Life — November 6, 1902 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

398 PROBLEM PLAY- WRIGHT and a Woman sat together in a dim nook of a superb studio, about five o'clock in the afternoon, drink- ing their tea. “Is it really true that you write a play a day?” asked the Woman, won- deringly. ‘ How marvel- ous you are !’’ “You flatter me too highly, dear lady of Phil- listia,” replied the Prob- lem Playwright with a deprecatory smile. ‘ Yousee, to inform you somewhat of the mysteries of my craft, I buy good epigrammatic con- versation by the yard at the literary sweat-shops ; then, as a plain carpenter and joiner, I fit the pieces together. That is all. Fortunately, there is no necessity for any plumbing, for the sewage should never be drained from a problem play.’’ “But what about your plot?’’ questioned the Woman. “Sh-h! No true Ab-r-r-tist ever knows aught of plots. We deal with problems, and in a problem play it is against all canons of problem art ever to allow anything to occur.” ‘‘Then tell me,” asked the Woman, sympathetically, “why, when you are so successful, so famous, you should seem so sad and weary?’? “It is necessary,” he replied enigmatically. “I suffer always from those moods of haunting and wistful melan- choly which are the bane and blessing of my tempera- ment, Assuredly, our mistress, Ah-r-r-t, demands that we suffer for her; and yet, dear God! what a beautiful thing is Pain and Heartache! How beautiful! How beantifal!” “But are not all of Nature's impulses toward joy and gladness?’’ timidly objected the Woman. ‘She abhors pain and heartache, and has given us her own physician, Time, to heal our woes.” “TI fancy I was speaking of Ah-r-r-t,’’ said the Problem Playwright, coldly. ‘ Ah-r-r-t is the pearl within the oys- ter, Nature—her beautiful disease, her wondrous morbid growth.” “Yet might not Art be the strong, glorious expression of clean, happy, aspiring natures?’’ asked the Woman, wistfully. The Problem Playwright sent for a brandy-and-soda and some hot muffins. “My poor child,’ he said pityingly, when, strengthened by food and drink, he had somewhat recovered from the shock of her words, ‘‘ the vocabulary of the true Ah-r-r-tist does not include such words as clean, decent, wholesome. They are to the ¢rue Ah-r-r-tist what holy water is to the Devil. I offer daily sacrifice to my mistress, Ah-r-r-t, and grudge nothing, hold nothing back. To-day, the brutal realism of which I am master demands the dissection of a loving woman's heart, won and cast aside—the details of her broken life ; to-morrow, in order that I may write erotic, strange, alluring verse, I No Art Without Religion. -LIFE: “Papa, WHY DO YOU CALL MAMMA THE AUTOMOBILE?” “ BECAUSE SHE'S ALWAYS RUNNING SOMEBODY DOWN.” must blunt and blura young girl’s aspirations, leave her illusionless: all, that for my Ah-r-r-t’s sake, I may study the subtle phenomena of soul-decay. It is my fate to weigh, sift and question eternally: only to be mocked by the god of negation.” “And have yon then no faith?” asked the Woman, sadly, The Problem Playwright’s face lighted with a sudden vivid joy. ‘Yes, thank God," he cried. “I have still one faith to which I cling, one aim to live for, one goal toward which I ever strive!” “ And what is that?’’ she questioned breathlessly. “Do you not know?" he said slowly, a great wonder dawning in his eyes. ‘ Ah, if you were a true Ah-r-r-tist, you would know, and you would understand. Dear Phil- listia, it is the Box-Office !”” Mrs. Wilson Woodrow. A Study in Sun-Spots. pxasupon as there was no need for very great baste in the matter, Dr. Lung sald that he would rather not’ take the responsibility for interrupting the President's most important tour of the year on his shouldera.— The Sun, September 24. State why, in your opinion, the President made the tour on his shoulders, and draw a working diagram of this mode of travel. English eyes weakening. Double the number of persons wearing glasses now than did ten years ago.—Special Cable Despatch to The Sun, September 28. Parse ‘‘ than " in the preceding sentence. ‘The letters of the average public school graduate or university graduate are likely to be prolific in bad spelling.— Zhe Sun, October 9. (Editorial. Do you think the writer meant full of ‘ bad spelling’? If not, explain how a letter could be ‘‘prolific.”” The small Latin and less Greek they bring out of achool or college. — The Sun, October ly. (Editorial) Which sentence do you consider more correct : “I bring a small Latin out of college,” or “Je parle Francais un petit’? The Mine Workers’ Union, of which over two-thirds of the members are concerned in a rival and competitive industry—to wit, the bituminous comicbooks.com