When a British Lion Reminisces

A Word of Despair in Regard to the Flow of English Memoirs that Has Lately Engulfed Us.

JAMES L. FORD,

Author of "Forty Odd Years in the Literary Shop",etc.

WE have, of late, been treated to an avalanche of British memoirs and reminiscences. Some of them—those that have to do with politics and art—are of exceptional merit. But the volumes that deal with the stage and with the types of Bohemians most familiar in the neighborhood of Leicester Square, have been depressing and spiritblighting to a degree.

It would almost seem as if, when senility has put an end to the activities of an English player, critic, or author, there still remains one last opportunity for gain in a book of memoirs dealing with the world which is usually termed London's Upper Bohemia. Always a marketable literary product, especially in this country, there have been scores of these chronicles in the past and there are hundreds yet to follow; all of which will bear a strong family resemblance to one another.

They are all animated by a single purpose-the preservation of the myth that this "Upper Bohemia" is a jolly, carefree world: of true hearts and generous impulses, a world in which Art reigns supreme and all caste distinctions are obliterated. Yet there is not one of these memoirs in which the cloven foot of jealousy, avarice or self-seeking does not peep forth from time to time from beneath the cloak of whole-souled geniality. But those who have known this world and can read between the lines can recognize these evidences of insincerity and ruthless greed, and value at its true worth the jovial hospitality that is merely that of an eye for an eye and a chop for a chop.

The Practical Joker

IN no way do these sinister qualities reveal themselves more plainly to the sophisticated than in the tales of those practical jokes which are the perennial delight of the humorless. Now the practical joker is invariably a profesional "genial" whose essays at fun making are as devoid of the essence of true humor as stage revels around an empty punch-bowl are of anything like genuine hilarity. Nevertheless, I have yet to see a single book of these reminiscences whose pages are not punctuated with such anecdotes as these;

"There was always fun alive when dear old Jack Whiffletree was of the party. What a brain the man had; what a capacity Jor inventing new pranks; what delight in placing them on his friends! It was Jack who put on a black mask and appeared before his grandmother demanding her money or her lifeThe poor old lady was so scared that she showed him the drawer where she kept her loot, and didn't he come away with forty quid jingling in his pockets, and didn't we all have a grand blow-out next Sunday! There never was a more hospitable, free-handed soul than Jack Whiffletree when he had the money—which was very seldom. Poor fellow, he is under the sod now!"

"Another inveterate joker was little Tommy Toddleton of the 'Alls. One night we were all invited to supper at Lord Hawkesbury's, the well-known sporting peer, and everybody had come except Tommy. We waited and waited and at last decided to go in without him. But we had not been seated at a table more than a minute when Chrissie Codliver of the Gaieties—she who sang, 'I'm a dainty little barmaid at the Cri'—screamed out that someone had hold of her foot and who should crawl out from under the table but Tommy, amid such shrieks of laughter as I have never heard before or since. Lord Hawkesbury was so amused that he almost had an apopleptic fit."

The Visit to America

THE author of the memoirs always has something to say about his visit to America and it is easy to tell from his chronicle whether the trip proved successful or not. There is the usual farewell supper—Lord Drelincourt in the chair and the Honrable Fitzroy Poldoody as Vice Chairman—and a numerous company that includes various Americans whose names are of sufficient' importance to warrant the cost of cable tolls. "Hands across the sea" ami "blood is thicker than water" are the favorite themes of the speakers and in every case awaken uproarious applause.

The sequel, some months later, tells the story of the American trip. If successful enough to warrant a return visit the voyager expresses his delight and wonderment at everything he has seen. The Rocky Mountains, Niagara Falls, and other natural phenomena, and above all the high intelligence of American audiences and the free-handed hospitality of the people, crowd one another in his eulogies.

There is however another tale to tell, one that enables us to guess what has really happened and in which the actor copies from his well-thumbed scrap-book a flippant bit of criticism with the remark: "That is the sort of thing that an English player is obliged to face when he visits free and independent America!"

His further comments on the American press reveal his opinion that intelligent criticism is not to be found in America. Either it has never existed or else it is in its dotage, "What," he exclaims, "must one think of a New York newspaper that permits its critic to say of an actor who has played for years in the West End theatres that he utterly failed to command the sympathy of the audience? I am sure I never wanted their sympathy."

It is impossible to conceive of a reminiscent British author who has ever forgotten an occasion graced by the1 presence of royalty or nobility, and in the chronicles of these episodes we sometimes find snobbery in its finest fruition.

And so naive and innocent, so thoroughly part and parcel of the writer's soul, that it is inoffensive. The appearance of a royal prince at a garden-party or theatrical representation is a never-to-be-forgotten event, and I sometimes wish that we had in this country a family capable of conferring such widespread happiness by a mere smile or a gracious word.

To the uninitiated the spirit of hearty, cheery hospitality revealed in the many friendly notes of invitation, with which the chapters of these memoirs are liberally punctuated, seems pleasing and genuine. But there is an undercurrent of self-seeking that the magnifying glass will make apparent. No matter how jovial the tone of the note, no matter how illustrious the signature, the person to whom it is addressed is almost invariably one in a position to confer a favor on the host.

It is the manager who invites the critic to a jolly little supper on the eve of a new production; the dramatist who bids the manager to dinner when he has a new scenario to read. And it is astonishing how quickly and effectively an adverse criticism or the failure of a play can put a quietus on the warmest friendship in "Upper Bohemia".

It has seemed to me that whatever the qualthat; makes a race honored there is always an element whose characteristics are the reverse Thus there crops out among the free-handed, easy-going Irish, the miser of that race whose sordid meanness is proverbial. I he Scotch are said to be lacking in humor, but when a Scotchman is funny we can readily believe that he has absorbed all the humor, of his people, so irresistible is he. The Englishman at home is honest and courteous, all tradition to the contrary notwithstanding, but .the travelling British boor is insufferable, and the British dead-beat is without a peer in the manifold arts of petty swindling. When an American of high degree comes down in the world he becomes a gudgeon to be plucked by every rascal he meets. But when a Briton falls from high estate and takes up little by-paths of crime, he becomes, as Thackeray said of Lord Deucace "a match for the worst blackleg at Newmarket."

Bohemianism and Snobbery

I cannot, nor do I wish to, believe that the entire artistic and theatrical world of London is as sharp set and subservient and snobbish as these books declare it to be. If so it is very different from its counterpart of New York with which I am much more familiar. Here hospitality still retains much of its earlier significance as friendly intercourse, and not as a means of cadging for undeserved benefits.

As for social snobbery I 'can say of my own knowledge that the leader of the "Four Hundred"—to quote from the lexicon of Park Row —is far more eager to meet the actor of distinction than the actor is to meet her. It is

true that the society of New York is by no means as imposing and influential as that which clusters, about the British crown, but it is equally true that the latter regards the actor as someone who ought to appear for nothing at a charity performance, and the actress as a desirable person to sell programmes in the lobby and pin rosebuds in reluctant buttonholes.

All of which is a matter of common knowledge to members of the theatrical profession and perhaps accounts in part for the absence of snobbery in its ranks.

It is pleasant to think that despite our supposed love of the dollar our artistic world still retains some of the qualities that are associated in the mind with bohemianism and that its spirit is not entirely one of false sentiment and self-seeking.