Let Us Blush!

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 793, 10 March 1894, Page 3

Let Us Blush!

The first performance of ' Sophia ' at the Opera House, last week, drew the smallest house of the season, to date. How was this ? Buchanan's famous play enjoyed an extraordinary run in London, and has proved the Brough-Bouoicault trump card throughout the present tour. There was an overflowing house the previous night. How, then, acoount for the (comparatively speaking) Bmall audience

on Thursday ? Well, they do say that the words 'dramatised from Fielding's " Tom Jones"' were responsible for the whyness of the thus.

' Tom Jones ' is considered ' too coarse ' for nineteenth century readers. Nobody reads Fielding nowadays (openly, that is) — exoept, indeed, those hardy persons who insist on thinking for themselves, and who don't care twopence for Mrs Grundy. But these people are in the minority, very much in the minority, in fact. Zola is all but universally read. Yes, even by ladies. You don't believe it ? Well, aak the proprietor of any big circulating library in Auckland. Oh, ladies may not read Zola openly. I don't say they do. Now, between Zola's • realism ' and Fielding's ' coarseness ' there is as much difference as between an indeoent print or photograph and a genuine and high-class work of art. Just that.

Fielding called a spade a spade. But it is the age, not the man, you should blame for that. Apart from his ' coarseness ' Fielding was a highly moral writer whose books convey the very best of lessons. No one can read • Tom Jones ' without deriving benefit from the book. That is to say no healthy-minded person oan. Of course, there are people so ultra-refined that the pages of Fielding or Smollet will send them into hysterics — provided anybody is looking. The people who blush at the idea of ' Tom Jones,' or even a modern dramatised version of the immortal story are of the mock-modest kind, and capable of putting the legs of their tables and pianos into trousers least their nakedness should injure the morals of the beholder.

Do you tell me that ' Sophia ' drew a good house on Friday, the following night? Dare say. But Friday was a 4 Vice-Eegal Command night,' you know, which proves that the vice-royalties are not Bhocked at the idea of Fielding dramatised. And, of course, what is good enough for Government House is good enough for Mrs Bemuera-Brown and Mrs ParnellSmith. The management of a theatre may ' put on ' what it pleases, and if it can only induce the Governor to be present the general public will rush the show. If our • best people ' * love a lord ' they just dote on vice-royalty.