earthquakes and landslides;
gulches are formed ; the top of the chim
ney, or pocket, is worn and torn and
washed down into and along the gulches.
| The gold miner of the old days came by.
I He washed out the gold from the gulches
j and went his way. Then came Thomp
son, and after him came all the patient
| army of pocket-hunters, men who follow
| the particles of golddust up, up, up, till
j they can lind no more particles in the
gulch or in the dirt of the hills on either
side. Then they know they have passed
the pocket.
They then go back, locate it on one side
or the other, and then patiently trace the
gold to its place of original formation.
You sometimes find a fortune, a perfect
"pocket full of rocks," a hat full of gold,
lodged in the little chimney top; some
times only a few hundred dollars, oftener
you do not find it at all, or what is most ex
asperating, you find that the beehive has
been found before and robbed of all its
honey. And this much for a subject that
deserves a volume, but must put up with
a paragraph.
Thirty years went by. Gamblers' Gulch
j had been the richest place of all. It was
! so called because gamblers when hard up
used to go up there and wash out a stake
simply with a pan. Thompson had been
hunting for years and years for this foun
tain head. He had honeycombed the hill
on which his cabin stood. He had bored
right and left, east and west, north and
south. Sometimes it was noticed that he
missed coming down to the store for his
usual bag of supplies at the end of the
week. Once he had to beg for credit, a
rare thing for him. Had he not long since
laid aside firearms we might take comfort
in the idea that he, in such straits, per
haps shot and ate one or two of his little,
large-eyed moonlight friends, for he surely
was often hungry to the verge of starva
tion now in these his decrepid days.
He grew bent and his face was pinched
and thin. His chest giew narrow and his
THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL. SUNDAY, JULY 21, 1895.
shoulders shrank close together. He shrank
all around, all, everything, everything but
his feet. These were nearly bare now. You
could see his toeprints on the dusty path
as he went and came for water at the
beautiful Shasta spring.
One frosty night in the fall the boj r 9
in the saloon were startled almost out of
their wics. Peelhead Smith threw down a
"full," although there was a "double pot"
and the Turtle Dove, with a six-shooter in
his lap, had "straddled" Peelhead's blind,
and he was as sure of raking down as he
was of "coming to the center" when
"called."
There stood Thompson. Was he alive?
Was it his ghost? It looked like a ghost.
His big shoes were yawning. His white
toes shone through like teeth of a grinning
clown. Not a word. The fiddle came slyly
out from under his arm. It lay lovingly
along his large bony wrist, and began slow
and timid-like as if afraid:
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O great god Pan!
Never such music since the great world began.
The sun on the hill forgot to die;
The lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.
And then he was gone, gone as he came.
They had forgotten to ask him to drink.
They were not sure if it was Thompson or
Thompson's shadow. They fell to think
ing what slights they had put upon poor
old Big Foot these thirty-one-two years;
and with gamblers' superstition they stood
by the table, each pocketing his own
money, and leaving the double pot to the
barkeeper for the drinks, although they
aid not drink now, not one of them, much
less sit down again to that game and table.
It was such a moonlight night! The
men melted out of the barroom one by one
and sat down facing Gamblers' Gulch hill,
the moon settling and settling low and
slow over their shoulders to the right till
finally it fell behind an old empty Chinese
washhouse with some of the shakes torn off,
and then the silver leaves sifted through
and played pretty games of chess on the
pavement at their feet. How still !
And then suddenly came again that mu
sic from the hill. How glad they were.
Each man drew a long breath of relief.
"Then he is not dead," was the thought
of each, with a mental promise to go up
early in the morning and tell the poor
penitent that he was forgiven, and that he
was the best of all of them, after all. But
what was that piteous, plaintive air?
They had never heard the man play that
before.
"That's 'Home, Sweet Home,' " whis
pered the Turtle Dove, an educated old
gentleman, as he dug some wax out from
under his finger-nail with a broken match.
At last the settling moon reached tim
idly through a broken board low down on
the old Chinese washhouse, and in token of
surrender to darkness laid a sword of sil
ver at their feet, and then "Home, Sweet
Home," was heard on the hill no more for
ever.
The next morning a great four-mule dray
drove into town, on its way up to the little
graveyard, from the Redding marble
works.
"I saw the dbgonest tracks in the road,
big enough for a bear, and the toes in the
dust," said the man with the dray to the
barkeeper, as he hastily wiped his mus
tache on the back of his hand, and then
faced about and fired a stream of profanity
at the mules.
The bystanders looked at one another.
Then all on the run they went panting up
the hill together. The bar was left to
serve itself.
"It was a bear, and he has got away
with the honey," cried the barkeeper at
the head.
Never such laconic men as these miners.
There was the pillaged pocket in his very
dooryard, only the golden lining here and
there to show what a hoard it had held,
almost on the surface and right at his feet.
And that wa? all.
The new, spruce conductor at Redding
who got his place temporarily through the
strike told the eager miners how an old
man with a heavy gunnybag and hammer
and little crowbar had climbed into the
cars that night.
"And what did he say?" demanded Peel
head.
"Well, I asked him if he had been pros
pecting, and he said 'Yas.'
" 'Been out a good while?' says I.
"'Ya-a-s,' says he, ''bout thirty-two
years. Ticket to Boston, please.' "
Joaquix Miller.
HASHISH AND HEADACHE
The Seductive Hemp Plant
Successfully Grown in
Alameda County.
It Is Much Stronger In Opiate Prop
erties Than the Indian
Article.
Among the new exhibits at the Califor
nia State Board of Trade rooms on Mar
ket street, is a product never before ex
hibited in California. It is Indian hemp,
from which hashish is made. This sample
came from a ten-acre patch growing near
Livermore, Alameda County, and it was
sent in by 8. Nahon, who is familiar with
the plant and its products.
The Livermore field is being cultivated
by several Arabs, who have for years been
Among the new exhibits at the Califor
nia State Board of Trade rooms on Mar
ket street, is a product never before ex
hibited in California. It is Indian hemp,
from which hashish is made. This sample
came from a ten-acre patch growing near
Livermore, Alameda County, and it was
sent in by S. Nahon, who is familiar with
the plant and its products.
The Livermore field is being cultivated
by several Arabs, who have for years been
supplying their countrymen on this coast
with the seductive drug. The business
has been carried on quietly under the
pretense that the hemp was used for canary
bird seed.
Mr. Nahon states that the hashish grown
on this coast is much stronger or more
rank in its opiate qualities than that grown
in Arabia and India, due, he supposes, to
the soil being less worked out than in the
Orient.
The Alameda-grown hashish is almost a
deadly poison, it is so rank, and one smok
ing or eating the stuff is obliged to take it
in homeopathic doses for fear of fatal re
sults.
The Arabs have tried to get the extract,
but by their ciude process of distillation
it is unprofitable, commercially consid
ered, costing almost the market price.
However, considerable of the extract is
produced for the use of those who are ad
dicted to the hashish habit. The extract
is used on sugar— a very small drop to an
ordinary lump or cube of sugar. One drop
taken in this manner will put an ordinary
Arab in a floating trance that will last for
four or five hours. When the effects have
worn off the hashish-eater requires an
iron band around his cranium to keep his
skull from splitting.
Mr. Nalion states that there are several
colonies of Arabs and Armenians in this
State who raise hemp and send hashish in
the natural and extract form to several
parts of the United States, where their
countrymen live. In the natural form it
is used for smoking. The small leaves
near the seed are used in smoking. A
Einch of dry leaves is pulverized in the
ands and mixed with a small quantity of
tobacco. After two or th ree puffs of smoke,
which, of course, are fully inhaled, the
smoker is dead to the world for hours.
At the First Baptist Church.
Rev. C. H. Strickland, D.D., of Sioux City,
lowa, arrived in the City yesterday. He is
a guest of E. R. 'Smith, 8 Fair Oaks street.
While in the City he will fill the First Baptist
Church pulpit. He is said to be an exception
ally interesting speaker.
THE DRAMA .
The drama is as old as humanity— its
history is the story of the race. At all
times its fiistory was in intellectual and
moral harmony with the people. Theo
retically, the province of the drama is to
instruct and elevate; practically, it is an
expression of the sentiment, culture, mor
ality (or lack of ihem) of the people. As
are the people, so is the drama.
Acting, or the art of simulating, is in
herent in the Human race — and is not con
fined to human beings. The best low com
edian I have seen was a fox terrier belong
ing to a member of my family. Brian Bo
roimme (Brian Boru), aa the dog was
called, was entirely uneducated, yet he
possessed a complete knowledge of dog
lore, dog-tricks, and dog-possibilities. All
these he caricatured — burlesqued — in the
most comical way, but always to an audi
ence other than the family. He could
laugh or cry, and he invented quite a
number of dog-comedies— improvising to
sujt the occasion.
Mimicry is inherent in many birds, as
well as in many animals, but the drama,
as we understand it, is a human invention.
It may be said that all beings suffering the
indignity of repression develop acting qual
ities. Slaves are apt actors. From the
beginning of her story woman has been an
accomplished simulator. I have seen a
woman whose heart was the theater of a
consuming passion address the object of
that passion in the simpering words of an
inane schoolgirl. Her pride inspired the
desire to conceal a love not demanded.
All men and all women simulate. All have
social manners, business manners, exi
gency manners. The real man or woman
is rarely exposed. This concealment is
natural and legitimate. The true ego is
sacred to the man, to maintain its sacred
character he acts a part — sometimes har
monious with his ego, sometimes its very
opposite. The child begins to simulate the
moment its appetites or desires develop.
So "All the world's a stage, and all the
men and women merely players" — hence
the universal interest in the drama. Men
as much as women love to look in the
mirror, and to ail the stase drama is a
mirror, in which passion and sentiment
are reflected.
The early history of the drama is ob
scure, but there is enough of truth in the
story to show that the dithyrambus, or
hymn, used in the early Greek worship of
Bacchus, was the germ of all subsequent
dramatic work. Thespis, an Icarian poet
(535 B. C), adopting the dithyrambus re
cited an ode — employing a chorus to sus
tain the recihil. dSscfiylus. a few years
later, developed the drama as we* now
understand it, but was content with a com
pany of two— with this addition came
dialogue and the present drama in minia
ture. 2Bscbylas also introduced scenery.
He got rid of the Thespian bacchanal ode
with all its lewdness, and gave the Greeks
pure and elevating tragedy. Thirty years
later Sophocles increased "the strength of
the dramatic company to three members.
Fifteen years later Euripides presented his
splendid works to the Greek people. With
out materially changing the status of the
company, he entirely changed the motive
of tiie performance.
iEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides live
in history as the three greatest, pureiy
tragic, poets the world has known. * Each
had a school of his own. The tragedies of
.^Eschylus were charged with horror — their
atmosphere, the terrible. He breathed
fire and his voice was thunder. His
dramatis persons were derni-gods, moral
giants, impossible to humanity. Sophocles
was a dreamer and created men and
women in a world of his own. Purity,
simplicity, moral perfection, were the
attributes of his creatures — but, like the
giants of ,Eschylus, they were impossible
in Greece, and are probably still impos
sible anywhere.
Euripides gave the Greek a picture of
himself. He presented men and women
as he found them. His school survived
all the changes of time and the method of
Euripides is practically the method of
to-day.
The Greek stage, like Greek art, was
severely classical in its arrangements. The
Greek theory was that the actors only
should rill the eye of the audience. As
illustrating how a theory will live in oppo
sition to fact, it will be remembered that
Edwin Booth, all his life, maintained the
Greek idea that stage effects were opposed
to the true purpose of the drama — that the
man and his purpose were sufficient for all
dramatic representations, and that rich
Brian Boroimme, Low Comedian.
scenery, gorgeous even if appropriate cos
tumes and appointments lessened the effect
of the drama proper and impeded its na
tural action.
The realistic details of the stage setting
of to-day would have been intolerable to
the Greek. He demanded sublimity, gran
vjeur, chaste severity of treatment — one
thought, one idea, alone being presented.
Such a # presentation was possible where
the Gree*k idea of art controlled the au
dience, but equally it was impossible in
the absence of that art.
We have very little knowledge of Greek
comedy. It is introduced to us by Aristo
phanes a century after ..Eschylus.
As Rome, the magnificent absorber, bor
rowed all things from Greece, it followed
that she would adopt the Greek drama us
her own. But the severe lines of the
Greek were not palatable to the Roman,
who had begun to love color. The merely
intellectual expression of the drama failed
in its new home. Human woes, simulated
by the most intelligent actors, did not sat
isfy the Roman appetite for realism. The
moral atmosphere of Rome was out of har
mony with the purity of the Greek method :
so Roman adapters introduced a modified
Greek work— a combination of the tragic
and comic. But even this failed to satisfy
the Roman thirst for stimulants calculated
to excite all their passions. The arena
gratified their debased senses, and in the
gladiatorial contests the Roman found his
own nature best presented. The drama of
the arena displaced the classic works of
Greece.
Rome was not prolific in dramatic poets.
Terrence, PJautus and Seneca are her in
tellectual gifts to the dramatic world,
while Roscius and j£sopus were her princi
pal contributions to the stage itself. Rome
subsequently disgraced herself by attach
ing infamy to the actor's profession.
After Greece and Rome the classic drama
fell into disuse. From time to time efforts
have been made to revive it, but naturally
and properly without any permanent re
sult. The purely classical" drama belongs
to a purely classical a«e, and such an age
is not likely to be revived. But the classic
form has outlived all efforts to suppress it,
and is to-day the basis of the best dramatic
compositions.
When Greek (and Romanized Greek) art
passed away, the world was given the
drama of the Pageant— a thing of gorge
ousness — crude in form, but pleasant to the
eye in its barbarous worship of color. The
presentation of the Pageant was in the
nature of entremet — a dramatic interval
between courses at the banquets of the
great. Later, under the influence of a re
ligious phase, the world took up the "mys-
tery plays" — works founded on biblical
subjects. A little later "history plays"
were introduced. In themselves these
later productions were valueless, but
achieved, subsequently, some literary con
sideration as being the germs of the mag
nificent historical productions of Shake
speare and his contemporaries.
The evolution of the drama presents the
dithyramb as the parent of the Greek
drama; the pageant mask or mummery as
the father of the romantic school (in
crudity), and the classical-romantic as the
progenitor of the Shakespearean school.
Shakespeare took as a basis foundation
the classic form, modified its severity by
adding the best elements in the romantic,
and by virtue of his universal cenius
created a new dramatic art which will out
live all other conceptions.
In a brief article it is impossible to fol
low the fortunes of the drama throughout
Europe. Indeed, the subject is so large
that to review the English drama alone
would be the work of volumes rather than
pases. It must suffice to say that the
story of the drama has been practically
the same in all countries, only distin
guished by local coloring.
From the period of the observance of the
Druid rites in England to the time of Rich
ard 111 the "Mystery Plays" kept the
boards. It is a curious coincidence that
Richard 111, the first princely patron of
the stage, nas suffered more at the hands
of playwrights and players than any other
character in history. He was the first
English prince who carried in his train a
troop of players — and he gave the first po
tent impulse to the drama in England.
Dunstable had the honor of possessing the
first permanent theater, which, strange to
say, had Geofrey, a monk, for its manager.
But from the advent of the Norman to the
Tudor era England was content with the
"Mystery Plays." In Bluff King Hal's
reign the colleges took possession of the
drama, clergymen writing and acting iv
their'own plays. The first regularly con
structed English comedy, "Raiph Roister
Doister," was written by the Master of
Eton (1540). This was followed at Cam
bridge by a tragedy called "Pammachus."
During this and subsequent reigns the
statesmen of the day used the stage to
support their policies.
Not until the time of Elizabeth, however,
was the drama really recognized. In her
reign there was a plethora of dramas and
a galaxy of intellectual dramatic stars
whose glory fades not.
When Shakespeare was born, the English
world was accepting, with some show of
indifference, the thunder of the church
directed against the stage— out with his
manhood and his advent in London, there
came a pronounced revival in favor of
dramatic performances.
There is a curious description of an
English theater audience of the period— a
description characteristic of the English
people of the time of Elizabeth.
Old Gossonsays: "In our assemblies at
plays in London you shall see such heav
ing and shouting, such pitching and
shouldering, to sit Dy women ; such care
for their garments that they be not trod
den upon, such eyes to their laps that no
chips light on them, such pillows for their
backs that they take no hurt, such mask
ings to their "ears— l know not what—
such giving them pippins to pass the time,
such playing at footsaunt without cards,
such ticking, such toying, such smiling,
such winking and such manning, then
home when the sporta are ended, that it
is a right comedy to mark their be
havior.".
After all. the audience thug described
differs very little from a theater party of
to-day.
Notwithstanding the denunciations of
the church, and the voice of the law,
which threatened to "make rogues and
vagabonds of the players," the native
force of dramatic work helped it to out
live all attacks upon it.
And now the drama had a home.
"Blackfriars" furnished Shakespeare and
Burbage and their brilliant company of
players with a licensed habitation. The
Globe (Shakespeare's summer-house), the
Rose and the Swan followed. Under
Elizabeth and James the drama and the
player progressed. Under Charles I the
restrictions were limited. During the
Puritan or Cromwellian epoch the stage
was abolished, but with Charles II it was
restored. Its restoration was disgraced by
productions which shame U9 to-day by
even a casual reference to them. It was
the natural ebullient reaction following a
period of unnatural repression.
From Betterton to Edmund Kean there
is a long list of distinguished actor?, most
of whom belonged to the declamatory
school. The list embraces Quin, Elizabeth
Barry, Barton Booth, Mrs. Oldtield, Robert
Wiiks, Peg Woflington, Coliey Gibber,
Rvan, Rich, O'Brien, Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs.
O'Neill, Kitty Clive, Sam Foote, Charles
Macklin, Mrs. Bellamy, Miss Farren, Mrs.
Abington, Sarah Siduons, John Kemble,
George F. Cooke, Master Betty (the boy
Roscius) and Mrs. Jordan.
The declamatory school reigned supreme
until the advent of Kean, who somewhat
modified its tendency.
The first thirty years of the acted drama
carry us from "Ferrex and Porrex, orGam
nier'Gurton's Xeedle," to Marlowe's "Ed
ward II'; another thirty years gives us
the first folio of Shakespeare. From
Shakespeare to Kean there were periods
of elevation and degeneracy in matters
dramatic, corresponding to the vicissitudes
of the nation, but no radical change took
place until within the past thirty years.
The history of the stage, and therefore of
I the acting drama, may be divided into four
epochs, represented by Burbage, Betterton,
Garrick and Kean, each of whom rose to
the highest standard of genius — each su
preme in his own style of acting — each be
ing the exponent of nature rather than ar
tificiality.
If only a life of Burbage or a Burbage
diary could be produced, what a wealth of
Shakespearean lore would be ours; but,
a 1 as! this pleasure is denied us. We linger
regretfully over the name of Burbage, for,
as the friend and first great exponent of
Shakespeare, we cannot think of the one
without a loving remembrance of the
other. But a few years after the death of
Burbage, Betterton appeared and. like his
predecessor, devoted himself to what we
now call the legitimate, although equally
at home in low or high comedy. Better
ton honored the stage and was buried in
the cloisters of Westminister Abbey. He
was the first actor to introduce scenery to
the English stage and was much abused for
it by the critics of his day. Thirty odd
years fall into the grave of the past
and Garrick take 9 the stage and at
once captures the world by the mar
velous force of his genius. All classes
yielded to him a genuine worship,
for Garrick gave his world nature and
nature only. He despised artificiality
and conventionality and in their place
presented orieinality and natxire. His
splendid success at last aroused a nest of
literary hornets, dramatic critics, who un
successfully attacked his ascendency. Fel
low actors," alas ! were his most bitter foes,
but his triumph was not only magnificent
but permanent, and his name will ever re
main as one of the four great dramatic
stars of their time and perhaps of ail time.
Garrick sleeps, and lo ! another star
arises, Edmund Kean entered the world
under circumstances pathetic in the ex
treme. His young life was full of sorrow—
sordid sorrow that corrodes and degen
erates. A waif, wanderer, almost tramp,
yet his native genius forced opportunity
and gave him a position on the English
stage not eclipsed by Burbage. Betterton
or Garrick. Kean was perhaps the herald
of the school that was to follow, which
may be best described as "the intense."
Coleridge said that to see Kean act was
"like reading Shakespeare by flashes of
lightning." Alas! his life was brief and
full of bitterness, scarcely relieved by an
artistic success unparalleled in the history
of the stage.
Kean's style was a blending of the re
alistic and the ideal, and he had a disciple
in Macready, who perpetuated the Kean
school of acting.
John Kemble and Sarah Siddons added
to the luster of the times. Sarah was the
queen of the stage and John Kemble,
whose temperament drew him to the se
verely classical, was one of England's
greatest actors, touching the immortal
four, but not one of them.
Macready, the second Kean, the elder
Booth, Phelps, Montgomery, G. V. Brooke
and Barry Sullivan on the English stage,
and Edwin, the greatest of the Booths, the
greatest Hamlet the world has seen. For
rest, McCullougb and Barrett on the Ameri
can stage, represent the period within the
memory of playgoers. But the drama of
the present is the result of a revolution
beginning some thirty years ago with the
opening of the Prince of Wales Theater in
1865 by Mrs. Bancroft, where the comedies
of Tom Robertson were most suc
cessfully produced. Comedy, then, foi
many years practically displaced trag<
edy. Tragedy, kings and queens were
commanded to retire . and comedy
emperors and empresses took theii
place. The change was a wholesome one.
It widened the scope of the dramatic art
and satisfied the desires of earnest lovers oJ
the drama, who could not believe that all
of the drama was included in the tragic.
The advent in England of the "Comedia
Francaise" tended to strengthen the desire
for legitimate comedy, and for the first
time the English managers were- taught the
full value of ensemble. The American
stage followed the English, and comedy
companies of varying excellence presented
works ■ of high order, : but, ,as hap
pened in England so in America,
the success of the legitimate comedy waa
almost its destruction. Mushroom com- .
panics presenting farce-comedies, comedy<
farces, comedies equestrian, buzz-saw com
edies, and; wild, weird, meaningless
attempts at realism threatened the legiti
mate comedy. Lester Wallack gave the
American people legitimate comedy ; so
do Augustin Daly, Palmer and the Froh
mans. But the razzle-dazzle fraternity
eclipse in number the legitimate companies
as ten to one. Still the legitimate is not
dead in England or America. In England
Henry Irving, Charles Calvert, J. L,
Toole, Lionel Brough, Charles Alexan
der and many others have held decency
to be as essential to the stage
as to the church. In * the United
States, Frederick Warde, Louis James,
Augustin Daly and Mansfield have pre
served their love for the legitimate, and
there are many indications of an early re
turn to pure comedy, flavored with ro
mance. French dramatists are taking a
large share of English and American pa
tronage. Sardou leads all other dramatists
of the French school, and probably of any
school, while Ohnet is a good third.
Recently leading London managers gave
their audiences "Diplomacy,' "Becket,"
"Ironmaster," "Hypatia," "A Woman ol
No Importance," "Liberty Hall," "The
Second Mrs. ; Tanqueray." "The Bauble
Shop," "The Amazons,'* "Walker, Lon
don." "Charley's Aunt," "The Artist's
Model," "The Passport" and "The Shop
Girl," the two latter being the works ol
American authors. All these plays either
have been or will be produced in the
United States.
Ibsen is before the English world. He is
on trial with the odds against him.. Al
though not himself fully accepted, there is
no doubt that he has influenced many of
the more recent dramatic works, notably,
Pinero's "Second Mrs. Tanoueray, l ' and
there is no question that some of H. A.
Jones' best work owes much to the Nor
wegian poet. Ibsen's "A Doll's House,"
and his "Hedda Gabler," are works de
serving of long life, and Ibsen may, after
ail. find an unqualified acceptance.
In the United States, Boker, Henry Guy
Carleton, Bronson Howard and Barclay
Campbell have given excellent work to the
public. Clay Greene and Harry Dam take
honors in dramatic work.
There does not yet appear to be any
distinctive American school of acting nor
an American form of drama, and Lon
don and Paris are too near to New
York to expect ■ the establishment of any
thing purely American in dramatic
art. Indeed * the idea of localizing art
is, as it were, to attempt to nationalize
the sun. Whatever affects the drama in
England is likely to affect it in New York.
It is possible, however, for an American
author to write a purely American play on
an American subject, and though art itself
is universal its expression may have a local
color. The author who can produce a
play like "Alabama" by a touch of the art
universal should not be satisfied until ho
has produced a work, not: local in its mo
tive, but permissibly local in its color.
; We turn naturally to the past, over
which there is ever a golden halo, for the
names of those who have distinguished the
American stage. . First (and; always first)
Edwin Booth, Forrest, Jefferson, McCul
lough, the two Wallacks, Hackett, Sheri
dan, Charlotte . Cushman. Sophie Edwin,
Mrs. Sanderson, Mrs. Bowers, Edwin
Adams. Mrs. Judah (dear old lady) Coul
dock, John Brougham, McKean Buchanan,
Bishop, Burton, the Chapmans, - Bar
ton : Hill, ■;:• J. S. Clarke, Chanfrau,
the Davenports, the Drews, Boucicault,
Florence, Keene, Emily Melville,. Ada
Isaacs Menken, Maggie Mitchell, William
son, Lotta, J. E. Murdock, J. Owens,
Robson, Crane, William Warren, Mrs.
John Wood," Barney '" Williams, Harry
Edwards, the Batemans, Julia Deane
Hayne, the Popes, : the Thornes,
Frank Mayo, . Eben ; Plymton, Rose
Ey tinge, Ben de Bar, Sol Smith Rus
sell, Willie Edouin, Proctor, John How
son, Stephen Leach and John T. Raymond.
All these are proper to the American stage
and with each name our loving thoughts
linger as our eyes linger while watching
the last rays of the setting sun. Many of
them are across the stream, many are on
the margin, but all have a place in the
affections of the playgoers. Of the later
school which incudes Frederick Warde,
Louis James, Mansfield, James O'Neill, Nat
Goodwin, it would be , invidious to speak,
but we may assert that the drama is safe
in their hands.
The present condition of the drama ia
only satisfactory in so far as it promises an
early improvement. It seems , quite clear
that the romantic drama is about to have
its innings. The American ;■ people are
tired of the hodge-podge rubbish of the va
riety play, and while not objecting to the
vaudeville want somethins better than
mere horse play. They are also tired of
the swallow-tailed drama and the ever
lasting sugar-coated sin. Sin belongs to
us; it is a part of us and therefore
properly a part of all dramatic conceptions
of an intense nature, but the adoration of
sin, intellectually gilded, is another thing.
Dress-suit plays, which do not illuminate
vice and make it .viciously attractive by,
the brilliancy of its witty setting, fail to
draw.; The theater-goer of to-day acknowl
edges the vicious weft in the web of life,
but he is no longer anxious to see it made
the sole material of the dramatic tapestry.
The reaction has set in, and the public say,
"Sin, if you must, but sin decently."
There is little prospect of the restoration
of the classic drama. Our people have
been taught to love "color, and they will
find it in melodrama cleansed of its blood
curdling realism, and in a reproduction of
the romantic tinged with the classic.
The future of the drama cannot be pre
dicted ; any more than the future of the
people, but there are many reasons for be
lieving that, 1 in the drama of the future,
music will play a most important part.
The lyric drama has never _ been fairly
tested, and it is not unlikely that there
will be a ; ; direct "set" in the current
toward the lyric. It is not improbable
that many changes will take place in the
arrangement of the theater itself. When:
one remembers that in Shakespeare's time
the stage was occupied by a crowd of flip
pant flutterers, the dudes of the day, who
brought their seats with them and whose
p.hief amusement was found in guying the
half-shaved men or pretty boys who played
the role of women, and that the stage was
bare of scenery, of setting, and com
pare the : "then" » with the "now," >
it is ; not unreasonable to suppose
that further changes will take place. It
is probable that the orchestra will be re
moved to some other part of the building,
and that the seats will be so arranged as to
admit of an easy promenade, giving the
audience an opportunity of relaxing their
muscles without the necessity of investing
in cloves. It may be found desirable to
dispense with entr'acte or reduce it to its
proper use, a pause in the recital. Prob
ably the stage will be used to present some,
single motive, intense in its interest and
made attractive by .. a happy representa
tion of all phases of human life, possibly the
humorous preponderating. The tendency ,
will be : ; to ; abbreviate. We used to ' walk,
now we run, later we shall sprint, and yet
later we shall doubtless fly." ; Men will take
their pleasures on the wing, and all things
will ; move as : man . moves. Twenty - five
"years from now - 4 hour and a half only
will be given to a dramatic performance,
but "*■ every 3 member 'of a company < will
.be v ■ required , ; to '-":, present ' his part
with a- ; skill .; equal -Z to ;': that of ■
the whole. ■♦ Stars -will ; disappear .; and all
performances will ; given with the view
of presenting the drama itself and not.tha '.<
eccentricities of the actor. f Ensemble will
be fully utilized, and the audience will see
the picture as the author saw it. ;
• William Gbeeb HAJtBI3OS.
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