Life — April 4, 1907 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

talking of the manufacture of Rosalinds and Orlandos (a sort of thing that ought really to be done in a jam factory) as ‘de- lineation of character’ and the like.” Whereupon Shakespeare—a modest man—promises to model his next comedy on “You Never Can Tell.” + * AX” why not? Mr. Shaw himself has unconsciously answered the question. When he was twenty he “knew everybody in Shakespeare, from Hamlet to Abhorson, much more intimately than I knew my living contemporaries.” (More intimately than he knows his living contemporaries, for has he not the temerity to ask, ‘‘Who is Hall Caine?”) And to what profit ?— “With the single exception of Homer (exit A. Lang), “there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against hi ‘To read ‘Cymbeline’ and to think of Goethe, of Wagner, of Ibsen, is, for me, to imperil the habit of studied moderation of statement which years of public re- sponsibility as a journalist have made almost second nature in me. . . . It is for the most part stagy trash of the lowest melodramatic order, in parts abominably written, throughout intellectually vulgar, and, judged in point of thought by modern lectual standards, vulgar, foolish, ve, indecent and exasperating be- yond all tolerance.” * * 8 BOUT Falstaff Shaw says: “Falstaff is human but disgusting.” As for “Much Ado”: “The main pretension is that Benedick and Beatrice are exquisitely witty and amusing persons. They are, of course, nothing of the sort. Bene- dick’s pleasantries might pass at a sing- song in a public-house parlor; but a gentleman rash enough to venture on them in even the very mildest £52-a-year sub- urban imitation of polite society to-day would assuredly never be invited again. - Precisely the same thing, in the tenderer degree of her sex, is true of Beatrice. . . . Shakespeare shows himself a commonplace librettist working on a stolen plot, but a great musician. No matter how poor, coarse, cheap and obvious the thought may be, the mood is charming, and the music of the words expresses the mood.” + * « R. SHAW, who has long insisted that it is much more difficult to write prose than verse—and who proved it to his own satisfaction by tuming ‘Cashel Byron’s Profession” into a play, as an easy exercise—valucs Shakespeare chiefly for his musical qualities ‘The ear,” he in- ists, “is the sure clue to him: only a ian can understand the play of feeling which is the real rarity in his early plays. Continued on page 469 FRANKLIN Four cars all built on one idea that makes them supremely able—free power. Free from the over-heating and compression-leak that sap engine- power at its very source. Free from freezing and other foolish troubles. Free from heavy water-apparatus and other useless weight that retards speed ; increases awkardness and danger ; and almost, doubles the cost of maintenance. Free from the jarring of a rigid construction that dissipates the power produced ; damages the car; and destroys comfort. Plentiful power that you can freely use and enjoy—that is the Franklin idea. Write for Whitman’s account of his great run ‘Across America in a Franklin,” and for the latest edition of the 1907 Franklin Catalogue. H. H. FRANKLIN MFG. CO., SYRACUSE, N. Y. Member Association Licensed Automobile Manufacturers Type D $2800 4 cylinders. 105-inch wheel: base. “1900 pounds, 45 miles an hour. Made also as a Runabout, $2800, or Landaulet, $4000. . This Type D does more with five people than any car at an price except a Franklio—carries them farther in a day ; with more safety, ease, more indepeadeace of bother and of roads; more real enjoyment, And all at far less cost. THE HANDSOMEST HUNTING CABIN MODEL IN AMERICA Motor Boats That GO ALL SIZES AND MODELS Open Launches, Hunting Cabins, Glass Cabins 2 to 150H.P. PRICES from $200 up But all one ¢rade—THE BEST No matter what your boat plans are for this Spring, you can't afford to miss our.proposition, so send for information and catalogue to-day We Build Power Boats Exclusively NEWBURY @ DUNHAM Western Launch Works West 210th Street and Harlem River, New York Just West of Broadway Agents Wanted in Unrepresented Territory comicbooks.com