ELIZABETH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 205, 29 August 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

ELIZABETH.

FAMOUS NOVEL DRAMATISED

BRAINS AND STUPIDITY.

(By CYRANO.)

If a foreigner were to ask for two first-class specimens of English, humour, we could not do better than offer him the trial scene from "Pickwick" and the Collins-Elizabeth proposal scene from "Pride and Prejudice." Both deal in absurdity, but wljile the one is broad, robustious, farcical, and greasy with common humanity, the other is elegant, cool and ironical. It requires' only a glance to see the drama in each. The Trial Scene has been enanted thousands of times, and the delicious comedy from "Pride and Prejudice" has been read aloud and acted often —especially, I believe, in girls' schools. Now that accomplished craftsman A. A. Milne has made a play out of the whole book*, and Mr. Collins' proposal shines there, the finest gem of all. It is lifted almost straight from the book.

My reasons for marrying are first, that I think it the right thing for every clergyman to set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced it will add greatly to my happiness; and thirdly, which perhaps I should have mentioned earlier, that it is the recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour to call patroness. Let me remark parenthetically that the notice and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh are not the least of the advantages in my power to offer you. Equally, I think, yotir vivacity will be acceptable to her, especially when tempc-red with the silence which her rank will inevitably excite. Novel into Play. The good Janeite knows this scene aimost by heart, and he will amuse himself (or herself) by comparing the two texts. He will notice how, conforming to dramatic practice, Mr. Milne has broken up Mr. Collins' long speeches. He will observe that Mr. Milne has shortened this particular speech by omitting after "patroness" the passage: "Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked, too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford—between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool —that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you must marry; a clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose a gentlewoman for my sake; and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsfprd, and I will visit her.' " Here we have an example of the difficulty of boiling down a novel into a play. There are 430 pages in the edition of "Pride and Prejudice" before me; there are 115 pages in Mr. Milne's play. "Of course you would miss the words," said a filmj

producer about "Hamlet" in the days of the silent screen, "but what else would you miss?" It is not nearly so bad as that in a 6tage version of "Pride and Prejudice." You do miss a good many of the words. You miss Jaiie's comments, such as the admirable first sentence in the tale: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." You miss a good deal of the dialogue. But you get large slices of the characters' conversations, and the play gives this conversation and the action of the story that intensity which is peculiar to drama. The adapta tion, done sympathetically and skilfully, occupied Mr. Milne for six months, and he tells us in the preface that "of all the damnably difficult and delightful things to try to do this has been the most difficult and the most delightful." And after all, he was forestalled. He finished the play, found his theatre, producer, and Elizabeth, and at that moment an American version arrived in London. Let us hope Mr. Milne yill not lose heart. His version is too good to remain between the covers of a book. Great Characters. "Pride and Prejudice" has been discussed so often that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to say anything new about it. As a comedy of manners it remains a masterpiece which delights generations to whom some of those manners are as strange as, the customs of savages. The world of the Bennets is a very narrow one and most Janeites would shudder at the thought of living in it. But that world is observed with so much fidelity, so much humour and sympathy that we are delighted with it. "Pride and Prejudice" is remarkable in that in this picture of a prim and elegant society is to be found a character who, as Mr. J. B. Priestley has remarked, keeps company with the giants of Dickens and Shakespeare. Mr. Collins is huge and magnificent in his folly. He is the colossus of all snobs and toadies; vices in him "are raised to such a height that they almost acquire the innocence of some great youthful passion." Thackeray was much occupied with snobs, and wrote a book about them, but he never equalled the creation of that quiet-living Englishwoman who saw so much less of the world than lie did. Then there is Mrs. Bennet. Does any other novel contain two such great fools as Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins? Mrs. Bennet has strong claims to be ranked as the greatest feminine fool in fiction. Her folly is larger and less forgivable than that of Mrs. Nickleby. Those meanderings in recollection which are Mrs. Nickleby's chief occupation draw us into a charmed circle. Mrs. Bennet is aggressively stupid and in h»~ stupidity there is poison. Mr. Bennet is delightful in his ironic resignation. He married a pretty face in haste and when he found that there was nothing behind it, repented at leisure. He night

have taken to drink; instead he comforted himself with his books and his daughter Elizabeth. Young men in love will as a rule take everything except advice, yet one has heard enough to believe it possible that Mr. Bennet's experience has saved some from his lifelong sentence.

To modern eyes the weakness of "Pride and Prejudice" is Darcy. The man's pride, arrogance and rudeness are too much to swallow. Someone should have kicked him hard and often. What is to be said for a man who, having ardently declared his passion and found the lady critical, utters such words as these: "Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? — to congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?" If Elizabeth had been a modern miss she would have slapped his face. Mr. Milne admits to having taken a liberty with Darcy. "Somehow Darcy must seem to a modern audience to be as worthy of Elizabeth's love as Miss Austen thought him." Elizabeth. There remains Elizabeth, not only delightful in herself, but the type of understanding woman in a society of fools. She is one of the most attractive of fictional heroines, and one reason why so many men long to kick Darcy is that they are in love with her themselves. She has looks, brains and charm, and there are still men inclined to question whether the three can be found together. Such women are 'not made for the narrow life that the Bennets lived, a life in which there was no career but marriage, and the choice in that career was circumscribed. I heard a woman say, in the days before the war extended the emancipation of women, that until you lived in the country in England you did not realise the full significance of Dr. Daly's song in "The Sorcerer": —

Had I a headache? sighed the maids assembled ; Had I a cold? welled forth the silent tear; Did I look pale? Then half the parish trembled; And when I coughed all thought the end was near.

There were so few eligible young men that the curate was a really important person. And that was long after Elizabeth's day. Mr. Collins, you remember, had no difficulty in finding a wife. I think we may say that the Elizabeth Bennets of to-day face life with brighter prospects. If no Darcys come along to rescue them from their environment, there are other ways of escape. And here I am moralising about "Pride and Prejudice"! That faint ironic laugh must come from Jane's ghost.*Miss Elizabeth Bennet, a Play from "I'ride and Prejudice"; by A. A. Milne (Cliatto and, Windus)..