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HERMIONE AND PERDITA.

MISS ANDERSON'S revival of a “Win

ter's Tale" is an achievement in dramatic art that no lover of the drama can omit to view and consider, without injustice to himself. The piece is one of the most delicate and exquisite creations of poetical genius; it has but rarely been presented upon the stage; and it never, in our time, has been acted so well as it is acted now. "A Winter's Tale" was written in the full maturity of Shakespeare's marvellous powers, and, indeed, many Shakespeare scholars believe it to be the last work that fell from his hand. Human life, as it is depicted in "A Winter's Tale," shows itself like what it always seems to be in the eyes of patient, tolerant, magnanimous experience-the eyes "that have kept watch o'er man's mortality"- for it is a scene of inexplicable contrasts and vicissitudes, seemingly the chaos of caprice and chance, yet always, in fact, beneficently overruled and guided to good ends. Human beings are shown in it as full of weaknesses; often as the puppets of laws that they do not understand, and of universal propensities and impulses into which they never pause to inquire; almost always as objects of benignant pity. The woeful tangle of human existence is here viewed with half-cheerful, half-sad tolerance, yet with the hope and belief that all will come right at last. The mood of the comedy is pensive, but radically sweet. The poet is like the subtle vision of the inherent gladness of

nature :

forest in Emerson's

"Sober, on a fund of joy,

The woods at heart are glad."

In doubling the characters of Hermione and Perdita, Miss Anderson took a bold and original course, and this proceeding has been entirely justified by the result.

One of the attributes of genius is the faculty of seeing opportunity, and "A Winter's Tale" contains the only opportunity of this kind that occurs in all the works of Shakespeare. The dramatic environment, the dramatic necessities, of Hermione and Perdita are vastly unlike, for example, those of Lady Macbeth-one of the hardest of all parts to play well, because exhibited intermittently, at long intervals, yet steadily constrained by the necessity of cumulative excitement. The representative of Lady Macbeth must be identified with that character, whether on the stage or off, from the beginning of it to the end. Hermione, on the contrary, is at rest, from the moment when she faints upon receiving information of the death of her son. A lapse of sixteen years is assumed, and then, standing forth as a statue, she personifies majestic virtue and victorious fortitude. When she descends from the pedestal, she silently embraces Leontes, speaks a few pious, maternal and tranquil lines (there are precisely seven of them in the original, but Miss Anderson has added. two, from "All's Well"), and embraces Perdita, whom she has not seen since the girl's earliest infancy. This is their only meeting, and little is sacrificed by the use of a substitute for the daughter in this Perdita's brief apostrophe to the

scene.

statue has to be cut, but it is not missed in the representation. The dramatic opportunity, however, is not one that could readily be utilized. No other actress of our time is endowed equally with Miss Anderson, with that exceptional diversity of temperament and those peculiar splendors of physique which are essential for embodying both these characters, each so lovely, in a different way and each so distinctly unlike the other. Miss Anderson could not only see the opportunity but could improve it; so that even those cen

sors who deny to her the faculty of impersonation (notwithstanding that she has played Juliet, Galatea, and Meg Merrilies and played them all well are compelled to concede that she sets Hermione and Perdita in perfect contrast.

To say of Miss Anderson as Hermione that she embodies the literal ideal of Shakespeare is to make a statement that carries with it the necessity of defining that ideal. One of the most reverent and most acute commentators upon Shakespeare, Mrs. Jameson, justly describes the character of Hermione as exhibiting dignity without pride, love without passion, and tenderness without weakness." This is exactly true. Hermione was not easily won, and the best thing known about Leontes is that at last she came to love him and that her love for him survived his cruel and wicked ill treatment, chastened him, reinstated him, and ultimately blessed him. Hermione suffers the utmost affliction that a good woman can suffer. Her little son dies, heart-broken, upon the news of his mother's alleged disgrace. Her infant daughter is torn from her breast and cast forth to perish. Her husband becomes her enemy and persecutor. Her honor as a woman is grossly assailed and villified. She is subjected to the bitter indignity of a public trial. It is no wonder that at last her brain reels and she falls as if stricken dead. The apparent anomaly is her survival for sixteen years, in lonely seclusion, and her emergence, after that, as anything but a forlorn shadow of her former self. The poet Shelley has somewhere recorded the truth that all great emotions either kill themselves or kill those who feel them. It is just here, however, that the exceptional temperament of Hermione supplies an explanatory and much-needed qualification. Her emotions are never of a passionate kind. Her mind

In

In Hermione the actress must not only liberate her moral and spiritual nature into a character analogous to her own and with which she is deeply sympathetic, but she must largely exert her imagination. Perdita she need not, as it happens, make any effort at all. There is an instantaneous and complete correspondence between the part and the player. The embodiment is as natural as a sunbeam. Shakespeare has left no doubt about his meaning in Perdita. The speeches of all around her continually depict her fresh and piquant loveliness, her innate superiority, her superlative charm; while her own behavior and language as constantly show forth her nobility of soul. One of the subtlest side lights thrown upon this character is in the description of the manner in which Perdita. heard the story of her mother's deathwhen "attentiveness wounded" her till, from one sign of dolor to another, she did bleed tears." And of the fibre of her own mind there is perhaps no finer indication than may be felt in her comment on old Camillo's worldly view of prosperity as a vital essential to the permanence of love: "I think affliction may subdue the cheek,

But not take in the mind."

The actress shows that she understands this character in every fibre of its being and in the finest shade of its meaning, and she embodies it with all the affluent vitality of her splendid health and her buoyant temperament-presenting a creature who is radiant with goodness and happiness, most exquisite in natural refinement, pi

quant with archness, soft and innocent and tender in confiding artlessness, and, while gleeful and triumphant in her beautiful youth, yet gently touched with an intuitive pitying sense of the thorny and sad aspects of this troubled world. The giving of the flowers completely bewitches her audience, and the startled yet proud endurance of the King's anger is in an equal degree captivating and touching. It indeed "makes old hearts fresh" to see such a spectacle of grace and joy as she presents in the rustic dance, and the best comment that can be made upon it is the absolutely appropriate aspiration of Florizel

"When you dance I wish you

A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that."

"She dances neatly," says the grave King Polixenes. "So she does anything," cries the proud and fond and delighted Shepherd-and that is the conviction as to the acting of Miss Mary Andersonmore strongly than ever impressed on thoughtful judgment-which remains from the prospect of these impersonations. Their value as embodied interpretations of poetry is great, but they possess a greater value and a higher significance as denotements of the guiding light, the cheering strength and the elevating loveliness of a❘ thoroughly noble human soul. They embody the conceptions of a poet, but at the same time they illumine an actual incarnation of the divine spirit, such as always must excel the beings of literary art. They are like windows to a sacred temple, and

through them you look into a place where thoughts are gliding angels, and feelings are the faces of seraphs, and sounds are the the music of the harps of heavenWilliam Winter.

INSPIRATION A NECESSITY.

I HAVE spoken of the poor quality of

dramatic work that is produced when a play is written to order to fit the idiosyncracies or peculiarities of an actor.

I wish, now, to speak of the same trouble that arises of inferior merit when an author writes to fill an order, or in other words, writes against time, be it play, poem or book.

An author must have a certain amount of inspiration as a sport.

The trite old proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention," is a very true one.

And the spur of necessity has created many a work of genius that, otherwise, would have been lost to the world.

But, as a rule, fortune and fame acquired, much of the necessary spur is lacking and the work deteriorates.

Especially if he is called upon to fill a demand within a certain time.

The source of supply seems to immediately dry up and yields nothing to the call.

I remember, some years ago, when that admirable magazine, the Galaxy was published, the Messrs. Church, the editors, engaged that genial humorist, Mark Twain to run a regular monthly department, entitled "Memoranda."

It appeared for several months, and funny enough it was too, until finally, one month Mark Twain appeared with a proclamation, in which he declared that while it was all very well being funny, the being funny for a certain number of pages regularly every month, was more than he could

agree to, and having undertaken a contract that he found it impossible to fulfil, he must gracefully beg leave to decline attempting anything like that again.

That is just it exactly-one cannot be funny to order, or with plays, poems or books to order, and be satisfied with their work.

You cannot fill a contract of that kind the same as a builder can for a house.

And for that matter, I have seen a good many houses that were built that way that were not worth much.

That is just the trouble with Mr. W. S. Gilberts' work on the books of operas for the past few years. It is steadily deteriorating.

I consider Gilbert the cleverest satirist since Thackeray that England has produced.

But it is purely and solely as a satirist that he shines. He is best when he is bitter. But his wit covers the gall. To my thinking the very best work from his pen is his play of "Engaged." And to me, his plays are better than his operas.

The often cited "Pinafore" is by all odds the best of his work in the operatic way. "Pirates" is fair, "Patience," "Iolanthe " and "The Mikado" are good, while “Trial by Jury" is a little gem of its kind. But "Princess Ida," "Ruddygore" and The Yeoman of the Guard" show steady depreciation.

I cannot agree with a late contributor of yours that "Princess Ida" is the best work, I think the credit for most of the best in that work is due to the original author. Tennyson.

We often notice that an author, having made a hit, works seems to pour forth rapidly from his pen, and many wonder that he is so prolific a genius.

You do not suppose for an instant, that they reel them off as fast as that to order?

No, indeed. The majority of them were written in the days of their poverty and inspiration.

And inspiration is very apt to step out at the door, after leisure and luxury have gone in.

For leisure and luxury beget idleness, and no good work can be done, inspired or not, without hard labor.

Therefore, let the aspirant for fame and fortune, write steadily and persistently on. Then, when his hit is made and his market is opened, he may have sufficient supplies on hand to meet the demand. Besides giving him time to prepare other good things. William F. Sage.

BEN AND BLUE-EYED KATE.
The curtain was down and the play was o'er,
The immense audience crowding toward the door,
For the great Booth and Barrett had appeared that night,
And to obtain admission, people had to almost fight.
There was a pushing and crowding among
the men,
And nobody noticed Kate and her little brother Ben.
She was but eight, with laughing blue eyes,

And Ben was a cripple, and much dwarfed in size.
He was a booth-black, and worked very hard,
And Kate, his sister-well, Kate was his pard,
Though he was young, yet Ben loved the play,
And for that night had saved pennies, for many a day.
He bought two good seats, paid down every cent,
And proud as a king to the theatre they went.
Hand in hand they watched the play through and through
Once Kate whispered, "Bruddie, I's afraid, is 'oo?"

At last, as I said, the great play was o'er,
The people all crowding to get out the door,

When suddenly, "fire!" some one yelled loud and clear;
Then came a silence born of a horrible fear.
Only an instant, then comes the sickening rush
Of hundreds of men, crazed by fear in a crush.
Screams of poor women deserted by men,
But where was Kate, and the cripple Ben?
Here a big bully pushed a weak woman aside,
In a frantic effort to get himself outside;
There a young man by his wife calm and brave,
Awaiting the ebb of this great human wave.

At the first cry of fire, Ben clasped his sister Kate tight,
For terror gave him strength, though his figure was slight,
And he said, "Now Kate, hold on tight to me,
For I am just as strong as strong can be."
The laughing blue eyes were now crying with fear,
But obedient she clung to her brother dear.
Bravely Ben struggled to keep on his feet,
His face against that of his sister sweet.

A big burly man, no, best call him a brute,
With a sledge-hammer fist and a number to boot,
Said "Out of my way, you damned little brat,"
And hurled Ben to one side, the little fellow fell flat.
As he fell he uttered one despairing cry,
For he knew that a horrible death was nigh,
But as he went under this great human wave,
He got his sister beneath him, her life to save.
The crowd surged back and forth from the door,
And Ben, crippled Ben, was trampled o'er and o'er,
Until a voice on the stage was heard at last,
"The fire is out and all danger is past."

There was another pause, then a cheer of delight,
Until a man said, "Here's a boy in terrible plight."
The crippled, mangled figure had nobly met his fate,
And from beneath it, unharmed, was taken little Kate.
Suddenly the figure moved, gasped, the eyes opened wide,
Then he smiled, for there sat Kate, blue-eyed Kate by his side.
"Thank God, I saved her," this brave little hero said,
And with a sweet smile at his sister, Ben fell back-dead.
H. B. Hutchinson.

THE TREE OF GOLD.

A STORY FOR YOUNG AND OLD. (Translated from the German of Rudolf Baumbach.) HE chamber in which our story begins,

THE

was very simple and bare in appearance. Against the white washed walls, whose only ornament was a couple of time stained maps, stood two small beds, some book shelves and a clothes press, with a globe of the world upon it.

The middle of the room was occupied by a long table plentifully besmeared with ink, and at the table on hard comfortless wooden chairs sat two boys about twelve years of age.

The fair haired boy brooded over a passage in Cornelius Nepos and turned over sighing the heavy lexicon; the dark haired boy vexed himself over the extraction of the cubic root from a number with nine figures. The philologist was named Hans, the mathematician Heinz.

From time to time the boys raised their heads from their books and looked longingly at the open window through which the flies with a humming sound flew in and out. In the garden the golden sunshine lay upon flowers and hedge, and as if in mockery a

blooming lilac bush looked in upon the two young students.

Full another hour must these poor boys sit and perspire before they dared go out of doors and the minutes dragged themselves along like the snails over the gooseberry bushes in the garden.

A voluntary shortening of the work was not to be thought of for Doctor Schlagentzwei to whom the discipline and instruction of the boys had been entrusted sat at a writing desk in the next room and the door of communication stood open so that the Doctor could assure himself of the presence of his pupils and overlook their work.

"Hannibal might have found something more sensible than to go over the Alps" grumbled Hans, and "nine times eighty-one is seven hundred and twenty nine" murmured Heinz with a dull voice. Then both glanced up from their work, looked at each other and yawned. Suddenly they heard a loud humming: A rose chafer which might have been sitting outside upon the Lilac bush had strayed into the room. Three times it wheeled about over the boys heads and then-plump !-down it came into the inkstand.

"It serves him right," said Heinz, "why couldn't he stay where he can enjoy himself. But to be drowned in an inkstand is a miserable death. Wait, old fellow, I will save you yet." He was about to help the struggling insect out of the inkstand with. the penholder, but Hans accomplished the work of deliverance more quickly with his finger. And then the boys dried the little rascal with the blotter and watched him as he cleaned himself off with his forefeet. "He has a brilliant red spot upon his breastplate and black horns," said Hans as he wiped his ink stained finger on his hair, he is the king of the chafers. He lives in a castle that is built out of jessamme blossoms and roofed with rose leaves. His

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