Various

“ It would be futile to represent the Prussian officer as an angel in the house, for we have long since learned to know him as a devil in the field. And it is almost as futile to picture his prodigious self-conceit, his vile taste in dress and furniture, his conjugal infidelity, his habit of treating his women-folk as menials, since these vices are human and venial in comparison with what the War has revealed. Anyone might easily hazard the conjecture that the murderers of Belgium had never entertained too fastidious a respect for womanhood ”

“ I desire with a full-hearted longing to return to that life of imagination where the most dreadful bloodshed ends at about eleven o'clock every evening, without leaving any impression on those who take part. Yes, give me again the life of the theatre and remove far away this brutal scenery of trenches and shells and bombs and quick-firers and men summoned from peace and ease to cut one another's throats because a histrion Kaiser has so willed it and none of his subjects dared to say him nay. ”

“ I wonder a little that the authors, who must have known better, should have helped to perpetuate the popular misconception by which the German word "Kultur" is regarded as the equivalent of our "culture."
O. S.
"A Kiss for Cinderella."
No well-fed person need ever quite expect to understand one of Sir J. M. Barrie's mystery plays at a single sitting. That's one of his best trumps, of course. But it always seems to me that, like so many writers of genius, he never quite knows what are his best and what his poorest things, and just tosses them to us to sort out for ourselves. ”

“ The new Tories are the men who believe that the War is going to be decided by battles in Flanders and the North Sea, and would sacrifice everything for victory, even the privilege of abusing the Government. The new Whigs are the men who consider that the House of Commons is the decisive arena, and that even the defeat of the Germans would be dearly purchased at the cost of the individual's right to say and do what he pleased. ”

“ Our policeman, coming to work up his case, loses his heart. But Cinderella's mind is preoccupied with her ball. Ill from overwork and underfeeding, she wanders into the street, falls faint—and dreams her ball. Whereupon our authentic magician, coming to his own, lifts a curtain of her queer little mind and gives us an all too short glimpse of the state function, with an h-dropping, strap-hanging King and Queen out of a pack of cards; their disdainful Prince, who is none other, of course, than our policeman done into a bewigged Monsieur Beaucaire ”

“ And so here, when the English girl, Margaret Tinworth, in face of poverty and parental disapproval, marries a Prussian officer in a small garrison town, and then finds all sorts of unbearable conditions in her surroundings, one asks oneself, and fails to discover, what kind of glamour he had cast over her that most of these conditions, already patent enough in the society in which she had moved, had contrived either to escape her notice or to appear tolerable. ”

“ All the intellect of England will be needed after the War ("Double holiday task," prophesied Dyson) . Yet I feel that steps must be taken on the lines of your petition (an enthusiastic friend here patted Chapman on the back) . So, after consultation with the house-masters, I have arranged that in future only two courses will be served at dinner, and that there will be a reduction in the number of breakfast dishes. Thus without your being handicapped in the intellectual contest your laudable and patriotic desire to reduce expenses will be met. ”

“ For you are to understand that in the Third Act the brutality of her husband and the insults hurled at England, which she was expected, as a Prussianised wife, to approve, had become more than she could bear; and in the last Act we find her in a Luxembourg hotel on her way home to England under the care of Lord and Lady Lushington. It is the 4th of August, 1914; Germany has declared war; German regiments are marching through the town; England has not yet spoken. The girl is in grievous doubt as to whether she ought not, in the changed circumstances, to return to her Prussian home. ”

“ It is a sound dramatic canon, which not even our most brilliant chartered libertine of stage-land can flout with impunity, not to keep your audience in too long a suspense while preparing your salient theme, nor, after quickening their interest and firing their imagination, to chill with the obvious or distract with the irrelevant. ”

“ It's an ever-increasing difficulty, this matter of saluting: in a part of the world where there's a General round every other corner I can never make up my mind on the spur of the moment what to do about Majors and suchlike. ”

“ Reynolds has much that is to the point to say about the good old British legends of darkest Russia now chiefly kept going by third-rate novelists and unscrupulous journalists. He makes it clear that, though there is much to change, changes are coming as fast as they can be assimilated, indeed even a little faster. Finally I wish that those who control the destinies of our theatre might read what is written here of the traditions of the stage in a country where the drama is an art, not a mere speculation. ”

“ This hope, springing up in my breast, gave me new strength and a fresh joy in the often dull round of my daily task, for in matters of the stage your Majesty, being, as we often say among ourselves, the greatest actor of us all and having from the earliest years imbibed the love of the footlights and the limelight, is an incomparable judge of the true histrionic art, and a word of praise from you is worth columns and columns in the newspapers. ”

“ Lloyd George, who is pre-eminently a man capable of looking you straight in the eye, is depicted as looking someone else obliquely in the eye. I would that his strong features had been accompanied by a direct and thoughtful gaze, instead of that petulant side-glance, which to all of us who know the smiling candour of the Minister of Munitions is so foreign an expression.
I cannot speak with authority about the sitter's raiment. At the same time I must register my dislike of these clothes, which appear to have the mud of the golf-links still fresh upon them. ”

“ Coleman is, by his own account, an American and an automobilist. Those who get his book will judge him, by the unadorned account of what he did, to be a man of great courage and modesty, with an imperturbable shrewdness and a humour proof against all dangers and disappointments. Driving, as he did, a motor-car for the British Headquarters, and in particular for General de Lisle, he saw as much fighting as any man need wish for and had magnificent opportunities of forming a judgment on the effects of German shell-fire. There is a pathetic photograph of his car hit by a shell outside Messines. ”

“ I wonder whether our perverse Intelligences are capable of making the deduction that, if the progressives in Russia can forget their quarrel with reaction for sake of our great common cause, they themselves might mitigate some of the severity of their anti-tsarism. ”

“ I have invented a gesture of my own which is entirely non-committal and gives satisfaction to both. Those who don't look for a salute put it down to an excess of geniality; those who do expect one put it down to ignorance combined with anxiety to please. ”

“ Not for nothing, it seems, did the Kaiser say in one of his famous speeches, "The razor must be in our fist."
Mr. Tennant told the House of Commons last week that the War Office had 3,000,000 goat skins. As the statement has given rise to a certain uneasiness it should be explained that all the goats have been safely extracted.
Notwithstanding reports to the contrary, says an official German telegram, the new submarine warfare is in full swing. It should only be a matter of time before those responsible for it find themselves in a similar situation. ”

“ When the House of Commons passed the Bill prohibiting duelling it ought to have made an exception in favour of its own members. Nothing would have done more to raise the tone of debate, for offenders against decorum would gradually have eliminated one another. This afternoon, for example, Sir Hamar Greenwood twitted Mr. Hogge with sheltering himself under the patriotism of a soldier stepson, and Mr. Hogge retaliated with the suggestion that Sir Hamar ought to be with his regiment. ”

“ Chapman major put down The Daily Mail and looked round No. 11 study. "Think of those Rugby blighters having all the luck," he protested.
"These prices will ruin old Dabs, and a jolly good job. The old beast needs ruining." This from Dyson, occupied in writing out two hundred Greek lines (with accents) .
"The Head," said Chapman major, "may be a beast, but he's a bally patriot. He swishes twice as hard on a day when the War news is bad. I felt the fall of Namur more than anyone in England. ”

“ A large number of German barbers, it is said, have become naturalized since the commencement of the War, and are now engaged in capturing the trade from the British barbers, many of whom have been taken for military service. ”

“ Hanging from a cord is something in the nature of an aid to vision. I cannot determine whether it is a pince-nez or a monocle. The uncertainty is irritating. Is it possible that the Minister has taken to wearing a single eye-glass? If so, why has not the artist put it in the sitter's eye? And as to the hair—Heaven forbid that I should cast any reflection upon any man of Mr. Lloyd George's age possessing abundant locks; on the contrary, I congratulate him; but in all my experience I have never yet known a portrait to be taken without the sitter being requested first of all to brush his hair. ”

“ Lobby flocked a motley crew—the champions of the single men who don't want to fight at all, the upholders of the married men who protest against being called upon to fulfil their engagement until every single "embusqué" has been dragged out of his lair, and, paradoxically enough, the universal conscriptionists who would force everyone to serve, but are opposed to piecemeal compulsion. ”

“ However, I do not propose to set my judgment up against that of the authors, male and female, in regard to the credibility of her taste in men, since, after all, the heart of a woman is a thing past finding out. ”

“ Talking of civilian hats, by the way, my particular class of soldier, never spoilt by over-fussing, has dismal expectations as to the finale. We feel that, when the other side sees light and is prepared to submit to judgment, with costs, we shall be the last to leave for home, and when we get there all the beer will be sold out. ”

“ Miss Vane Featherston, as Lady Lushington, had too little to do, and did it most humanly; and Mr. Otho Stuart illustrated with a very natural ease the kind of simple friendship, as between a man and a woman, which it takes an Anglo-Saxon intelligence to understand.
The officers, though there might have been more of the blond beast about them, were sufficiently Prussian, and Mr. Malcolm Cherry, as Margaret's husband, indicated with much precision the change in the behaviour of a German gentleman, after marriage, towards the lady he has consented to honour with the thing he calls his heart. ”

“ She is always asking odd questions, such as "why doctors ask you to say ninety-nine" and tailors measuring gentlemen's legs call out "42-6; 38-7." She also has a queer penchant for stealing boards, betrays some connection with a firm, Celeste et Cie. of Bond Street, and knows some German words. Which concatenation of facts justifies the old bachelor in consulting a friendly policeman (Mr. Gerald du Maurier) . Bond Street turns out to be a mean street, Celeste et Cie the name under which Cinderella trades, dealing in medical treatment, shaves, friendly counsel or dressmaking all at a penny fee. ”

“ Deeping certainly has courage. There is a scene or two in which he takes his amazonian Judith to the very edge of bathos. "She could shoot straight with a pistol, and proved it by bringing a revolver to the summer-house, and making Frensham hang his hat on the rail-fence that ran along the wood." ”

“ Enter the General and the C.O., with Staff-Captain, Adjutant and Sergeant-Major. The Platoon labours on and takes no notice. Second-Lieutenant Wood comes to attention and salutes. The General remarks on the fine physique of the men, inspects the wire entanglement and explains how [pg 200] he used to do it when he was a subaltern. Private Hogg, a recruit unused to Generals, stands gazing awestruck, but catches the Adjutant's eye and, gets on feverishly with his work. The cortège passes on, and the platoon heaves a sigh of relief and stands easy. ”

“ Augustus John's striking portrait of Mr. Lloyd George is not shared by everybody. The following criticism of the picture has reached us, and as it represents a point of view which, so far as we know, has not found sympathy in the Press opinions which have already appeared, we print it for the edification of the artist, the sitter and any others who may have a few moments to devote to the subject. ”

“ Apart from the one or two doubtful points which I have referred to, the play went well, though it seems a pity that so much insistence should have been laid upon the lack of culture (English sense) in households where the strictest economy was essential. One was conscious of a rather painful note of vulgarity in the attitude of Margaret's father, where he sniffs at the sordid environment of her German home. Impecuniosity is of course a prevalent trouble among German officers in small garrison towns ”

“ My goodness, we nearly lost the War that time!
But don't you believe all this talk about military discipline. Take the case of my own Colonel, for instance, a man who, before he took to staff work, had probably dug enough trenches, put out enough barbed wire and, generally, made enough mess of respectable agricultural land to earn for himself a special vote of censure from the United Association of French and Belgian Farmers. Now, there's a soldier, if ever there was one ”