Within the past year the crop of just plain large picture books has increased to such an extent that the old-fashioned book-cases, built for Dickens and Conrad, are as useless as your first baby sweater. There have been funny picture books, grim picture books, naughty picture books, and now comes “The American Parade,” which is simply a plain picture book of American life since the Civil War. And just leave one of them around on your desk or table and see what happens to it when your busy adult gets his talons on it.
A man comes into your office, let us say, reeking of insurance. He is a very busy man and can give you but a moment of his time. He may even keep his hat on, he is so busy. All that he wants to do is outline the advantage of a special three-hundred payment endowment policy, and then get away to another client who is taking out twice the amount of insurance that you are considering. (The next man that an insurance agent is going to call on is always doubling your ante.)
He sits down, pulls out a lot of papers from his brief case, and clears his throat. Then his eye lights on the picture book. He opens it casually from where he is sitting and says: “What’s this – a collection of pictures of some sort?”
He thumbs the pages aimlessly for a few seconds and then comes across a photograph of Broadway and Pine St. in 1865. “This is very interesting,” he says, pulling the book over to get it in better range. Then he turns the page.
“Here’s a funny one!” he exclaims. “These girls in ‘The Black Crook.’ Did you see this one?”
You go and look over his shoulder. “There’s another one a few pages on – of the Can-Can,” you say. “Here – let me show you!” And you try to take the book away to find the place for him. Taking a juicy bone away from a dog would be simpler.
“I’ll come to it in a minute!” he almost snarls, and clutches the volume to his chest. From then on the book is his. Insurance is forgotten, the next client is forgotten, and, if you want to tip-toe out on him and go to lunch, he will never notice that you are gone.
A child confined with measles never was so engrossed in a picture book as this busy man in yours. He turns the pages one after another very slowly, getting his nose right down into it in order not to miss a detail, and not a sound comes out of him for 15 minutes, except an occasional “Very interesting!”
By having on hand five or six volumes of pictures, left carelessly about on tables and sofas, I have found it possible to do a whole afternoon’s work with a roomful of people at my back. It may take 10 or 12 minutes to get them to thumbing, but once they are started, with one holding a book and two others perched on the arms of the chair, there isn’t a sign of life in the room except the slow rustle of pages and now and then the wetting of a thumb.
When one group is through with a volume, they swap with another group, and so the afternoon passes until my work is done and I begin to get a little lonesome. Then I go over and look over someone’s shoulder, for I am not averse to picture books myself, even ones that I have looked at before.
Aside from the bitterness which arises when someone gets hold of a picture book which you are only half through with, this innocent pastime tends to simplify and sweeten our human relationships. If Man descends to meet, as Emerson said, he certainly unbends to look at picture books. For 15 minutes, at least, everyone in the room is naïve and ingenuous. I don’t know what particular virtue there is in that, but there must be some.
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Old Days
in New Bottles
A Glance Backward
in the Manner of the Authors
of Theatrical Reminiscences
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Few, probably, of my readers, will remember the time when the old Forrest theater stood where the Central Park Reservoir now is. In those days, Central Park was considered way downtown, or “crosstown,” as they called it then, and one of the larks of the period was going “down to Central Park to see the turtles.” There was a large turtle farm in the Park at that time, run by Anderson M. Ferderber, and it was this turtle farm, expanding and growing as the turtles became more venturesome, which later became the Zoological Exhibit.
I remember very well the night when it was announced at the Forrest Theater that the building was to be torn down to make way for the new Reservoir. It was, as I recall, H. M. Ramus (“Henry” Ramus) who made the announcement. He was playing Laertes at the time (Laertes was played with the deuces wild and a ten-cent limit) when the manager of the theater (Arthur Semden, who later became Harrison Blashforth) came into the dressing-room and said: “Well, boys, it’s all over. They’re going to build the Reservoir here!” There was a silence for a full minute – probably more, for the manager had come into the wrong dressing-room and there was nobody there.
At any rate, “Henry” Ramus was selected to go out and tell the audience. He did it with infinite tact, explaining that there was no need for alarm or panic, as the water could not possibly be let in until the theater was down and the Reservoir constructed, but the audience was evidently taking no chances on being drowned, for within three minutes from the time Ramus began speaking everyone in the theater was outdoors and in a hansom cab. Audience psychology is a queer thing, and possibly this audience knew best. At any rate, the old Forrest Theater is no more.
Speaking of “Henry” Ramus, an amusing anecdote is told of Whitney Hersh. Hersh was playing with Booth in Philadelphia at the time, and was well known for his ability to catch cold, a characteristic which won him many new friends but lost him several old ones. The theater where Booth was playing in The Queen’s Quandary, or What’s Open Can’t Be Shut, was the old Chestnut Street Opera House which stood at the corner of what was then Arch, Chestnut, Spruce, Pine and Curly Maple Streets. This theater was noted in the profession for its slanting stage, so much so, in fact, that Booth, on hearing that they were to play there, is said to have remarked: “The Chestnut Street, eh?” On being assured that he had heard correctly, Booth simply smiled. He later founded the Player’s Club.
In The Queen’s Quandary, or What’s Open Can’t Be Shut, Hersh had to play the part of Rodney Ransome, the father of several people. In the second act there was a scene in which Rodney had to say to Marian:
“But I thought you said the Duke had no moustache!”
To which Marian was supposed to reply: “I never was more serious in all my life.”
On the night of the opening performance Hersh was, as usual, very nervous. He got through the first act all right, with the aid of several promptings from his mother who was sitting in the balcony. But when the second act came along, it was evident to the other members of the company that Hersh could not be relied upon. This feeling was strengthened by the fact that he was nowhere to be found. They searched high and low for him but, like the sword of Damocles, he had disappeared. At the curtain to the second act, however, he was discovered sitting out front in D-113 applauding loudly and calling out: “Hersh! We-want-Hersh!” The only way they could get him back on the stage was a ruse which was not without its pathetic side. The manager of the house stepped out in front of the curtain and asked if any member of the audience would volunteer to come upon the stage and be hypnotized. Hersh, who had always wanted to go on the stage, was one of the first to push his way up. Once behind the footlights again his nervousness left him and he went on with his part where he had left off. It did not fit in with the rest of the play, but they were all so glad to have him back in the cast again that they said nothing about it to him, and whenever, in later years, he himself mentioned the affair, it was always as “that time in Philadelphia when I was so nervous.” . . . And that little girl was Charlotte Cushman.
It was at this time that Stopford’s A New Way With Old Husbands, or The Mysterious Drummer-Boy, was given its first performance at the old Garrick Theater in New York. The old Garrick Theater was torn down in 1878 to make way for the new Garrick Theater, which, in its turn, was torn down in 1880 to make way for the old Garrick again. It is the old, or new, Garri
ck which now stands at Broadway and Tenth Street on the spot known to passers-by as “Wanamaker’s.” Thus is the silver cord loosed and the pitcher broken at the well.
A New Way With Old Husbands, or The Mysterious Drummer-Boy was written for Ada Rehan, but she was in Fall River at the time; so the part was given to a young woman who had come to the theater that morning asking if a Mr. Wasserman lived there. On being told that it was not a private dwelling and that there was no one there named Wasserman, she had said,
“Well, then, does anyone here want to subscribe to the Saturday Evening Post?”
Those members of the cast who had gathered on the bare stage for rehearsal were so impressed by the young woman’s courage that a purse was taken up for her children in case she had any and, in case she had no children, for her next of kin.
“I do not want money,” she said, taking it. “All I want is a chance to prove my ability on the stage.”
“Can you make the sound of crashing glass?” asked Arthur Reese, the stage manager.
“I think so,” replied the young woman without looking up.
Reese looked at Meany, the assistant stage manager. “She is the one we want,” he said quietly.
So the young woman was engaged. . . . Some thirty years later the Empire Theater in New York was aglow with lights on the occasion of the opening of Call the Doctor. Gay ladies, bejeweled and bejabbered, were running back and forth in the lobby, holding court, while tall, dark gentlemen in evening dress danced attendance. Those who couldn’t dance sat it out. It was the metropolitan season at its height.
Suddenly a man burst excitedly through the crowd and made his way to the box-office.
“This seat is ridiculous,” he exclaimed to the Treasurer of the theater (Roger M. Wakle, at the time). “I can’t even see the stage from it.”
“That is not so strange as it may seem to you at first,” replied Wakle, “for the curtain is not up yet.”
A hush fell over the crowded lobby. This was followed somewhat later by a buzz of excitement. This, in turn, was followed by a detail of mounted police. Men looked at women and at each other. . . . For that young man was Charlotte Cushman.
It was about this time, as I remember it (or maybe later) that the old Augustin Daly Stock Company was at the top of its popularity and everyone was excited over the forthcoming production of Up and Away. It had been in rehearsal for several weeks when Tom Nevers asked Daly how much longer they were going to rehearse.
“Oh, about another week,” replied Daly, with that old hat which later made him famous.
You can imagine Nevers’ feelings!
A glance at the Cast assembled for this production might be of interest in the light of subsequent events (the completion of the vehicular tunnel and the Centennial Exposition). So anyway it is in the middle of page 57 to look at if you want to.
UP AND AWAY
OR NOBODY KNOWS BUT NERO
OR THREE TIMES SIX IS EIGHTEEN
(Choice of any two titles)
Jonathan Henchman, father of Ralph Henchman and Mother of Men, Old Yale
MR. MACREADY
Ralph Henchman, father of Jonathan Henchman and a rather wild young chap
MR. JUNIUS BOOTH
Jack Wyman, M.D., a doctor who has more “patience” than “patients”
MR. EDMUND KEENE
Professor Hawksworth, an irascible old fellow who specializes in bird troubles
MR. HORNBLOW
Professor Hawksworth, an irascible old fellow who specializes in bird troubles
MR. JUNIUS BOOTH
Meeker, a party who lives by his wits and not much of that
MR. JONATHAN EDWARDS
Eugenia, daughter of Jonathan Henchman
MRS. SIDDONS
Mlle de Bon-Ton, a young lady who is not above drinking a little champagne now and then
MISS CUSHMAN
Eliza, maid at the Nortons
BY HERSELF
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
MR. WILLIAM A. BRADY
Mr. Benchley’s Favorite Souvenir
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As it turned out, Up and Away was never produced, as it was found to be too much trouble. But the old Augustin Daly Stock Company will not soon be forgotten.
My memories of St. Louis are of the pleasantest. We played there in Dante’s Really Mrs. Warrington – and Twelfth Night. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on the morning following our opening, said:
“It is quite probable that before the end of the year we shall see the beginning of the end of the work on the McNaffen Dam. The project has been under construction now for three years and while there can be no suspicion thrown on the awarding of the contracts, nevertheless we must say that the work has progressed but slowly.”
It was while we were playing in St. Louis that the news came of the capture of J. Wilkes Booth. A performance of Richelieu was in progress, in which I was playing Rafferty, and Fanny Davenport the Queen. In the second act there is a scene in which Rafferty says to La Pouce:
“I can not, tho’ my tongue were free,
Repeat the message that my liege inspires,
And tho’ you ask it, were it mine,
And hope you’ll be my Valentine.”
Following this speech, Rafferty falls down and opens up a bad gash in his forehead.
We had come to this scene on the night I mention, when I noticed that the audience was tittering. I could not imagine what the matter was, and naturally thought of all kinds of things – sheep jumping over a fence – anything. But strange as it may seem, the tittering continued, and I have never found out, from that day to this what amused them so. . . . This was in 1878.
And now we come to the final curtain. For, after all, I sometimes think that Life is like a stage itself. The curtain rises on our little scene; we have our exits and our entrances, and each man in his time plays many parts. I must work this simile up sometime.
Life and the Theater. Who knows? Selah.
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The Lure of the Rod
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Fishing is one of my favorite sports, and one of these days I expect to catch a fish. I have been at it fourteen years now and have caught everything else, including hell from the wife, a cold in the head, and up on my drinking. Next comes the fish. Immediately after that I’ll take up something else.
Along about the time when the first crocuses are getting frozen for having popped out too soon (and, by the way, you might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it) the old lure of the rubber-boot begins to stir, and Fred and I begin to say, “remember that time – ?” From then on the descensus is extremely facilis, unless you know what I mean.
Out come the rods from the attic, and several evenings are spent in fingering over the cards bearing the remnants of last season’s Silver Doctors, Jolly Rogers, Golden Bantams, or whatever they are called. Inveterate fisherman that I am, I have never been able to take seriously the technical names for flies. It is much simpler to refer to them as “this one” and “that one” and is less embarrassing if you happen to be self-conscious. The man who made up the names for flies must have been thwarted in a life-long desire to have children, and at last found that outlet for his suppressed baby-talk.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” says Fred, “I could get off for about ten days and perhaps we could run up to Rippling Creek, or Bubbling Brook.”
“If you can get off as easy as that for ten days to run up to any place,” says Mrs. Fred, “you can run up to the attic and put up that partition around the trunk-room. The boards have been lying up there ready since last October.”
“Who said I could get off for ten days?” replies Fred, hotly. “I said I might be able to get off for a day or two. I don’t know. I doubt very much if I could make it.”
So Fred doesn’t go on the trip.
But there are three or fou
r of us who do, and we start to leave about four weeks before the train is ready. George has to buy some new flannel shirts. These are tricky things to buy, and you have to get them far enough ahead so that if they don’t fit right around the neck you can change them. It is important that they fit right around the neck, because you’d hate to have Jo Rapusi, the Pollack who takes care of the shack, see you with a badly-fitted shirt. George buys half a dozen shirts and wears one the whole time he is away.
Eddie needs rubber-boots. His old ones have no feet to them and can be used only as leggings. So we all have to go with Eddie while he tries on a new pair. We sit around in the bootery and watch him galumph up and down the strip of carpet, giving him advice on the various styles which the clerk brings out.
“How are these?” asks Eddie, a little proudly, stepping off in a pair into which he has not quite got his right foot, with the result that he is thrown heavily to one side as it buckles under his weight.
“They’re fine, Eddie,” we say, “only watch out for that right one. It’s got a nasty canter.”
“The fish will hear you coming in those, Eddie,” is another hot one. “You ought to wear them on your hands.”
This sort of thing takes quite a time, because it has to be done well if you are doing it at all. There is just enough time left to go and see about the liquid bait which Mac is taking in three portable cases, and to sample it, and then it is almost midnight, and we are due to leave on the trip in four days.
These days are spent in making enemies among our friends by talking about what we are going to do.
“Well, you poor sons-of-guns can think of us a week from today, wading down the stream after a nice big baby with round blue eyes,” we say. “And when we get him all nice and slit up and fried in butter, we’ll stop and think of you before we eat him and maybe drink a silent toast to the goofs at home.”
Chips Off the Old Benchley Page 13