Bronson Howard

“ I'll kiss Ould Margery—if I die for it! [Exit.
BUCKTHORN. Kiss Old Margery! I'll give him a soldier's funeral. [Enter JENNY from hall, demurely.] Ah! Jenny, my dear! I have news for you. Colonel Robert Ellingham is in the drawing-room.
JENNY. Oh! I am delighted. [Starting.
BUCKTHORN. A-h-e-m!
JENNY. Oh!—exactly. I see. I have some news for you, papa. Captain
Heartsease has arrived in Washington.
BUCKTHORN. Oh! My dear! I have often confessed to you how utterly mistaken I was about that young man. He is a soldier—as good a soldier as you are. I'll ask him to the house.
JENNY. [Demurely.] ”

“ But the sudden return and reappearance of the husband falls like a stroke of fate upon both. As the curtain descends on the fourth act, Lilian lies fainting on the floor, with Natalie at her side, while the two men stand face to face above the unconscious woman whom they both love. Three lives ruined—because Lilian's father, having lost his wealth, in his old age, dared not, as he himself expressed it, leave a tenderly nurtured daughter to a merciless world. The world is merciless, perhaps, but it is not so utterly and hopelessly merciless to any man or woman as one's heart may be. ”

“ His crime and his disgrace are buried in a distant grave.
EDITH. And you have not forgiven him, even yet?
MRS. HAVERILL. Is there no atonement for poor Frank's sin—not even his death? Can you only bury the wrong and forget the good?
HAVERILL. The good?
MRS. HAVERILL. Your own words to the Government, as his commander!
HAVERILL. What do you mean?
MRS. HAVERILL. "The victory of Cedar Creek would have been impossible without the sacrifice of this young officer."
HAVERILL. My own words, yes—but—
EDITH. "His name must take its place, forever, in the roll of names which his countrymen honour." ”

“ So Lilian is a widow and childless. She is fading, day by day, and is hardly expected to live. Her mind, tortured by the suspense, which, worse than certainty, is gradually yielding to hallucinations which keep her little one ever present to her fancy. Harold Routledge was wounded seriously in the duel, but not killed; he is near Lilian; seeing her every day; but he is her friend, rather than her lover, now; she talks with him of her child, and he feels how utterly hopeless his own passion is in the presence of an all-absorbing mother's love. ”

“ But every loyal son of Virginia will follow her flag. It is our religion!
KERCHIVAL. My State is New York. If New York should go against the old flag, New York might go to the devil. That is my religion.
ELLINGHAM. So differently have we been taught what the word "patriotism" means!
KERCHIVAL. You and I are officers in the same regiment of the United States Regular Army, Robert; we were classmates at West Point, and we have fought side by side on the plains. You saved my scalp once; I'd have to wear a wig, now, if you hadn't. I say, old boy, are we to be enemies? ”

“ GERTRUDE. You must not go, Kerchival; it will kill you.
KERCHIVAL. Arrest be damned! [Starts up stage, raises his arms above his head with clenched fist, rising to full height.] Stand out of my way, you cowards! [They cower away from him as he rushes out among them. The stream of fugitives passing across stage swells in volume. GERTRUDE runs through them and up to the elevation, turning.
GERTRUDE. Men! Are you soldiers? Turn back! There is a leader for you! Turn back! Fight for your flag—and mine!—the flag my father died for! Turn back! [She looks out and turns front.] ”

“ Routledge has lived a solitary life, nursing his feelings toward a woman who had heartlessly cast him off, as he thinks, to marry a man merely for his wealth. He is bitter and cruel. But the cruelty to a woman which is born of love for her has a wonderful, an almost irresistible fascination for the female heart. Under the spell of this fascination, Lilian's old love reasserts its authority against that of his will. ”

“ They have not that utter horror of marriage between a very old man and a very young woman which, in this country, justifies all the satire which a dramatist can heap upon the man who commits this crime, even after he is in the grave. And the English people do not share with us—I say it to their credit—our universal irreverence for what is solemn and sacred. One must not, either in social life or on the stage, speak too lightly there of any serious subject; of course, they can laugh, however, at an old man that makes a fool of himself. ”

“ BUCKTHORN. What the devil! [BARKET salutes quickly and starts up stage and out. BUCKTHORN moves up after him; stops at post. BARKET stops in road.
BARKET. So did ould Margery.
BUCKTHORN. March! [Angrily. BARKET salutes suddenly, and exits.] Heartsease! That young jackanapes! A mere fop; he'll never make a soldier. My girl in love with—bah! I don't believe it; she's too good a soldier, herself.
[Enter HAVERILL, on veranda.]
Ah, Haverill!
HAVERILL. General Buckthorn! Have you heard anything of General
Sheridan since I sent that despatch to him last evening? ”

“ If, on the other hand, we so reconstruct the whole play that the husband and wife may at last come together with true affection, we shall have the moral: Even if a young girl makes the worst of all mistakes, and accepts the hand of one man when her heart belongs to another, fidelity to the duty of a wife on her side, and a manly, generous confidence on the part of her husband, may, in the end, correct even such a mistake. The dignity of this moral saved John Strebelow's life, and Harold Routledge was killed in the duel with the Count de Carojac. ”

“ It is only when the school goes on blindly without seeing a change in the popular taste that the occasional man I have spoken of comes on. When the work of the school is legitimately in line with the public taste, the merely eccentric dramatist is like Lord Dundreary's bird with a single feather that goes in a corner and flocks all by itself. He may be a strong enough man to attract attention to his individuality, and his plays may be really great in themselves, but his work has little influence on the development of the art. ”

“ The sad mother, playing with a little shoe or toy, passes out of our view. The dying woman, kissing the hand of the man she has wronged; the husband, awe-stricken in the presence of a mother's child; the child clasped in Lilian's arms; her last look on earth, a smile, and her last breath, the final expression of maternal tenderness—these scenes belong only to the original version of the play, as it lies in its author's desk. ”

“ GERTRUDE. You are to be mine again, Jack, mine! [Resting her cheek against the horse's head and patting it.] The Colonel has promised it to me.
KERCHIVAL. Ah! [With a start, as he reads the paper. GERTRUDE raises her head and looks at him.] This is General Sheridan's horse, on his way to Winchester, for the use of the General when he returns from Washington.
GERTRUDE. General Sheridan's horse? He is mine!
KERCHIVAL. I have no authority to detain him. He must go on.
GERTRUDE. I have hold of Jack's bridle, and you may order your men to take out their sabres and cut my hand off. ”

“ These words, clear, unmistakable, carrying their terrible truth straight to his heart, come to John Strebelow as the very first intimation that his wife did not love him when she married him. Crushed by this sudden blow, an expression of agony on his face, he stands for a moment speechless. When his voice returns, he has become another man. He is hard and cold, still generous, so far as those things a generous man cares least for are concerned. He will share all his wealth with her ”

“ GERTRUDE. I was doing nothing of the kind, sir!—let me finish, please. You Northern men are so slow to believe that our Southern heroes—Northern men and Southern heroes—you recognize the distinction I make—you won't believe that they will keep their promises. They have sworn to attack Fort Sumter this morning, and—they—will do it. This "American Flag" you talk of is no longer our flag: it is foreign to us!—It is the flag of an enemy! ”

“ I have said that the love of offspring in woman has shown itself the strongest of all human passions; and it is the most nearly allied to the boundless love of Deity. But the one absolutely universal passion of the race—which underlies all other passions—on which, indeed, the very existence of the race depends—the very fountain of maternal love itself, is the love of the sexes. ”

“ BARKET. Well!—yer honour, I'm a bachelor, meself; and I'm not familar with the jayography of the sex. We byes are in mortal terror for fear somebody might order us to go on an exploring expedition.
KERCHIVAL. Tell them to send the prisoner here, Barket, and hurry to
Buckton's Ford yourself, at once.
BARKET. As fast as me horse can carry me, sir, and it's a good one. [Exit.
KERCHIVAL. I'd rather deal with half the Confederate Army than with one woman, but I must question her. They captured her down by the Bend in Oak Run. [Taking out map; looks at it.] ”

“ In the English version, therefore, there is no engagement with Harold Routledge. It is only an understanding between them that they love each other. Not even the most rigid customs of Europe can prevent such an understanding between two young people, if they can once look into each other's eyes. They could fall in love through a pair of telescopes. Then the duel—it is next to impossible to persuade an English audience that a duel is justifiable or natural with an Englishman as one of the principles. ”

“ MRS. HAVERILL. Of me!
HAVERILL. I have never been without it one hour, before, since we were married. He will recognize it as the one that I have carried through every campaign, in every scene of danger on the Plains; the one that has always been with me. ”

“ But after you have learned all that has yet been learned by others, the field of humanity will still lie before you, as the field of nature lies before the scientist, with millions of times more to be discovered, by you or by some one else, than has ever yet been known. All I purpose to-night is to show you how certain laws of dramatic construction asserted themselves from time to time as we were making the changes in this play ”

“ To say that an American dramatist is to appear this year or in a thousand years who will make an epoch is simply ridiculous.
That Ibsen exercised and will exercise great influence on American dramatists there can be little doubt. His skill was no mere accident. He was the most finished development of the French school of the nineteenth century, as well as the most highly artificial individual dramatist of that school. I call it the strictly logical school of dramatic construction. I use the word 'artificial' in its more artistic sense, as opposed to the so-called natural school. ”

“ HEARTSEASE. Lieutenant Bedloe, General, of my own troop, and one of our best officers. [HAVERILL steps to FRANK, looking into his face a moment.
HAVERILL. Pardon me! [Stepping down stage. FRANK moves up, stops and looks back at him. HAVERILL stands a moment in thought, covers his face with one hand, then draws up.] Colonel West! We have a most dangerous piece of work for a young officer— [FRANK starts joyfully.] —to lead a party of men, whom I have already selected. I cannot order an officer to undertake anything so nearly hopeless; he must be a volunteer. ”

“ Of course, there are women who do not quarrel with any one; and there are angels; but, as a rule, the women we feel at liberty to fall in love with do quarrel now and then; and they almost invariably quarrel with their husbands or lovers first, their other acquaintances must often be content with their smiles. But, when Lilian announces to Harold Routledge that their engagement is broken forever, he thinks she means to imply that she doesn't intend to marry him. ”

“ To quote a passage from the play itself: "A woman never quarrels with a man she doesn't love"—that is one of the minor laws of dramatic construction—"and she is never tired of quarreling with a man she does love." ”

“ Pinero undoubtedly saw that the public was tired of the "tea-cup and saucer." Probably had he not thought so, he would have gone on in that school.
Undoubtedly more plays are written to order than are written on the mere impulse of authors, independently of popular demand. The "order" play simply represents the popular demand as understood by managers, and the meeting of that demand in each age produces the great mass of any nation's drama. So far from lowering the standard of dramatic writing, it is a necessary impulse in the development of any drama. ”

“ I wanted a man to fall in love with my heroine after she was a married woman, and I chose a French count for that purpose. I knew that an American audience would not only expect him to fall in love with another man's wife, but it would be very much surprised if he didn't. This saved much explanation and unnecessary dialog. Harold Routledge overhears the Count de Carojac, a hardened roué and a duellist, speaking of Lilian in such terms as no honorable man should speak of a modest woman. ”

“ Frankie isn't a baby any longer; he's a man, now, and he has to wear a man's clothes. [Holding up a little pair of trousers, with maternal pride.] He's rather young to be dressed like a man, but I want Frank to grow up as soon as possible. I long to have him old enough to understand me when I repeat to him the words in which General Haverill told the whole world how his father died! [Rising.] And yet, even in his official report to the Government, he only honoured him as Lieutenant Bedloe. He has never forgiven his son for the disgrace he brought upon his name. ”