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The Passing Show.
CATHER.
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novels in the world stage tude for you!
J J 1124 O St, Lincoln, Nebr.
Of all
novels are usually the most trashy and
flatly unnatural and impossible, at
least American and English novels,
Henry James' magnificent "Tragic
Muse" of course excepted. In France,
where the theatre holds a more as
sured and legitimate place among the
arts than here, the local color cf the
footlights has been rather overworked
in fiction, but with us it lias been left
to the penny dreadfuls. Frederick
Stokes & Co. have recently published
a book, "The Barn Stormers," by
Mr. Harcourt Williamson, which is an
exception to this rule. "The Barn
Stormers," as the title indicates, deals
with the lower walks of the theatrical
profession. Miss Monica Marine, the
central figure of the story, is a young
English amateur, gently bred and
educated in a French convent, who
comes to America in search of the
fame and fortune which usually await
even the most inferior foreign players
upon our soil, but Miss Xarine is not
sufficiently versed in the popular
methods of advertising to command
the attention of metropolitan man
agers, and is forced to accept- an en
gagement as "leading juvenile" in a
company of barn storming pirates who
are playing week stands in the rural
villages of Ohio. On her way to join
The personelleof Mr. Scott Ambler's
company is sketched 'with cleverness
and truth. There is Mrs. Scott, the
leading lady, a person of mountainous
physique and an uncertain tempera
ment, who flies into a passion at rc
hersals and shouts that her husband is
trying to "queer her business." There
is the poor little red-haired pianist
who weeps incessantly because she is
cast for "Weenty Paul" in the Octo
roon and has to appear in trousers,
thereby exposing the lankness of her
extremities to her sweetheart who
plays in the company. There is the
sweetheart himself, patient, stupid
and loyal, one of those fellows pecu
liarly unfitted for that profession yet
who often drift into it; who carries
the pianist's bag and makes her fires
and taps on her door when they have
to make early trains, and lends her
his salary to send home. There is
Miss Fannie Free, billed as "The Lit
tie Human Flower," and sometimes
lovingly called "Fancy Free " She is
the wife of the stage manager, pretty
after a plebeian fashion, andgenuinely
witty after a plebeian fashion, and she
wears her peroxide hair short and
curled. Have we not all encountered
that soubrette hair in railway trains
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Is one of our bargains. It
i2 -ru-i1it?li Hrtit?1i nf1 ik.fl.ik
antique or imitation ma- 7
hog-any. You will like it.
Our price is very low, only d
frriif inn
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and we pay the
miles.
Send for our catalogues if you need any furniture, or (
a bicycle, or refrigerator, or baby carriage.
the company at Bagara, O., she bum- and tne corri(iors of ,10tels? She
ders into the private car of a Colorado
magnate who finds her much too good
for her prospects and eventually turns
up and rescues her from the clutches
of an unscrupulous and designing man
ager. But this little romance is not
particularly new and is really of only
secondary importance. The chief in
terest of the book is centered in the
adventures and personelle of Mr.
Scott Ambler's barn-storming com
pany. It is no easy thing to write a good
stage novel and faithfully preserve
the atmosphere which eventually
forms the lives of the people who live
in it. That profession has customs
technicalities, a parlance of its own of
which the general public is as ignor
ant as of the technicalities of music or
painting. Again, the "pirates," the
camp-fojiowers of the profession have
mannerisms and expressions of their
own, differing from those of legitimate
plays soubrette parts except in the
"Octoroon," in which she is permitted
to play Zoe because of the great suc
cess she had achieved in that role
"when she was a star." Then there is"
"Jim Crawford," the heavy man of
the company, who has the good looks
of the bar tender variety and who
loves the English girl just because she
is unlike anything he has ever known
and because he cannot in the least un
derstand her, and because she is as
instinctively fine as lie is coarse. She
loathes him instinctively at first, but
finally gets used to liim and even par.
tially accepts his attentions. As Mrs.
"Williamson very pertinently remarks,
the worst feature among several
others is the kind of things one "gets
used to '
Mrs. Williamson makes a strong
point of the isolation of this little
company of human beings wit'i human
longings and human needs:
c
TRUiBTS
FMAOUS f 001
was "a thing of beauty," but a
pretty foot encased in a handsome
pair of shoes from our stylish, well
fitting stock is "a joy forever," be
cause they are simply perfection.
No corns, bunions or cramped feet
from wearing our fine shoee
Perkins and Sheldon
1129 O
Street.
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As a story of the stage "The Barn
Stormers" is clever, keen, and realis
tic. As a piece of writing it is slovenly
faulty and amateurish. The discrim
ination prompted by good taste, seems
entirely lacking in Mrs. Williamson.
BY TELEPHONE.
Hello! Mars?
Oh I Twinkling stars,
How queer this seems.
Our wildest dreams
piajers a a patois uueMrom me icgit- stant pressure on aI1 sides from with.
imate speech. ou which drives the lonely man to
It would be well if all authors before seek the sound of a human voice and
writing of a particular class or profes- the warmth of a human hand; drives
sion would inform themselves as thor- the fine to the base. -and. alas, the bas
TTni" ct.ii icr-nrtfiinlv n".t nrtli'immfl Ivt T?
the con- , . J. ' "" -"""" --.. j or years, nave been to pierce those beams,
mic ii Miiiiiii-s as tiiu loiiovring: "Mile
oughly as Mrs. Harcourt Williamson
has done. 1 confess I have never be
fore heard of the lady, but so well has
she her subject matter in hand, that
I would almost wager she has been at
sometime more or less directly con
nected with the profession on the
exigencies of which she is so thor
oughly posted and with the people
whose innocent vanities and foibles
she knows so well. One whose knowl
edge of the theatre is confined to its
aspects in large cities could scarcely
realize how faithfully the experiences
of -these poor barn stormers are pre
sented; the horrors of local trains and
rural theatres, the small boys of the
village hooting at the "show women,"
and the kindly condescension of the
chamber maid at the hotel who says,
"I always do feel sorry for you poor
in tliA finof
On the whole, Miss Fanny Free's
remarks very well describe Mr. Am
ber's company; "We're a queer lot, but
we're not as bad as we look "
Dickens, in "Nicholas Xickleby."
admirably depicted the absurdities of
a troup of provincial players; Mr.
Crummels and Mrs. Crummels, who
recited "The Blood Drinker" and tho
poor infant phenomenon. But he gave
them only absurdities, made them
mere blustering caricatures of men
and women. Surely even the poor
barn stormer may say with the un
happy Richard:
"I live by bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends."
Mrs. Williamson, whatever her
faults of style, and they are almost
past numbering, has made her barn
morocco sides of her purse came to
gether like a pairof sucked-in checks."
"The sparkle had gone from her eyes
and her hopes, as from last night's
champagne." "The eggs at breakfast
were rather suggestive of the Remits
sance or some remote period of his"
tory." It is almost incredible that
an author who can make a narrative
go with such sprightliness, could per
mit herself, at the close of her story
to say that the heroine did not reply
because "her lips were otherwise en
gaged." Perhaps Mrs. Williamson has
lived too long among the people she
describes and lias worn off the fine
edge of her taste.
Subscribefor The Courier 1 a year.
A new and modern coffee grinder has
just been put into our store, with which
we are able to suit the most critical
coffee makers, whether coarse gracu-
Yes, this is earth!
Perhaps not worth
A glance, although
Not long ago
We thought the world was ours, you Lown
Mars, tell us h'rst,
Were you accursed?
Did you begin
With wiclwd kin
Who handed down original sin?
Do not decei-'e !
"Your mother Eve
Was far to cute
To eat that fruit?"
''Our planet all things doth pollute."
Oh! I could weep.
"Earth, the black sheep!
The only one
Around the sun
Whose parents were by sin undone."
Do not ring yet ?
Fm quite upset.
Hello! Hello!
Oh! What a Wow.
t . J 1L. x 1 -
laieu ur iub iiuefeL puivenzinj-, or any
actresses; folks is so down on you. aint stormers living men and women, ac- intermediate fineneesis desired, we can We're snubbed by Mars ! Hello! Hello!
tlteyr -ua7a oe as maa as lire ir she tual and distinct characters, stamped suit you in an up to date mannw. Try Mary Day Harris.
knew uncle let me associate with ac with verity and unmistakably thes- us. O. J. King. Whni ,, TX
tresses." There is the provincial atti- plans. 1126 .V Street Hanson & Ever. 's.lSo " "'
