Hamlin Garland

“ Meanwhile Katharine had bought a handsome house on Convent Avenue, Harlem, and my brother and I often were there of a Sunday, and when we all came together in those days the walls resounded with our clamor. Herne was a great wag and story-teller, one of the most marvelous masters of dialect I have ever known. He could imitate almost any nationality, and could dramatize at a moment's notice any scene or dialogue his wife demanded of him. He was also in deadly earnest as a reformer, and was always ready to speak on the George theory or the modern drama. ”

“ He was not only a good father in the ordinary sense, but he was an accepted comrade to his children. He played with them as if he were of their own age, and was forever planning some new joke, some surprise for their amusement. And yet with all his apparent simplicity and humor he was a very complex and essentially a very sad man. In other words, he was a Celt. One of my friends, upon seeing him for the first time in private life, said, "His face is one of the saddest and sweetest I have ever seen." He was the Irish bard whose songs are compounded of laughter and the wailing keen. ”

“ Mr. Howells then spoke of a like case in Berlin, and related how Sudermann and his associates had secured a hall on a side street, and made production of their plays, then, "They brought the public to them by sheer force of their dramatic novelty," said Howells. "Why don't you do as they did—hire a sail-loft or a stable somewhere, and produce your play in simplest fashion? The people will come to see it if it is new and vital."
Poor Herne did not take fire at this suggestion, for he had reached almost the last ounce of his courage and pretty nearly the last dollar of his savings. ”

“ The action concerned two brothers, one, the elder, sweet, patient, self-sacrificing; the other, discontented, sullen, and resentful, eager to make money without labor. The play was in fact a bitter struggle over the question of "cuttin' the old farm up into buildin'-lots," and as he read it to me scene by scene the lines appealed to me strongly. It had something of the quality that made Mary E. Wilkins's stories vital and amusing.
It was by far the best play Herne had ever done, for it was written out of love for the scenery of New England united to a thorough knowledge of coast characters. ”

“ Charles E. Hurd, literary editor of the "Boston Transcript," gave me two theater-tickets and asked if I had ever seen Jim Herne play. I told him I had not.
"Do so at once," said he; "for he is a realist after your own heart."
I accepted the tickets with pleasure, and that night witnessed the performance of "Drifting Apart," by James A. and Katharine Herne. ”

“ The managers of Boston as well as those of New York would not consider it for a moment, although up to that time it was by all odds the most original of Herne's plays.
One day at a luncheon given to Herne by Mr. Howells, the dramatic situation was thoroughly gone into, and James A., with boyish frankness, confessed that he was at his wits' end. "Every theater in Boston and most of those in New York have refused to consider my new play," he said. And to this I was able to bear corroborative testimony, for I had been personally rebuffed by five Boston managers. ”

“ Among the managers who anxiously wired for the play was Harry Miner, a well-known New York theater-owner, one of Herne's old acquaintances, and with him James A. signed a contract for the production of "Shore Acres" at the Broadway Theater the following autumn. Herne told me that in making out this contract he had insisted that the play should be kept on at least four weeks, no matter what the receipts were. "This is a most important proviso," he said, "for 'Shore Acres' must have time for the people to find out what sort of play it is." ”

“ They laid the foundation of what success we have since achieved, by strengthening and encouraging us in our work, and making us steadfast to a purpose that we felt was the true one. And we believe that you, too, got something in your work and for your future out of them. They are gone, but not forgotten. They change, but cannot die.
In brief, this writing is an acknowledgment of the inspiration I drew from the home of Katharine and James A. Herne.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1928. ”

“ Naturally, I was in New York to see the opening, for my brother was again in the cast. The play was greeted by a good house, of course, but fell off as usual the second and third nights, and as I was behind the scenes a great deal of the time I found Mr. Miner a very interesting study. The first night he was jubilant. He stood in front, glorious in evening dress, a shining figure. "We 've got 'em coming, Jimmy my boy," he said to Herne after the first act. ”

“ The play ran the remainder of the season at the Broadway Theater, and all the next year at Daly's, which was a phenomenal run in those days. This put Herne on his feet financially, as "Margaret Fleming" had established him artistically. He was now in the forefront of stage realists, quite independent of cheap theaters and cheap managers. ”

“ He had made a great deal of money with "Hearts of Oak," his first play, which was part English and part American, but had lost heavily on his second play, "The Minute-Men," a picturesque study of colonial times, and was steadily dropping money on "Drifting Apart." Naturally he was discouraged, though never embittered.
"The managers all admit the good points of my play," he explained to me. "In fact, they say it is too good. 'The public does n't want a good play,' they say. 'It wants bad plays. Write a bad play, Jim. Not too bad, but just bad enough,' is their advice. ”

“ They always and everywhere schooled their actors in that colloquialism which, while not precisely the way in which persons would speak in a small room, nevertheless produces that effect upon the auditors. ”