University of Virginia Library

On February next, Deo volente, I shall have been a constant reader of your worthy publication for forty-one years. I feel, sir, that that record gives me the right ipso facto to offer my humble criticism of a statement made in your November number by that worthy critic of the drama, Mr. Heywood Broun. Humanum est errare, and I am sure that Mr. Broun (with whom I have unfortunately not the honour of an acquaintance) will forgive me for calling his attention to what is indeed a serious, and I might say, unbelievable, misstatement.

The problem of an introduction when there is no mutual acquaintance is sometimes perplexing. But the young man, having had the good taste to purchase a copy of PERFECT BEHAVIOR, is having no difficulty. He has fastened a rope across the sidewalk in front of the lady's house and, with the aid of a match and some kerosene, has set fire to the house. Driven by the heat, the young lady will eventually emerge and in her haste will fall over the rope. To a gentleman of gallantry and ingenuity the rest should be comparatively simple.

[Description: Drawing of a young woman running down a sidewalk from a burning house. A man stands at the end of the sidewalk, behind a tree. A cord is fastened across the end of the sidewalk. ]

A knowledge of the language of flowers is essential to a successful courtship and may avoid much unnecessary pain. With the best intentions in the world the young man is about to present the young lady with a flower of whose meaning he is in total ignorance. The young lady, being a faithful student of PERFECT BEHAVIOR, knows its exact meaning and it will be perfectly correct for her to turn and, with a frigid bow, break the pot over the young man's head. Alas, how differently this romance might have ended if the so-called "friends" of the young man had tactfully but firmly pointed out to him the value of a book on etiquette such as PERFECT BEHAVIOR.

[Description: Drawing of a man walking behind a woman. The man has his hat tipped and a pot of flowers in his hand. ]

In my younger days, now long past, it was not considered infra dig for a critic to reply to such letters as this, and I hope that Mr. Broun will deem this epistle worthy of consideration, and recognize the justice of my complaint.

I remember well a controversy that raged between critic and public for many weeks in the days when Joe Jefferson was playing Rip Van Winkle. Ah, sir, do you remember (but, of course, you don't) that entrance of Joe in the first act with his dog Schneider? That was not my first play by many years, but I believe that it is still my favorite. I think the first time I ever attended a dramatic performance was in the winter of '68 when I was a student at Harvard College. Five of us freshmen went into the old Boston Museum to see Our American Cousin. Joe Chappell was with us that night and the two Dawes boys and, I think, Elmer Mitchell. One of the Dawes twins was, I believe, afterwards prominent in the Hayes administration. There were many men besides Will Dawes in that Harvard class who were heard from in later years. Ed Twitchell for one, and "Sam" Caldwell, who was one of the nominees for vice president in '92. I sat next to Sam in "Bull" Warren's Greek class. There was one of the finest scholars this country has ever produced—a stern taskmaster, and a thorough gentleman. It would be well for this younger generation if they could spend a few hours in that old classroom, with "Bull" pacing up and down the aisle and all of us trembling in our shoes. But Delenda est Carthago—fuit Ilium—Requiescat in pace. I last saw "Bull" at our fifteenth reunion and we were all just as afraid of him as in the old days at Hollis.

But I digress. Tempus fugit,—which reminds me of a story "Billy" Hallowell once told at a meeting of the American Bar Association in Minneapolis, in 1906. Hallowell was perhaps the most brilliant after-dinner

speaker I have ever heard—with the possible exception of W. D. Evarts. I shall never forget the speech that Evarts made during the second Blaine campaign.

But I digress. Your critic, Mr. Heywood Broun, says on page 33 of the November issue of your worthy magazine that The Easiest Way is the father of all modern American tragedy. Sir, does Mr. Broun forget that there once lived a man named William Shakespeare? Is it possible to overlook such immortal tragedies as Hamlet and Othello? I think not. Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum.