Song, Stage and Story.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 108, 9 May 1896, Page 2 (Supplement)

Song, Stage and Story.

The nex* eonrce of attraction ab the Opera House after the close of the Lawton Novelty Company's season, will be a neries of lectures by the Rev. Charles Clarke. The famous lecburer is making a second tour of the colonies under the wing of 8.1 S. Smybhe. Then we might expect a visib from Williamson and Musgrove's Opera Company, whose season will extend over three weeks, after which .will come the Taylor-Carrington Dramatic Company, the Trilby Company (ab the end ot Augusb), Westamacott's Company (now in Melbourne). bollard's Juveniles (in September), another of Williamson and Musgrove's Companies, Hoyte's American Company, Dan Barry's Dramatic Company, Potter-BeUew Company, Bland Holb (at Christmas), and probably W and Mb 'Dun Djin' Company. In addition to these, the Auckland Amateur Opera Uub will give its annual performapco. Their season will extend over a week after rollard's season closes. Mr My lea B. Foster, who visited Mew Zealand a few months ago in connection with the musical work of Trinity College. London. wa3 interviewed for the ' Musical Herald' on his return to England. In the course of his remarks Mr Foster spoke well of the performance of the ' Mikado' by tho Auckland amateurs last year. The following are the earnings of somo American plays :— 'ThoOld Homestead 700G00dol; 'The Country Fair,' 500,000 dol; ' Shonandoah,' 300,000dol; ' Adonis^ 200.000dol: ' The Girl I Left Behind Me, 150,000d0l ; ' The Wife,' lOO.GOOdol; and ' The Charity Ball,' 75,000d01. Mr Palmer has made 100,000dol out of ' Trilby.' The popularity of' The Hearb of Maryland i 8 nob half exhausted, yeb ib has already earned 75,000d0l for its author and manager. ' Mr" Albert Chevalier tells a good story againsb himself. When he was eighteen he took part in a benefib performance at the Gaiety Theatre, He was. playing an old man's parb. Mr and Mrs Kendal and himself were in the caab, and his cue entirely slipped hia memory. He looked towards the prompt entrance, and seeing Irving. Bancroft, David James, Miss Terry, and other celebrities looking on, he gob so nervous that he was unablo to utter a word. ' Ab thab moment,' as he himself tells the story, ' a tremendous round of • applause startled me, • reassured me, and after it Bubaided I gob along capitally. My mind was a bib uneasy as to tho Kendals' opinion of my performance, so I did not wait to see them, bub went home. Ab nighb I met Mrs Kendal, who spoke very well of my effort. Mr Kendal, coming up ab tho moment, said: "You were a bib uncertain in your lines—in fact, upon one occasion you stopped dead." " Yee," said I; " didn't you hear the round of applause I gob ?" He laughed. " Oh, you moan when the Prince of Wales entered the theatre!" '

According to a London contemporary, Mr Bland Holb has forwarded to Mr Sutton Vane a cheque for £100—over and above his reeular author's fees—to buy a souvenir pf tbo Australian success of ' The Span of Life.' Moliere was an apprentice in hia father's shop, and Madeline Bejarb, whom he loved, came theie to see him too often. Moliere's father asked Pinel to talk to his son and to Madeline, and persuade them that thoy were very heedless. Pinel was a writing master. He wenb on his mission with much dignity, but Madeline and Moliere talked to him so eloquently of their love, of the adventurous lite of comedians, of the freedom, of the highways, and of the joys that art yields, that Pinel asked to go with them on the stage, and be became one of the most excellent player 3in Moliere's company. A delightful little play in verae, on Pinel'a conversion, was produced at the Odeon Theatre, Pari9, on January 17th, the 274 th anniversary of Molieke's birth. Mdme. do Jouvencel, of Paris, claims that three things to-day militate against vocal beauty and its durability. In the firab piace, women eing while too young. Growth does nob cease till twenty-four or twenty-fivo. All that a woman sends forth from herself before bhab time cuts off just so much from either brilliancy or endurance. The larynx is not developed till twenty-five. All exertion, especially undue exertion, takes so much from the valuo of that organ later on. Then, too, eingers now, especially girl students, all i sing out too much and too long. Besides these things, she suys, the eating of much meat is detrimental to the voice. Literary Notks. Thoueh the Queen has read some of Miss Marie Corelli'a novels, it is not quite truo that these masterpieces form—with newspapers—the Sovereign's sole literary sustenance. Her Majesty, indeed, rends every really notable work that comes oub. Her Indies in waiting know exactly whab her tastes are and they select the books to lay on the Queen's table in her boudoir jusb aa thoy daily mark the passages in the papers they think she will wish to see. The latter are generally read aloud after lunch for an hour. Besides new booke, Her Majesty has v number of old favourites, notably Dickon?, Tennyson, Lord Beaconatield and Mrs Oaskell. Thackeray has never been popular at Windsor, nor can our oldfashioned monarch take kindly to Kipling. But Barrio, * lan Maclaren, 1 and above all, Mrs Oliphant, hold honoured places on tho Royal shelves, and on Sundays ib is oftener than nob one of the latter's homely Scotch tales which absorb tho Royal attention. Amongst these the Queen npecially approves •The Story of Valentino and His Brother,' ' The Ladies Lindores,' 'Joyce,' and ' Waa Lost But Is Found,' which she originally perused in 'Blackwood,' a magazine she never fails to look through. For the information of those anxioua to follow in her footsteps, it may be added that Mrs Oliphanb's books can now nearly all be had in a cheap form through Blackwood or Macmillana..

Lord Mansfield, who has celebrated his ninetieth birthday, is generally understood to be the old and eccentric nobleman limned by Airs Burnett in ' Little Lord Faunbleroy.' • Tho most picturesque figure in England's aristocracy,' Bays a French writer of him. His lordship who well deserves such a description, wears the bottle-green coab and high roll collar of the last generation, and in spite of the protests of his family, resolutely refuses to change to a more modern stylo.

Tt>e boat of the * Acmo' Series novelettes yebout is Frankfort Moore'e VDr. Koomadhi of Ashantee,' which, like Grant Allen's ' Rev. John Greedy,' goes to prove thab you may polish and educate a nigger as you will, bub the taint of heredity sticks to him still. Dr. Koomadhi reads the 'Saturday Review,' eschews (with difficulty) bright colours, and emiles with restraint. Nevertheless, when the Governor of Cape Coast Castle's daughter prefers the love of an English officer to his, and hints that his physiognomy resembles a baboon's, the negro's elemental passions make trouble. By what horrible Fanti witchcraft the doctor manages to convert, or, rather, degrade, his military rival to the level of a baboon, we leave the reader to discover. The denmtement in which Roomadhi, having lost his talisman, gets torn to pieces by thousands of infuriated apes, is intensely dramatic. Moreover, Mr Frankfort Moore has a light, bright touch thab makes even the grimmest tale easy reading. The American humorist, • Bill Nye' (known in privato life as F. B. Apter), who died lately of paralysis, earned from £5,000 to £6,000 a year at one time by his ' comicalities. 1 Though his signature seldom reached England his jokea ware regularly purloined by 'snippet■ journals, which never on any account indicated their source. They will bo distinctly the poorer for Nye's demise.

Like most intelligent persons, Sstah | Grand cannob make oub what the particular "I lesson Hardy hopes to inculcate through,,.,,, 8 •Jade the Obscure* may be. t>Be cot)-" I siders the strength ot the book ' ooloesal,' ' I ! but adda, ' ethically it is amorphous.' We . like that phrase 'ethically amorphous.l | It's nob so brutal as declaring that tha 1 moral of a novel iB atrocious. Mrs Grand'a I verdict on Grant Allen's^ ' Woman Wk o ' Did' leaves, however, nothing to be desired in the way of frankness. •It seems to me, 1 she said, * that Mr.Gran to Allen wants ug t 0 ' return to the customs of the poultry yard.' -, We have had lists of ' the hundred best books' for ' grown-ups' and for boys ad nauseum, bub Miss Coleridge's 'Girl V-?< Bookshelf' in the 'Sunday Magazine'U the first abtempb we have seen at a sttibabla list for the 'young person.' The liab ia chiefly admirable for avoiding the Evelyn ;.. .;• Everett Green cum Annie Swan 'piffle,'on which so many girls subsist totally nowa* > i days. Nob thab there's any harm ia theia. » volumes. Bab certainly there's no particular good. Misa Coleridge was led in the way she should go by Charlotta Yoage, and a safer guide for girls than that dear old lady doesn't exieb. The first; ■: books Mi»3 Coleridge names aito a B«lecbion of Sir Walter Scobb'e, then come Kingaley'g 7 •Westward Ho !'Miss Yonge'e 'Dove in Eagle's Nest,'. 'John InKlesant,' 'Under the Southern Cross,' and Edna Lyall's 'In ;! the Golden Daya.' She adds ' Chronicler of :, the Scbonberg - Cobta Family' (Mil Charles), 'The Atelier dv Lys ' (authorof « ildlla Mori'). 'The Caxtons' (Bulwer - ; Lyttonl, 'In Colston's. Days' (Mrs Mar. shall),' Barnabyßudge' (Charles Dickens), ■ ' The Black Arrow ' (R. L. Stevenson), «My ;'. Lady Rotha' (Stanley Weyman), 'Sb. i George and Sb. Michael' (George Mac- | donald) and 'Dorothy Foster' (Walter | Besant), and if Thackeray's ' Esmond ' and : i Charles Reade's ' Cloister and the Hoarbh, 1 are nob on the bookshelf, its owner ought to /; read them when her taste is trained and her ■ intelligence cultivated. , After mentioning some books for the little ones, and tales of ,V real life, Miss Coleridge says thab if a g.irl ■ has a favourite subjecb leb her reading centre round it. Leb her geball the books she can find thab bear upon if. Ib is probably her strong poinb, and If there is » subject that she feels bored by, leb her read one book about that, it iB sure to be her weak point. Leb the poetical girl find oub one book on science, and the scientific girl ab least a section ot poetry. And for tho stirring of the hearb and training of the eye, let) Kingsley's '.Prose Idylls,' RuskinV •Queen of the Air,' Garlyle'a 'Hero Worship,' and White's ' Selborne' find places. And let Shakspere, Scott, and Tennyson at least be there.' It will bo noticed that mosb of the stories Miss Coleridge recommends are historical romances, and bhafc in nearly all lore playi quite a subordinate parb. Thab is as ib should be. You don't want school girls perpetually thinking and messing about V-.V love. That's why we believe Miss Swarm's books benefit nobody. .

The issue of excellent translations of Balzac in' Macmillan's Colonial Library, , with introductions by George Saintbury, ,/ will be welcomed by those who are nnabio to read the works of the cleverest of France's nineteenth century novelists in the original. Roberb Louis Stevenson, ko mean authority, waa an enthusiastic admirer of Balzac, and, no doubt, Steven- . son's own literary methods were influenced by his study of the brilliant French ",' novelist, just as Balzac himself profited by his study of Scott. Mr Saintbury also «ays : 'It would be absurd in the moab bigoted admirer of Thackeray, to deny thai) / the author of ' Vanity Fair,' who waa in ; Paris, and narrowly watching French literature and French life at the very time of Balzac's moab exuberant flourishing and education, owed something to the author of Pere Goriob.' There was no copying or imitation, the lessons taught by Balzac were too much blended with those of native masters, euch as Fielding, and; too much informed and transformed by individual genius.' Balzac's works issued by Macmillan so far are: 'Tho. Wild Ass's Skin,' 'Ursula Mironeb, 1 'Eugenic Graudet, 1 'The Cowans,' 'Tho County Doctor,' 'The Quest of Tho Absoluto,' * Old Goriofc' and ' The Athießt'a Mass.' We recommend readers who arc about to make a.first acquaintance with Balzac, to select 'The Cab and The Racket. and ' Old Goriob,'stories well designed to •_',- wheb their appetite for more.

At Sotheby's recently a copy of Chaucer'a • Canterbury Tales,' printed by W. Caxjson about 1478. fireb edition, black letter, comprising 353 leaves, the last containing Chaucor'B. retractation, was knocked down for £1,020. The book, come of the leaves of which were wanting, while two had tb« corners torn off, was sold with all faults. A copy wanting aixteeu leaves was sold in 1861 for £300.

One of the most prolific lady novaliabs of t the century lives ab Southampton. She is nob known to fame yeb, bub she has been the means of obtaining a certain amount of notoriety for her husband through the agency of the local police court. It occurred (says the 'Pall Mall Gazette') in this way. Absorbed in the fascinating pursuit of novel writing, the Southampton authoress spurned the base delights of domestic life, and devoced her entire feimo to the production of works of fiction, reeling them off at a rate which breakß all previous recorda in this department of literary activity. Nor did she waste precious moments in seeking a publisher like so many of her sister scribes ; the wild, delirous joys of composition were enough for her. The novel written, she thrust ill aside and started on another with breath" less haste. Meanwhile, her husband's temper was rising, for his literary sympathies were nob sufficiently strong to reconoilehim to the inevitable drawbacks which attend such passionate devotion to creative art in a small provincial household. And there was the outlay of pens, ink and paper, too; money that might have been so much more uaefully spent in replenishing the family wardrobe or the coal-cellar. Ad length the domestic cyclone burst, and an assault) followed, and tha unhappy husband explained in courb thab he had burned ISO novels, and bhere were still ' fifty under bh» bed.'

' Mary Anderson's Autobiography \'w directed towards dissuading aa many girls as she can from entering the theatrical profession. She does not, from any standpoint, believe in the stage aa a career for girls. ' She holds that ninety-nine out of every hundred young women who go upou the stage are confronted by phases 80 dangerous, so full of pains, trials, disappointments and griefs, thab the results, no matter how brilliant, are nob worth tbo ordeal necessary to reach them. It took nearly 10 yeare (says the' Literary World ) for Miga Anderson to make* up her mind to accept Mr Antonio de Navarre aa her husband. Mra Da Navarro is a devoted member of the Roman Catholic Church, and intends to devobe her voice in future to singing in small Catholic churches wherever her travels may lead her. According to Mr Bok, the offers made to Mary Anderson to return to the stage, if ineffectual, have been princely, indeed. He says $ —* Only the pa»b summer overtures came to her from an American manager which insured a big fortune if ebe would consent) to return to the stage for a brief period. There were six figures in the amount (dollars, of conrsa) stipulated, and the first figure was equal bo the total amount of numeral!) in the whole amount. But it had no effect upon her. She turned away from it easily and without an effort. 'No,' sba said, 'I am through with stage.' And that was all.

The 'Stories on the Ten Commandments, which George R. Sims wrote for 'Lloyds Weekly, 1 are now re-publiahed in a fcvo * shilling volume. They do nob, howevn*^. riaa .beyond shilling shocker iorm