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ALVA C. TOWNSEND.
Alva C. Townsend represents the Elite, the leading photograph
studio in the state. The business was established in 1889 by his father,
T. "W. Townsend, who, five years ago, removed from Lincoln, leaving
the studio with his son.
Photography has shown more advancement during the past five
years than in all its history, but the Elite Studio has kept pace with
the onward movement and today is producing effects that are marvels of
artistic beauty.
The time is past when the critical public thinks that a photograph
Is simply a photograph, no matter who made It. This fallacy has been
dispelled. The superior work now executed by skillful hands and de
signed by the brain of the true photographic expert has opened the
eyes of the public, which now asks for the services of an artist, some
one capable of making more than a mere likeness or impression.
Mr. Townsend is a leader in his profession and a true artist, which Is
the foundation of his success. His studio is teeming with evidences of
his individuality. His reputation for making baby pictures is well es
tablished throughout Nebraska. CKlldrenwant sympathy anL.Mr. Town
" send in some way reaches the little tots and snaps his camera when they
are in their most natural attitudes.
People who enjoy art are paying much attention to the excellent
work displayed at his studio, which is situated on the ground floor at
226 South Eleventh street, whdre all interested in photography are wel
come.
MAUDE
ADAMS
Women's manners In the first part of
the nineteenth century, and for that
matter men's manners too, were af
fected. Women simpered, swooned,
wept. Men wrote exaggerated love
poetry, sighed and delivered impossible
sentiments. Woman was a toy, a play
thing of men, and men were boys who
must have playthings.
Miss Phoebe Throssell, in Barrie's
play of "Quality Street," is a woman
of character. She shows it by the
brave struggle to earn her own and
her sister's living. Yet even as pre
sented by one of the best actresses of
the time, the character of Phoebe
Throssell is hysterical and womanish.
And Valentine Brown, her lover, is an
overgrown boy with all a boy's blind
ness, beeflness and thoughtlessness.
The ordinary unexploited contempo
rary man is more of a man than the
hero of the first part of eighteen hun
dred. Just as the everyday Gibson girl
is more the mistress of herself and of
her surroundings than Thackeray's
Amelia Sedley or any of Dickens' help
less females, or Fielding's or Smollett's
or Sterne's or Miss Austen's young
ladies who were prepared for life in a
female seminary where they learned a
little embroidery, a little, a very little
music, the use of the globes, whatever
that means, and the names and dates
of English kings. The English girl of
the Napoleonic period contrasted with
the American girl of today is a hys
terical, unreserved, subjective, futile
sort, although the type appeals to the
chivalry Inherent In men and women.
What were the correct and usual
manners of speech In the first part of
1800, seem to us affected. They were
eighteenth century manners left over.
Maude Adams' first entrance in Qual
ity Street is ns a gushing, simpering
young girl, whose face is shaded by
elastic curls that have the spring of a
spiral, and which a later day called
"corkscrews." In early eighteenth
nomenclature they were called "ring
lets," a word which is not marked ob
solete in the dictionary, although It has
ceased to be of any use. Plioebe
Throssell was "Phoebe of the ringlets."
When the sisters' money was gone and
they had to do something to earn their
own living they kept a dame's school,
and Phoebe covered her hair with a
white mob cap. She dearly loved her
own appearance, and her heroism In
covering her idolized curls is revealed
when her lover comes back from the
war and finds her pale and fallen-off
In looks. Then she tells her adoring
sister how she has revolted against
earning her own living, and how In the
night, in her own room, she has put on
her wedding gown, twisted her hair
into the curls upon which she Is sure
her beauty depends, and trod a mid
night measure with what she thought
was the ghost of her youth. This is
Barrie and not Maude Adams. His
methods are subjective and stagy.
Hers are objective and natural. The
actress' art is superior to the art of
the man who is the author of "Senti
mental Tommy," the poseur, the ego
tist. Whatever Is agreeable in the char
acter of Phoebe Throssell, Is Maude
Adams: whatever is stilted, stagy,
super-sentimental, subjective and af
fected is either the manners of- the
eighteenth century or the irrepressible
subjectivity of Barrie, who Inoculates
his books and plays with his own
virus.
As Babble in "The Little Minister,"
Maude Adam? was freer, Sh.e played.
the part with a concentration of her
interest in the Little Minister. Her
own character Is revealed by her love
for him, and the minister Is the prig
and the egotist as the minister so often
is. The people are used to thut and
it passes without remark. In "Quality
Street," Phoebe is bound by the re
straints of a superficial time and the
authorship of Mr. J. M. Barrie, to ex
press her character in a long hysterical
monologue and by constant addresses
to the audience on the life, character
and heroic conquests and purposes of
"Phoebe of the Ringlets." Shakspere
taught authors better than this three
hundred years ago. Just let a mediocre
actress get hold of Barrie's poseusc
once and the people would see at once
the tawdrlness of the playwright's con
tribution. Maude Adams and a self-respecting,
capable company presented "Quality
Street" at the Oliver Monday night to
a large and volubly appreciative audi
ence. The play was excellently cast,
well staged, picturesquely costumed
and provided with music that played
old airs arranged and adapted by Wm.
Furst. Just as In The Little Minister,
Phoebe Is set to music, airy, reminiscent
of old gardens, vanished parlors, china,
and the Herrick poetry about women.
The Phoebe motif, played when she en
ters pr when Phoebe Is the whole stage.
Is very pretty, feminine and affecting.
Before you know it the notes mean
Maude Adams and the spell works.
The music teases one with the un
identified memory of tunes heard and
associated with old things long ago.
The composer has acknowledged no
plagiarism and it is likely that he has
merely arranged the meaning and the
rhythm rather than taken any air
bodily. Whether Is It greater to take
the soul of a theme and leave an un
mutllated body, or to take a few notes
and make a new and haunting melody?
Mr. Furst has swiped the fragrance of
sweet marjoram, bachelors' buttons,
pinks, rue, and even a bit of tansy from
the airs of seventy-five years ago and
embodied them In the Phoeb theme.
And the teasing, reminiscent airs fol
low one as footsteps follow In the
dark, forgotten and again recalled by
very insistence.
Maude Adams Is so slender, so help
less (apparently) there Is not it man
who sees her play who does not wish
to fling his plaidle to the wind to shel
ter her, to shelter her. In the years
that she has been on the stage her
voice has grown a little hoarse and the
beautiful girlish timbre has gone. Her
art In concealing Itself Is perfect. But
she was born with the power to take
captive all men's and all women's hearts
by her sweetness, wit, grace and in
definable charm of person and char
acter. Miss Helen Lowell a Miss Susan
Throssell and Miss Marlon Abbott as
Putty have made subtle study of their
parts and are very wholesome artists.
S. U. II.
He Do you think the little widow
would accept me for a second?
She Yes, but only for a second!
New Lincoln
130 S. Tenth
Street
JOHN 8. CAIN
Proprietor
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ETtrjtklpr Sw and Strictly First Clan
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Carl Myrer
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Does Painting, Frescoing, Grain
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The Brush and Paste Man.
Phone 5232. 2612 Q STREET
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ROY A. CHAPMAN.
Truly a Nebraska boy Is Roy A. Chapman, born at Plattsmouth,
Neb., In 1872, and coming to Lincoln with his parents a few years after
wards. In 1889 he left school to be associated with the western depart
ment here of D. B. Fisk & Co.. of Chicago, dealers In wholesale mil
linery. Shortly afterwards he became one of their traveling salesmen
and was at that time the youngest traveling man In Nebraska.
In 1893 he left the road to embark in the insurance business here,
being appointed resident agent for the Delaware and Reliance Insurance
companies of Philadelphia, among others. Later he added accident In
surance to his business and was made general agent for the Preferred
Accident Insurance Co., of New York. A couple of years ago he, with
C. Y. Smith, formed the popular and well known Insurance and real
estate firm of Smith-Chapman Co. About this time he was appointed
special agent for Nebraska antl Iowa of the Delaware and Reliance In
surance companies. His success in this capacity became so noticeable to
Mr. O. C. Kemp, manager of the western department of these companies
at Chicago, that the first of this year, he made him their state agent
and adjuster for Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, with headquar
ters at Kansas City, Mo.
On the 27th of last January Mr. Chapman was married to Miss
May Boyer, daughter of D. R. Boyer of Williamsport, Pa.
Mr. Chapman has always been intimate with the social and politi
cal affairs of Lincoln and retains his deep Interest In the progress of the
city and the success of the Smith-Chapman Co. He is a member of the
Elks, Masons, .the Eastern Star and Modern Woodmen lodges.
