LETTERS TO THE PRESS - 11

The Romance of the Shopwalker

Glasgow Herald (10 January, 1896)

OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.
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                                                                                                 65 FLEET STREET,
                                                                                                      Thursday Night.

.....

     I UNDERSTAND that two pieces, both by Mr Robert Buchanan, are before Mr Weedon Grossmith, and that one of them will be the next production at the Vaudeville. The comedies are respectively entitled “Good Old Times” and “The Shop Walker.” They are said to be the survivors of nearly 800 plays by various stage aspirants which this unfortunate manager has had to peruse.

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The Era (11 January, 1896)

ROBERT BUCHANAN’S PLAYS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—It is an old adage which says that the world knows more of one’s private business than one does oneself, and the truth is illustrated daily by the extraordinary statements of the theatrical gossip-monger. I see it stated in print to-day that Mr Weedon Grossmith will shortly produce one of two plays, the names of which are incorrectly given, “by Mr Buchanan.” May I ask you to state that, up to the time of writing, I have made no arrangement with Mr Grossmith to produce any work whatever, and that, in any case, I am only the part-author of any work which he may have had under consideration. I strongly object to have my business arrangements anticipated by the writers of newspaper paragraphs, and I also strongly object to have my unborn plays christened for me at the font of the Printer’s Devil.
                                      Yours truly,                                 ROBT. BUCHANAN.
     The Cottage, 44, Streatham-hill, S.W.,
          Jan. 9th, 1896.

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The Era (15 February, 1896)

MR. BUCHANAN PROTESTS.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I had occasion, some weeks ago, to protest in your columns against the conduct of a contemporary, which presumed to label and christen certain works of mine on the eve of production. This week my anonymous assailant returns to the attach, and, in revenge for the rebuke I thought it my duty to administer, prints two statements which are written merely to do me injury. While announcing, in the first place, that a new play by myself and Mr Marlowe will shortly be produced at the Vaudeville, he is careful to add that in April next Messrs Gatti will resume possession of their theatre—in other words, that the new play, however successful it may be, will be dispossessed and compelled to seek another home. I do not know if the writer is authorised by Messrs Gatti to make this announcement, but, in any case, it is premature and in the worst of taste.
     Not content with this, the same scribbler, in another paragraph, attempts to correct me with a lecture on the methods of criticism to be delivered next Sunday at the Playgoers’ Club. I am in no way concerned with that lecture, I do not know at all what Mr Henry Murray purposes saying, and I have politely declined to take the chair on that occasion, as I believe Mr Murray’s views and mine on this particular subject are not altogether in accord. It is quite true that I protested publicly, on a memorable occasion, against the animadversions of a well-known newspaper critic; but there, so far as I was concerned, the matter ended, and I have no intention of wasting my time in animosities which recall the spirit of the vendetta.
     It is one thing, I believe, to speak out one’s protest while smarting under the sting of injustice; it is quite another to retain a lifelong malice, and to recur ad nauseam to quarrels that can be forgotten. Whenever I have occasion to discuss my critics, it will be with my own voice or over my own signature. I am quite able to express my own views without any assistance.
     The malice in statements of the sort I have quoted is obvious, and it is a pity that the law affords its victims no protection. It is necessary, however, in the interests of the literary profession, to protest against the methods of certain anonymous individuals.
                                  Yours truly,                ROBERT BUCHANAN.
    Vaudeville Theatre, Feb. 13th.

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The Era (14 March, 1896)

MR. BUCHANAN AND MR. MURRAY.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—The critics have been almost unanimous in the opinion that Mr Robert Buchanan’s “new and original comedy,” now playing at the Vaudeville under the title The Romance of the Shopwalker, is founded on the late Samuel Warren’s “Ten Thousand a-Year.” As a matter of fact Mr Buchanan is indebted to Warren for a solitary episode. The rest of his plot he has lifted bodily from a book of mine called “The Way of the World,” which was published something like a dozen years ago.
     In Warren’s story a thorough-paced little cad inherits a fortune. In my story, also, a young man of very humble antecedents (but of a gentle and honourable nature) is suddenly enriched. There the similarity between Warren’s work and mine begins and ends, and that indebtedness on my side is openly acknowledged in the body of my book. But the plot of Mr Buchanan’s “new and original comedy” is, after this introductory episode, wholly and solely mine. The silly romantic affection in which the hero indulges for a lady of high birth before his accession to fortune is stolen from “The Way of the World.” The visit to “the castle;” the purchase of the mortgages which hang as a menace over the impecunious earl; the misconstruction of motive; the misunderstanding under which the heroine conceives herself compelled to self-sacrifice for her father’s sake; the hero’s retirement in favour of the high-born lover; the presentation of the purchased mortgages as a wedding dower to the lady whom he has released from her promise to himself; all these things, which are the very heart and soul of the plot, are mine, and were original in my pages. The election, like the rest, is lifted from my book. The episode of the cruel election-squib, for which the high-born lover is supposed to be responsible, is mine. The scene in which the younger sister of the hero’s titled fiancée instructs him in etiquette and pronunciation is mine. In short, the plot of The Romance of the Shopwalker, from the affectionate maunderings of the central person in the first act until the apology of the finally-successful lover in the third, is the plot of “The Way of the World.”
     I am, of course, without legal remedy, but I think I have a right of protest against an act of plunder which is at once so wholesale and so audacious. If the author of “The Ballad of Judas Iscariot” and “Saint Abe and His Seven Wives”—the one a masterpiece of weird and pathetic imagination, and the other a monument of felicity in satire—had sought my collaboration I should have been honoured and delighted. Had he merely acknowledged my book as the source of his play I should have been contented. But a respect for literary faculty, however genuine and ardent, does not inspire me to silence when the towering artist stoops to borrow my ideas.
                                                Yours truly,                           DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.
     13, Tyrwhitt-road, St. John’s, S.E.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Mr David Christie Murray avers that the play The Romance of the Shopwalker, of which I am part-author, and which is now running at the Vaudeville Theatre, is a dramatic version of his novel, “The Way of the World.” Now, suggestions for The Shopwalker were certainly found in the late Samuel Warren’s famous novel, “Ten Thousand a-Year.” I have never read “The Way of the World,” and am therefore unable to discuss it; but if it at all resembles our play it is pretty obvious to what source Mr Murray must have gone for his inspiration. Surely that source was open to all of us, and if Mr Murray could go to it for the theme of his novel, why should we not go to it for the theme of our play?
                                                            Yours truly,                             CHARLES MARLOWE.

     Vaudeville Theatre, March 12th, 1896.

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The Era (21 March, 1896)

MR. MURRAY AND MR. BUCHANAN.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Mr Robert Buchanan is silent as to the very plain and serious charges I have brought against him. Mr Charles Marlowe’s contention that he has not read my book has no more to do with my accusation than if he were the man in the street. Mr Buchanan has read my book, and years ago suggested to me, through a third person, that he should dramatise it. Mr Marlowe’s pretence that The Romance of the Shopwalker is taken from Warren’s “Ten Thousand a-Year” proves merely that he has not even read the book from which he professes that he and his colleague borrowed their new and original comedy. Their story is not to be found in Warren’s pages. It is, as I have shown already, to be found in mine.
     I did not challenge Mr Marlowe, who has only established his ignorance of both the alleged sources of the comedy to which he has lent his name. My challenge was, and is, to Mr Buchanan, who has a high literary reputation to guard, and who keeps silence,  although, as a rule, he is as apt for controversy as any gentleman alive. For years Mr Buchanan has affected the knight errant—“riding abroad redressing human wrong.” Has Mr Pecksniff been hidden behind Don Quixote’s vizor all this time?
            Yours truly,            DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.
     London, March 16th, 1896.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Inasmuch as this matter has become one of a public nature by the publication in The Era of letters from the parties concerned, one of the public may perhaps be allowed to join in the fray. Soon after the production of The Romance of the Shopwalker, I remarked to a friend that the plot was exactly like that of a novel by Mr Murray. Others to whom I have spoken have seen the great likeness between the novel and the play. Mr Charles Marlowe’s weak arguments do not clear the matter up. I agree with him that “suggestions for The Shopwalker were certainly found” in Warren’s novel “Ten Thousand a-Year;” but I do not admit the conclusion implied—that these suggestions were made use of by the authors of the play. The said suggestions are merely indirect and contrary, whereas those offered by Mr Murray’s novel “The Way of the World” are direct. On first reading Mr Murray’s book, I saw a certain likeness between his novel and Warren’s, but that likeness was an artistic and not an actual one. It seemed that whereas Warren showed from an aristocratical point of view a type of man in humble life being raised to a higher position, and put him in a ridiculous light, Murray, urged by a sense of justice, took upon himself the task of showing another side of the picture—how that, though of lowly origin and education, the hero has the instincts of a gentleman.
     At any rate, the connection between the two novels is a vague and indirect one; besides, the general idea, found in both novels, of a young man in humble circumstances coming into a fortune, is not even original in Warren’s. When, however, we deal with the connection between Murray’s novel and the play, we find another state of things—namely, all the incidents in the play and most of those in the novel being alike. There may be a similar general idea in two works, and yet no likeness as to details, as, for instance, the novels above mentioned of Warren and Murray; but when we come to details we are able to see how far one work is indebted to another. Since, in the case of Murray’s novel and Buchanan’s play, all the details are alike, it will need something more to the point than Mr Marlowe’s letter to convince us that the likeness is strangely accidental. As Mr Marlowe has “never read ‘The Way of the World,’” “it is pretty obvious” to whom we are indebted for putting The Shopwalker together, and that Mr Marlowe’s position as collaborator was purely an honorary one.
     Doubtless Mr Buchanan argues that it is the prerogative of genius to take any material it likes and mould it anew, infusing it with new spirit, &c., giving, perhaps, Shakespeare as an example; but with the taking of the material, unfortunately for our century, the likeness between the two dramatists ends. Playwrights nowadays seem fond of borrowing from novelists. There is a certain melodrama in existence called The Shadows of Life, and it appears to me to be a dramatised version of Miss Braddon’s story “The Cloven Foot.”
     Mr Marlowe’s last argument is a quibble. I advise him to read “The Way of the World,” and his eyes will be opened to what he has been let in for.
                                           Yours truly,                 C. L. HALES.
     London, W.

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The Era (28 March, 1896)

“THE ROMANCE OF THE SHOPWALKER.”
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I had not intended to reply at all to Mr David Christie Murray, but to leave the question which he opens to public opinion. Mr Murray’s belligerent attitude, however, leaves me no option.
     I beg to say, therefore, absolutely, unreservedly, and finally, that “The Way of the World” is neither more nor less than a version—a clever and very superior version, I admit—of that insufferably vulgar and titanically tiresome book “Ten Thousand a-Year.” The incidents and characters in the two books are the same—a vulgar little snob suddenly succeeding to a great fortune, a “distressed” county family brought into collision with the snob, a little love affair between the snob and a titled lady, an aristocratic rival, a contested election, &c. Mr Murray has improved and altered his original; so, I think, have we; and while our monumental mother (as a critical wag calls her), our pawky Scotchman, and our matchmaking aunt have no duplicates in either book, our Thomas Tomkins, a study of the shopwalker “up to date,” bears little or no likeness to either Tittlebat Titmouse or Bolsover Kimberly. These, however, are points which your readers can decide for themselves by collating the two masterpieces of fiction, and comparing them with our unpretending little play.
     Once upon a time, but that was before I re-read “Ten Thousand a-Year,” I saw the possibilities of a play in “The Way of the World.” A very little reflection convinced me that the materials, being “twice told,” had become public property. Moreover, the real raison d’être of the later work being a savage attack on a personal friend of Mr Murray, a gentleman well known in journalism, I felt that I should much prefer to leave so delicate a subject in Mr Murray’s own hands, and not attempt the dramatisation of a Journalistic Vendetta.
     I am neither a Don Quixote nor, as Mr Murray politely suggests, a Mr Pecksniff. Mr Murray has good reason to know which I most resemble, for if he will cudgel his memory he will remember that I do occasionally attempt to “redress human wrongs,” and that I redressed a very patent one, in which he was personally concerned, not many months ago. This, however, is a subject into which I do not care to travel without further invitation on the part of Mr Murray.
     I have only one word more to say, and that is in reference to the person whom Mr Murray, with characteristic chivalry, describes as the “man in the street.” No one knows better than Mr Murray that “Charles Marlowe” is the nom de plume of a writer whom Charles Reade, shortly before his death, welcomed with pride and admiration into literature, and who has since then done memorable work both in  fiction and on the stage. If The Shopwalker possesses any interest at all, it is because I had the help of that writer in its construction, its detail, its dialogue, and its production; and I may add, indeed, that very much of my dramatic work has had the advantage of the same invaluable aid, and the same carefully acquired experience of “stage” necessities. When any man in the street, Mr Murray or another, can offer me the same collaboration, I shall be ready to listen to him, but in the meantime I am satisfied to associate my name with that of the authoress of “The Queen of Connaught.”            Yours truly,
                                                                                                           ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Vaudeville Theatre, March 23d, 1896.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—The letter of Mr David Christie Murray, which appeared in your issue of last week, is really too disingenuous for words, and were I to follow my own inclination I should treat it with the silence that such an effusion deserves. In adopting such a policy, however, I should be accused by that hot-headed gentleman of being unable to answer certain accusations which he has thought fit to make against me, and which, to any unprejudiced person, must appear as discourteous as they are unfounded.
     Mr Murray avows that his challenge is not to me, but to my collaborateur, Mr Robert Buchanan. It is to me, since it was I who first suggested the idea of our play The Romance of the Shopwalker to Mr Buchanan, and we afterwards worked it out together.
     Next, I am accused of having established my ignorance by my statement that I had never read the novel entitled “The Way of the World,” but that I had read “Ten Thousand a-Year,” and from it had taken suggestions for The Shopwalker. I certainly have been grossly ignorant on one point, for I was quite unaware of the fact that to be acquainted with the novels of Mr David Christie Murray was considered a necessary part of a liberal education.
     But if, as Mr Murray goes on to state, “no part of our story is to be found in Warren’s pages,” how was it that the gentlemen of the press, who, I presume, are supposed to have ordinary common sense and insight, should almost without an exception have stated the fact that suggestions for it were to be found in “Ten Thousand a-Year?”
     It is a pity that Mr Murray, capable writer as he is in some ways, should have allowed his temper and ill-feeling to induce him to make his last and most ungenerous insinuation. The name of “Charles Marlowe” is certainly not widely known in either literary or dramatic circles, but Mr Murray when he wrote his letter was perfectly well aware of the fact that it was a mere nom de guerre, and that in using it Mr Buchanan had not bracketed with his own name as co-author that of a mere nobody or “man in the street.” He knew perfectly well that “Charles Marlowe” stood for “Harriett Jay,” and that the works of Harriett Jay, whatever their merits might be, were at least as well and widely known to the public as those of Mr David Christie Murray.                             Yours truly,
                                                   CHARLES MARLOWE (HARRIETT JAY).
     Vaudeville Theatre, March 23d, 1896.

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The Era (28 March, 1896)

THE DEVIL AND THE DRAMATIST.
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     There have been so many spiteful things written about our dramatists and their literature that when a celebrated playwright brings out a serious poem the event should not be allowed to pass without comment as a publication of no importance. Almost simultaneous with the success of The Shopwalker at the Vaudeville has happened the issue from the New Temple Press of a black book called “The Devil’s Case,” by Mr ROBERT BUCHANAN. We must be allowed to disregard the plea which he makes against being judged “line by line,” and we cannot deny ourselves the luxury of a few quotations from so startling a poem. Mr BUCHANAN starts with the assertion that he has interviewed the real Devil.

“I, the Interviewer, hated
Cordially by cliques and critics,
Railed at in a hundred journals
As a Scotchman lost and lorn.

“I, the Interviewer, banished
From the Eden of the poets,
Where the stainless laurel-wearers
Wander innocent and nude.”

In spite of all tribulations, however, Mr BUCHANAN assures us that he keeps in his possession

“Power to stand erect, while cravens
Roll the Log and bend the knee.”

     Mr BUCHANAN’S interview with the Devil takes place on Hampstead Heath on the evening of August Bank Holiday:—

“All that afternoon I’d wandered,
’Mid the throng of Nymphs and Satyrs;
Now, at last, the Bacchanalian
August holiday was over.

“Sad my soul had been among them,
Envying their easy pleasures,
Since for many a month behind me
Wolf-like creditors had thronged;

“Since my name and fame were lying
In the gutter of the journals,
While the laws of Earth and Heaven
Seemed one vast Receiving Order!

“Far down westward, over Harrow,
Pensively the moon was shining,
Opening her dark bed-curtains
With a wan and sleepy smile.”

     Before we come to the interview with the Devil, we are incidentally informed of several facts interesting to all who admire Mr BUCHANAN’S talent and industry as a writer of plays. We learn that, spite of all his slips, he has ever loathed the foul materialistic serpent that surrounds the world; that, from the hour he first remembers, he was gazing at the stars, wondering, dreaming, speculating, and aspiring, and “reaching hands and feeling backward,” to the secret founts of Being. Those happy days soon passed over, and Mr BUCHANAN, so he says, became an eyeless Samson, doing his daily task-work, blind and sad, yet not despairing. Bitterly on that Bank Holiday evening—the “wolf-like creditors” thronging behind him in imagination—with all his load of woes upon him, Mr BUCHANAN bare witness against the Serpent who had made him see and know.
     At first we fancied that this reptile was meant to typify the Official Receiver, but our surmise was contradicted by what followed. Mr BUCHANAN sees an old gentleman sitting by a fallen, withered tree. He is clerically dressed, bareheaded and spectacled; and he is reading by moonlight the pink edition of an evening paper. Conversation follows; and the old fellow comments on the contents of the newspapers in the same strain as Mr Graves does in Money. After further chit-chat, the stranger dilates, throws out a pair of soot-black wings, and stands fluttering before the astonished dramatist like “some ragged ancient raven.”

“While the moonlight’s tremulous fingers
Smooth’d his woeful hoary hair!”

Then, boldly announcing himself as Satan, the old gentleman—it is the “old gentleman”—clutches up Mr BUCHANAN, who clings wildly to the fringe of the Devil’s dark raiment, and is wafted swiftly away. This scene, we are sorry to say, has not been one of those selected by the artist whose exquisitely comic illustrations are the most remarkable things in this very remarkable book.
     Here we must part with “The Devil’s Case,” whose vast philosophical aim is far beyond our scope. We have not been able to refrain from quoting the passages which bore personally upon Mr BUCHANAN’S interesting personality—a personality rendered more interesting just now by a kind of triangular duel which is going on in our columns between that gentleman, Miss HARRIETT JAY—the “Charles Marlowe” of The Shopwalker—and Mr DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY, who opened the ball with the accusation that Mr BUCHANAN had taken the plot of The Shopwalker from that of a novel by Mr MURRAY called “The Way of the World.” Mr MURRAY said that if Mr BUCHANAN had sought his collaboration he (Mr MURRAY) would have been honoured and delighted, but he described the “act of plunder” as “wholesale and audacious.”
     The first reply came from Miss JAY, who stated that she had never read “The Way of the World,” though she admitted that the notion of The Shopwalker was taken from SAMUEL WARREN’S “Ten Thousand a-Year.” If “The Way of the World” resembled The Shopwalker, said Miss JAY pleasantly, it was pretty evident where Mr MURRAY must have gone for his inspiration. Surely, she observed, that source was open to all of us? Mr MURRAY returned to the charge and marvelled—as, of course, everybody had marvelled—at the silence of Mr ROBERT BUCHANAN, who, said Mr MURRAY, “has read my book, and years ago suggested to me by a third person that he should dramatise it.” “The story of the collaborators,” continued Mr MURRAY, “is not to be found in WARREN’S pages. It is, as I have shown, to be found in mine. My challenge was, and is, to Mr BUCHANAN, who keeps silence. For years he has affected the knight errant, ‘riding abroad redressing human wrong.’ Has Mr Pecksniff been hidden behind Don Quixote’s visor all this time?”
     This, as our readers will see by reference to our pages this week, has brought out Mr ROBERT BUCHANAN; and Mr MURRAY, as the Viceroy used to say in La Périchole, has “lost nothing by waiting.” Mr BUCHANAN lays on full sore on Mr MURRAY, calling “Ten Thousand a-Year” an insufferably vulgar and titanically tiresome book, and coupling it and “The Way of the World,” ironically, as two masterpieces of fiction. Mr BUCHANAN owns to having contemplated an adaptation of the latter novel; but, after re-reading “Ten Thousand a-Year,” he concluded, he says, that he might just as well borrow at first, as at second, hand. Mr BUCHANAN alludes mysteriously to having, not many months ago, redressed a “very patent wrong” in which Mr CHRISTIE MURRAY was concerned. This is really very interesting; and the pleasant little remark of Miss HARRIETT JAY in another letter to the effect that she was not aware that an acquaintance with the novels of Mr DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY was considered a necessary part of a liberal education, gives a fresh dash of piquancy to the discussion. Speaking of spurious fiends and devils in his poems Mr BUCHANAN says:—

“Though to other generations
They might seem appalling creatures;
Really they were not authentic,
Not the GREAT ORIGINAL!”

The “great original” in this case seems to have been SAMUEL WARREN. As regards the MURRAY - BUCHANAN - JAY controversy we must leave opinions to be formed by each of our readers according to his lights and data. Let us hope that in the end all may be satisfactorily explained, and that each of the three laurel-wearers may wander “stainless” and “innocent”—though certainly not “nude.”

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The Era (4 April, 1896)

“THE ROMANCE OF THE SHOPWALKER.”
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—At last Mr Robert Buchanan has entered the ring. I could ask for nothing better.
     In that masterful tone which always characterises him in controversy, he declares “absolutely, unreservedly, and finally” that the novel from which I charge him with having lifted The Romance of the Shopwalker is neither more nor less than “a very superior version” of Warren’s “Ten Thousand a-Year,” and he implies, though he does not venture to assert, that he is not even remotely indebted to my work.
     Now, will Mr Buchanan be good enough to answer two or three plain questions? Where, if not in my pages, did he light upon the purchase and donation of the mortgages, which is the marrow of his plot and of mine? It is not to be found in Warren. Where, if not in my pages, did he find his snobbish central person (suddenly grown heroic) withdrawing his pretensions to the hand of the lady he truly loves, and bestowing upon his rival, as a wedding dower, the papers which he is supposed to have bought to coerce a noble family into submission? These things are not in Warren. Where, if not in my pages, did he find the kindly little sister of the heroine giving lessons in speech and etiquette to the vulgar hero? She is not in Warren. Where, if not in my pages, did he find the episode of the cruel election squib, which is wrongfully attributed to the aristocratic lover? Certainly not in Warren. Where, is not in my pages, did he find the gentleman’s apology to the snob? Assuredly not in Warren. These things make all the story of two acts of The Shopwalker. They make a part of the story of “The Way of the World.” There is not a hint of any one of them in “Ten Thousand a-Year.”
     There I could be content to let the matter rest, but Mr Buchanan advances a pretension so amazing and so fatal to all common honesty in letters that it deserves to be gibbeted out of hand. He argues with unmistakable plainness that the fact of B having robbed A justifies C in robbing A also. “The materials being ‘twice told’ had become common property,” says Mr Buchanan.
     I plead a legitimate debt to Samuel Warren. My book is in no sense a copy of his. It is, on the contrary, a sheer reversal, and differs alike in mechanism and in atmosphere. Warren had a sort of humorous loathing for his central personage. He took a vulgar-hearted and despicable little cad, and suddenly enriched him. He dragged him from one bog of scorn and contumely to another. He condemned him to a hateful shamelessness of greed and vulgarity and ostentation. “Here,” said I, “is only one statement of a case,” and I began to think what would happen to a gentle-natured, generous-minded little vulgarian who should suddenly be exposed to the cares and temptations which accompany great riches. So I invented Bolsover Kimberley, and sent him on his travels. I invented a story for him which is not to be found in Warren’s novel—a story which is the intentional and diametric opposite of Warren’s—a story not of a snob’s dirty greed finally covered with ignominy, but of his lofty self-abnegation crowned with the respect of those who began by regarding him with hatred and despite.
     It is one thing to take, openly and avowedly, the germ of an idea from a dead author, to reverse that idea in order to get a new light upon it, and to construct for its display a novel mechanism of plot, and it is another thing to take without acknowledgment an entire structure from the marketable work of a living writer, to dub a production “new and original” whilst its every vital movement is borrowed, and to answer complaint by the contention that the accuser is himself a thief.
     One further word. Both Miss Harriett Jay and Mr Buchanan are very angry with me for having spoken of Mr Charles Marlowe as “the man in the street.” If they will honour my letter with a further reading they will find that they have forced a construction upon my words which they will not bear and were never meant to bear.
     I now leave the question finally, with many thanks for the courtesy extended to me by The Era.
                      Yours truly,                        DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.
     London, March 30th, 1896.

[Note:
Samuel Warren’s Ten Thousand a-Year and David Christie Murray’s The Way of the World (Vol. 1 and Vol. 3 only) are available at the Internet Archive. The Romance of the Shopwalker was never published. Personally, when first reading the reviews of The Romance of the Shopwalker the first thing I thought of was Kipps by H. G. Wells (to tell the truth it was actually Half a Sixpence with Tommy Steele) but, on checking the dates, that was published in 1905. One wonders where Wells got his idea from.

David Christie Murray (1847-1907) was the elder brother of Henry Murray, who had lived for a time in the Buchanan household (and whose suggestion that people would pay good money to see Lily Langtry dance led to their collaboration on A Society Butterfly which was the immediate cause of Buchanan’s bankruptcy in 1894) so he would obviously have been at least a casual acquaintance of both Buchanan and Harriett Jay. He makes no mention of Buchanan in his books, The Making of a Novelist: An Experiment in Autobiography (1894), My Contemporaries in Fiction (1897) or Recollections (1908), but the latter does contain transcripts of two letters from Buchanan, one of which is dated June 17, 1897 and appears quite friendly in tone, suggesting that whatever animosity was caused by the Shopwalker incident had been forgotten.]

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The Maiden Queen

The Era (23 May, 1896)

COINCIDENCES AGAIN.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—We observe that a farcical comedy called Josiah’s Dream was produced on Thursday evening at the Strand Theatre. Curiously enough, it bears a strong resemblance in subject to two works in which we have collaborated, and which have been completed for a considerable time. The prophetic vision of the Coming Woman, as she is to be a hundred years hence, is to be found in an opera, The Maiden Queen, while the structure of the farcical comedy—involving, as it does, two acts of contemporary life, and one act which takes place in a remote period—closely resembles the structure of a comedy which we wrote more than a year ago. We do not suggest for a moment that the author of Josiah’s Dream has plagiarised our ideas, but certainly the long arm of coincidence has been at work, and as both our pieces are set down for early production we think it desirable to make this explanation, lest in the fulness of time we ourselves should be accused of adopting any suggestions from Josiah’s Dream.
                Yours truly,                                        ROBERT BUCHANAN and CHARLES MARLOWE.
     35, Gerrard-street, Shaftesbury-avenue, W., May 22d, 1896.

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The Era (30 May, 1896)

AN AUTHOR’S ANNOYANCES.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Twelve months ago the late Charles Melville arranged to produce a play of mine called The King’s Highway, and advertised accordingly in the columns of your paper for a continued period of about three months, until owing to increasing ill-health he had to relinquish the project. Some little time after this I saw an announcement that Mr George Roberts intended to change the title of a play of his called Rookwood to that of The King’s Highway. I immediately wrote to him, explained the circumstances, and sent stamped envelope for reply. But none was forthcoming. Meanwhile the title was rushed to Stationers’ Hall, and I have the satisfaction of seeing another piece floating out with my title, at least mine morally and dramatically. Now, Mr Roberts is doubtless chuckling over this coup de main as a smart action, but I am not yet quite sure that he can deprive me of my title. Mr Roberts may learn that to rush an already claimed and published title into the bosom of Stationers’ Hall does not give him legal claim to it.
     With what an amount of naïve suggestion Messrs Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlow seek to point that elastic long arm of coincidence in the direction of Josiah’s Dream. Their proposition not to accuse me of plagiarism looks quite generous after their admission that their two plays on a similar subject have not yet left the clerical pigeon-hole. Why two plays? Why not a dozen? It might have made the case look more wholesome—I beg pardon—wholesale—for them. They admit, in a somewhat roundabout fashion, that the two works, “which have been completed for some time,” have no dream subjects in them, but their imagination finds a prophetic “vision” in The Maiden Queen. And, as the word “vision” has a pliant meaning, they bring their somewhat original logic to the deduction that Josiah’s Dream is quite a copy of The Maiden Queen, and, therefore, common property. I hope I am not hypercritical, but the end for which these prolific authors are aiming seems to me easily deducible from their letter. However, I must take this opportunity of suggesting that I am aware how far my legal rights are definable in Josiah’s Dream. And I here advise that long arm of coincidence to be careful.
             Yours truly,                  CHARLES ROGERS.

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[Note: Josiah’s Dream was produced at the Strand Theatre and ran from May 21 to June 10, 1896. William Archer summed it up as follows:

     “Let me merely put on record the production at the Strand of a farce named Josiah’s Dream, by Mr. Charles Rogers, and the revival at the Court of Mam’selle Nitouche, under Miss May Yohé’s management. The farce is a piece of harmless but pointless folly, one act of which consists of a dream-presentation of life in A.D. 2001—there is nothing like accuracy in dates.”
(From The Theatrical ‘World’ of 1896 by William Archer (London: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1897 - p.179)]

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The Wanderer from Venus

The Era (13 June, 1896)

“GUESSWORK CRITICISM.”

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—An author’s complaints concerning criticism are seldom of much public interest, and I personally am a little tired of posing as a martyr to journalistic prejudice; but there is one fact in connection with the production of The Wanderer from Venus at Croydon which should certainly not be overlooked. A very perfunctory and adverse notice of this production appeared next morning in the Daily Telegraph. So far, so good, or bad; but I wish to point out that the gentleman who wrote that notice, having to catch a train, was compelled to leave the theatre before the last and most important act of the play was performed, so that in point of fact he did not witness the play in its entirety at all, and had no opportunity of witnessing the enthusiasm which followed the fall of the curtain. I unhesitatingly affirm that no play with which I have been connected, since Sophia, has won such tokens of delight from a popular audience, and as I write for the public, not for the Daily Telegraph, I protest in the name of fair play and honesty against the criticism which deals adversely and insultingly with a production of which the critic has seen next to nothing.
                            Yours truly,                              ROBERT BUCHANAN.

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The Mariners of England

The Era (30 April, 1898)

“YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.”
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—On my own behalf and that of Mr Buchanan who collaborated with me in the play produced last year under this title, I wish to explain why our names will be withdrawn from future announcements and advertisements. On the understanding that this should be done, we have parted with all our rights and interests in the piece, so far, at least, as Great Britain is concerned, and have given the purchaser carte blanche to alter and produce it in any way he thinks expedient. We disclaim, therefore, all responsibility for future productions of the piece, from which our names will henceforth be absolutely disassociated. At the same time, we wish it all success, as the arrangement I have described is a perfectly friendly one, and we know that the play is in good hands.
     I am desired by Mr Buchanan to add that his chief reason for disassociating himself from this particular play is the fact that the attempt to celebrate the achievement of a real national Hero has been construed, in some quarters, into sympathy with more ignoble manifestations of the national (or Jingo) spirit, against which he has always protested in his writings. It is better, therefore, that the fame and name of Nelson should be relinquished altogether into other hands.
                Yours faithfully,                      HARRIETT JAY
     April 28th, 1898.                             (“Charles Marlowe.”).

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Two Little Maids from School

The Era (26 November, 1898)

“TWO LITTLE MAIDS FROM SCHOOL.”
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I desire to correct the statement, made in an influential quarter, that Two Little Maids from School is merely a literal translation of Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr. So far from this being the case, the adaptation is unusually free, particularly as regards those scenes between Dubouloy and Louise, which created the greatest amusement, and which it would be very difficult to find in the original. At the same time, I have borne public testimony to the fact that the structure of the play belongs to Alexandre Dumas, who found the material for it in one of the stories of Boccaccio. To those critics who have objected, naturally enough, that the comedy has been developed by the adaptors on somewhat “farcical” lines, I can only reply that the original piece, as played in the formal method of the Théâtre Français, has always failed to awaken the enthusiasm evoked last Monday night at Camberwell. In my opinion, indeed, the theme is distinctly farcical, and should be treated with the vivacity and high spirits which farce demands.
                                                       Yours faithfully,                        ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Nov. 24th, 1898.

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The Zoophilist

The British Medical Journal (17 June, 1899)

A VISION OF THE BACK OF BEYOND.

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN has been glutting his mind with antivivisectionist literature, and after this feast of horrors he not unnaturally had a bad dream. The dream, he candidly admits, was “doubtless a foolish one.” There is nothing uncommon in the experience, but wise people do not tell their dreams. Mr. Buchanan, on the other hand, has told his foolish dream to the editor of the Zoöphilist, who has been unkind enough to print it. Mr. Buchanan was rapt in sleep in the Back of Beyond, where he saw “countless presences” in whom he recognised “disembodied spirits with a shadowy resemblance to human beings.” They were “beautiful beings, grave, calm, graceful, dignified, as immeasurably superior in insight and reasoning power to men and women of flesh and blood as men and women are superior to beasts of the forest and the field.” These august beings apparently found nothing better to exercise their insight and reasoning power upon than contemplating the sufferings of man. “Wherever there was a sickbed or a deathbed they were present,” not altogether for clinical study it would appear, but for the pleasure of the thing. Mr. Buchanan, misconceiving the situation, thought the beings were angels, and proceeded to interview one. But they were only “Beyond-Men,” completing their intellectual development by the study of pain, which they had come to see “as a necessary part of the eternal scheme of education.” One might have thought they would have learned this great truth from their terrestrial schoolmasters; but they may have had the privilege of being taught in Board Schools where even plagosus Orbilius would have had to lay aside his cane. The “Beyond-Man” confided to Mr. Buchanan that he and the other “Presences” increased the tortures of humanity as the means of their enlightenment and progression “even as the human vivisector sacrifices the inferior creatures, animal and human, to his glorious thirst for Knowledge. The “Beyond-Man” added truly enough that “the majority of men cannot reason; they can only feel.” But he added that they have no rights, and are in fact useful only as affording examples of suffering by which the “Beyond-Men” may gain knowledge that will enable them to reach, if we may say so, the Back of Beyond. Mr. Buchanan, on awakening from his dream, “with trembling hands again took up the record of human devilry, done in the name of Science,” and proceeded to make a “deduction.” This was that “if he accepted the right of any creature, under any circumstances whatever, to base its happiness or its security on pain wilfully inflicted on lower creatures,” he must also accept “the fiat (whose ‘fiat,’ one wonderingly asks) that there is no God.” The psychological process by which Mr. Buchanan arrives at this “deduction” is impenetrably obscure, and the argument may be taken as an illustration of the Beyond-Man’s remark that “the majority of men cannot reason.” But leaving aside the “deduction,” what is to be said of the premiss from which he draws it? Would Mr. Buchanan suffer himself without resistance to be made the subject of unscientific, but none the less painful, vivisectional experiments by a wild beast? Would he do nothing to check the too-pressing attentions of a savage dog? Would he let his house be overrun by rats or mice? Would he be careful of the feelings of a flea which might seek security on his person from that of an insufficiently zoöphilist cat? But on his own principles he has no right “under any circumstances whatever” to base his happiness or security on pain wilfully inflicted on lower creatures. Mr. Buchanan is not brilliant in dreaming, but at least he reasons better in his sleep then when he is awake.

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The Zoophilist (1 July, 1899) reprinted from The Star (19 June, 1899)

“MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN AT THE BACK OF BEYOND.”

(FROM “THE STAR,” JUNE 19TH.)

     SIR,—Under the above heading, there is printed in a publication called the British Medical Journal, a playfully savage attack upon myself, apropos my little parable about Vivisection published in the current number of the Zoophilist. The editor of the journal laughs to scorn my so-called Dream and makes most merry over my Deduction—that human beings have no right, under any circumstances whatever, to base their happiness or security on pain “wilfully” inflicted on inferior sentient creatures. “Would Mr. Buchanan,” he sarcastically inquires, “suffer himself without resistance to be made the subject of unscientific, but none the less painful, vivisectional experiments by a wild beast? Would he let his house be overrun with rats or mice? Will he be careful of the feelings of a flea?” &c., &c. This, sir, is the sort of retort with which the editorial Bob Sawyer or Benjamin Allen regales his circle of admiring chemists and druggists when it is suggested that a limit should be put to the clumsy cruelties of our so-called scientists! The poor man sees no difference between defending oneself against an attack by a wild animal or even killing a flea, and torturing under circumstances of inhuman devilry harmless dogs and helpless human beings; and he has the impudence, in drawing his absurd parallels, to accuse me of want of logic. Let me take leave, therefore, to assure him that my ideas of beneficence, Quixotic as they may seem, do not imply any abnegation of the right of self-protection, whether the creature who attacks me be a wild beast on four legs or a medical savage on two.
     It has, I believe, been proved up to the hilt that deeds of cold-blooded cruelty, done under the pretence of the service of Humanity, have been comparatively useless in the mitigation of disease and the widening of practical scientific knowledge; that, in other words, vivisection is worse than a crime, it is an imbecile and brutal blunder. That, however, was not my chief contention in the contribution to the Zoophilist. My contention was, and is, that the argument for vivisection was an argument against any possible belief in a beneficent God, and that it would be better for Humanity to perish outright, at once and for ever, than to preserve itself (even if that were possible) by acts of infamous torture done to creatures only a little lower, in the scale of sentient existence, than men and women.
     The British Medical Journalist is very much shocked that I should suggest any heterodoxy respecting the special Providence in which he and his class religiously believe. Your vivisector, your cheap scientist, like your military mercenary, is always pious; so that to mow down dervishes at Omdurman and to torment our dumb brethren in Edinburgh and London seem to him equally worthy of beings who aspire to find favour in the eyes of the Almighty. I, sir, am not so constituted. I refuse to worship in the blood-stained temples where the butchers and savages of this latterday Rome set up their Holy of Holies. I reserve my reverence for gods whom I can respect; and I believe that such gods are still at work purifying the human heart and elevating the human conscience in spite of the ugly blots which still blacken our boasted civilisation.
                                                             Yours, &c.,
                                                                        ROBERT   BUCHANAN.
17th June.

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The British Medical Journal (8 July, 1899)

“MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN AT THE BACK OF BEYOND.”

IT may be remembered that some little time ago after supping full of the horrors of antivivisectional literature Mr. Robert Buchanan had a nightmare. With this he then, like a naughty boy, tried to frighten the audience—meet, if few—who sit at the feet of the editor of the Zoöphilist. For this we felt it our duty to administer to him a very mild castigation. Mr. Buchanan thereupon went and wept on the sympathetic bosom of the Star. That paper “dwells apart,” and therefore we were undisturbed by the voice of his lamentation till the echo of it reached us from the current number of the Zoöphilist. Though Mr. Buchanan’s epistolary style can hardly be commended as an example of sweetness and light, his letter is one of the funniest things we have read for some time. In his vision of the Back of Beyond he laid it down as a principle that human beings have no right “under any circumstances whatever” to base their happiness or security on pain wilfully inflicted on animals, and we ventured to point out that if his practice was to be consistent with his professed principle, he must look upon the life of the harmless but unnecessary mouse as sacred, treat fleas and such small deer with Buddhist tenderness, and allow a hungry carnivore to lunch off him rather than do anything to hurt its feelings. It turns out, of course, that Mr. Buchanan did not mean what he said, and he naturally is not pleased to have his absurdity exposed. We should recommend him in future to follow the excellent advice of an eminent statesman, and when he means nothing to say nothing. Mr. Buchanan is indignant that we should have accused him of a want of logic. Logic is not by any means the only thing that he wants. But while logic can be learnt, temper and taste cannot be acquired; any attempt to teach them would therefore be labour lost. We cannot honestly congratulate our antivivisectionist friends on their new ally, but we must acknowledge that he has shown good judgment in joining them. Hamlet, according to the gravedigger, because he was mad was sent into England, where it would not be seen in him since the men there were as mad as he. For the same sound reason presumably Mr. Buchanan, because he wants logic, goes among the anitvivisectionists where the want of it will not be noticed. But if he wants logic, he is full of the finest of fine sentiments. He tells us he is not even as “your vivisector, your cheap scientist.” He refuses “to worship in the blood-stained temples where the butchers and savages of this letter-day Rome set up their Holy of Holies.” He reserves his reverence for gods whom he can respect, etc. Mr. Buchanan is mistaken in thinking that we are shocked at what he is pleased to call his “heterodoxy.” We feel not the slightest interest in his “gods,” more particularly as they appear to be of his own making. He is free, as far as we are concerned, to think what he likes on theology or any other subject. But when he speaks about things of which he knows nothing, and brings wanton charges of “cold-blooded cruelty” against men who sacrifice health and wealth and even ambition in their efforts to better the lot of their fellowmen he exceeds the licence of foolish speech allowed even to an excitable poetaster.

[Note:
Buchanan’s ‘story’, ‘A Dream; and a Deduction’, was published in The Zoophilist (1 June, 1899) and is available on this site.]

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Hermann Vezin

The Era (7 October, 1899)

MR. HERMANN VEZIN’S LUCK.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I notice that in a friendly paragraph you say “some one has been saying Hermann Vezin is unlucky,” i.e., brings ill-luck. To speak in my native tongue “it made me smile.” “Some one,” indeed! When Yates was manager of the old Adelphi Theatre and the entire audience uttered a tumultuous disapproval of the performance he advanced to the footlights and addressing them with perfect sangfroid said “If that individual is dissatisfied he can have his money back!” But Yates was more fortunate than I. He had his antagonists before him. I should have had to fight an invisible foe, and he was soon not a “some one,” but a multitude more numerous than Yates’s Adelphi audience. And how quickly their numbers grew. It takes centuries to establish a new religion. It takes years to introduce a new invention. A slander, an injurious lie, however incredible, is believed instanter. No one dreams of questioning its truth, or investigating its possibilities, but each one gives it currency in a thoughtless, gossipy way till it spreads with the deadly rapidity of a pestilence. So it did with me.
     If my information is correct the first “individual” who gave me this bad name was Mr Edgar Bruce. When he opened the old Prince of Wales’s Theatre in Tottenham-street, some one suggested the propriety of engaging me. His answer was “Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Vezin is a fine actor, and particular pal of mine, but he is so unlucky!” I have this from three members of his company who heard him say so. Of course, dear kind-hearted Bruce hadn’t the slightest idea that he was doing me any harm, or that what he said of me cannot possibly be true of me or any actor. As to the harm it did me, let me put down some facts, lest I should be accused of fancying things.
     In 1882 I commissioned the late Mr Charles Bernard to book me a Shakespearian tour. The following letters will give the result:—
                                                                       Theatre Royal, Newcastle.
                                                                                                 Nov. 25th, 1882.
     Dear Vezin,—
               I have written or seen all the managers of the principal theatres in the United Kingdom relative to dates for your coming out with a company as a Shakespearian star. Their replies bear such a strong resemblance, that one might imagine they had had a consultation and come to a general agreement upon the subject. They all have two distinct ideas regarding you: First, that there is no more accomplished actor on the English stage; the second, that you are so irrevocably wedded to ill-luck that no speculation would pay, whatever its other prospects, with which you were connected. Saker was the only one who consented to give me a date, but differed in no other respect from the rest. What is to be done? Are they to be left in their benighted superstition? I shall be in town in a day or two, and will see you upon the subject.
                                                                              Yours truly,
                                                                                        CHAS. BERNARD.

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                                                                                Theatre Royal.
                                                                                     Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
                                                                                                           Jan. 13th, 1883.
     Dear Vezin,—
               I got both your notes upon my return here. I have been running about booking at the theatres, and just missed the last you sent in London. I do not see any prospect of doing anything, the provincial managers are so superstitiously set against you.
                                                                                       Yours truly,
                                                                                                 CHAS. BERNARD.

     People might say this was a passing cloud, and I should live the slander down. But how was that possible when I could get no engagements? Before it was started I had never to seek engagements; managers applied to me; but, after that, I was compelled to seek engagements and sought for them in vain. Piece after piece was produced which contained a part which those who knew my work said was exactly suited to me, but it was always cast elsewhere. The injury followed me even in my humble capacity as a teacher of elocution. In tending pupils were warned against taking lessons of me because I was so unlucky. Lies have been invented of me by enemies as unscrupulous as the persecutors of Dreyfus. It would be too tedious to insist upon all the facts I could bring forward to prove the falsehood of the stigma. Let me simply mention two or three. I must mention no names. Over twenty years ago I played the principal part in a certain play over 100 times, and then migrated to another theatre. The play was continued without me and the receipts fell £20 to £25 per night. Years afterwards the same play was revived at another theatre and was the only piece produced throughout the season that played to a profit! A Shakespearian company played Othello twice during their fortnight’s stay in a provincial town. Upon the second occasion I was the Iago, and the receipts just doubled those of the preceding performance. These facts were given me officially. But this comes too near the praising of myself, and I hate it. I could multiply such instances until boredom would cause my readers to cry out, “Hold! enough!” So I leave the rest to the memory of those who have taken the trouble of following my career. One manager is reported to have given as a reason for not engaging me that I was a perfect Judas. He meant a Jonah, and I am glad of it, for Judas was a naughty man and Jonah was a harmless victim of the baseless superstition of ignorant sailors. However,, this clever manager came to grief without my help.
     During the years this stigma has clung to me I might have earned some £20,000. When I think of this I suppose I ought to feel very sad. But I have the consolation of having preserved my self-respect through it all. Instead of hindering, I have helped a goodly number of actors and actresses and several authors at critical points in their careers—in some cases without their knowledge.
     This looks like boasting again, so let me hurry on to the close, and give my reason for unfolding this doleful tale. It is not with the hope of any benefit to myself. No manager will offer me an engagement; no millionaire—I know only two—will offer to back me; but I am sorry to say I am not the only victim of this groundless superstition. There are others; but I hope that, after reading these lines, no actor will ever say of another whose abilities he acknowledges, that he is unlucky, since he must know, not only that such an accusation is utterly false, but that by doing so he is helping to deprive him of his livelihood. He must consider also that of all the Jonahs he throws overboard, none is likely to find a friendly whale to swallow and for three days and three nights keep him safe and snug in his—society.
                                               Yours faithfully,
                                                                HERMANN VEZIN.

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The Era (14 October, 1899)

MR. VEZIN’S “LUCK.”
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Is my old friend Hermann Vezin serious, or is he merely poking fun at the foolish persons who call him “unlucky?” In either case I regret that he has spoken, for he is merely handing stones to the stone-throwers, who would pelt even an angel if they saw him strolling in the street and lamenting his lack of occupation. The fact is that Vezin has made only one mistake in his career—he has elected to remain a salaried player in days when nearly every tyro becomes his own entrepreneur, and when the merest walking gentleman, by exhibiting sharp business qualities, may be hailed as another Garrick. Of Vezin’s fine gifts there has never been any question, but these very gifts have stood in his way, for the crowned Player never likes too strong a rival near the throne. Alas, my old friend has never been either a time-server or a man of business; he has been content to remain a man who loves his art and who altogether despises the tricks of the trade.
     Only a year or two ago I strolled by accident into the pit of the Brighton Theatre. The play was The Lady of Lyons, and Vezin was the Claude Melnotte, and as he spoke the wretched fustian of the celebrated Love-scene, culminating in the famous passage about “a palace raising to eternal summer,” I seemed, for a wonder, to be listening to the music of a poet; and remembering what this fine actor had done, from the day when he first stirred our enthusiasm in The Man o’ Airlie, I asked myself what the modern Stage could have come to, when Vezin was touring the “smalls” with a scratch company instead of standing in the front of achievement with a theatre of his own? The public would have gained; Art would have gained; authors would have gained if he had entered the lists as a manager, for the man whom fools call “unlucky” has all his life had a generous word and a helping hand for unknown talent of every description. He it was who discovered and practically made the late James Albery, and he did almost as much for Wills. That he stands, intellectually speaking, a head and shoulders over most of his contemporaries, and that he is both a student and a scholar as well as a fine artiste, we all know. Does he imagine, dear simple heart, that such superiority helps him in days when so few players know even the literature of their own profession? Cannot he realise yet, after so long an experience, that the Theatre is a Tom Tiddler’s Ground for mediocrity, not a Temple for serious enthusiasts without friends in smart society or “backers” on the Stock Exchange? The serious enthusiast, at any rate, has very little chance of getting a hearing, unless he conducts his own crusade as an actor-manager.
                                 Yours faithfully,                              ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Oct. 9th, 1899.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Last week Mr Vezin wrote to you “Intending pupils were warned against taking lessons of me because I was so unlucky.” May I say, as one of these pupils in 1887 (1) Mr Vezin introduced me to the late Henry Herman, which resulted in a first engagement on any stage, and enriched me by £13. (2) All my managers knew I was Mr Vezin’s pupil, so far from thinking that unlucky, they offered me re-engagements—one lasting about two years. (3) The crowning piece of good luck, my marriage to a member of the profession, is also due to my introduction to the stage by Mr Hermann Vezin. I am proud to sign myself,
                                                    ONE OF MR VEZIN’S LUCKY PUPILS.
     Oct. 11th, 1899.

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The Era (21 October, 1899)

MR. HERMANN VEZIN’S LUCK.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Will you permit me to endorse the reference in Mr Buchanan’s letter (appearing in your last issue) to the generosity shown by Mr Hermann Vezin towards those authors or actors, or whomsoever, struggling towards some worthy goal, come across his path. I am one of those who have had Mr Vezin to instruct, encourage, and help them, and consider it the best of luck.
                                                              Yours faithfully,
     Oct. 16th, 1899.                                                I. E. CAMPBELL.

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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Someone has been saying that one should not go for lessons to Mr Hermann Vezin, because even to his pupils he is unlucky. Permit me to say, out of gratitude to the best and most helpful of masters, that I have had the advantage of lessons in elocution from Mr Vezin, and that good luck simply pursues me! I had been a few months on the stage when Augustin Daly saw me play and gave me a three years’ contract. Then Mr Comyns Carr saw me and came round after the second act of a piece to engage me for the leading part in one of Mr Pinero’s plays. While I was sustaining that rôle Mr William Greet saw me and engaged me. When I was with him Mr Forbes Robertson wanted me for leading parts. Mr Greet kindly released me, and while with Mr Robertson, Sir Henry Irving sent for and engaged me for the Lyceum. Mr George Alexander, too, has sent for and engaged me for the St. James’s. At the beginning of the spring and autumn seasons I usually have from six to eight offers to play leading parts in the country—hardly what one would call unlucky! I withhold my name, so that this may not be considered an advertisement, but feel that I must in gratitude point out to the superstitiously inclined that it is as absurd to suppose that Mr Vezin’s pupils must be unfortunate as to imagine that a play—if it is a good play—will be a failure because he is in it.
                   Yours faithfully,
                             ONE OF MR VEZIN’S LUCKY PUPILS.

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The Era (28 October, 1899)

HERMANN VEZIN’S LUCK.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Your readers are doubtless aware that Mr Hermann Vezin’s lessons in elocution have not been confined to members of the dramatic profession, but have been extended to those who have made use of his sound instruction in giving lectures and elocutionary entertainments. Some years ago I was a pupil of Mr Vezin, and it is a great pleasure to me to testify now to the benefit of his able and conscientious teaching has been to me as an elocutionist and lecturer. Since that time I have had my share of good luck in receiving and retaining engagements, and of late, instead of diminishing in number, they have decidedly increased.
                                                     Yours faithfully,                     WATSON THORNTON.
     Feszty’s Panorama, Greater Britain Exhibition, Earl’s-court, Oct. 23d.

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The Era (11 November, 1899)

THEATRICAL “LUCK.”
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     The recent discussion anent lucky and unlucky actors, if such really do exist, is interesting from the point of view of the onlooker only. To the actor thus branded, that is to say, branded as being unlucky, it is tragical, as Mr Hermann Vezin has convincingly shown. An idle word, a foolish remark, made all unthinkingly, may have a very disastrous effect in a manner little suspected. Many a comedian has lost caste and cast, too, if one may say so, through an unjustified ban—through being carelessly stigmatised as “unlucky” by some responsible, though more often than not, irresponsible person. We all know how a plain, unvarnished tale will grow as it travels the rounds by word of mouth, and we also know that the best way to hang a dog is to give him a bad name without any cause. We cannot give names here, but every professional reader, or almost every reader of The Era, is acquainted with actors who cannot, nay, who do not, get engagements wholly and solely through the “bad name.” “He is unlucky, he is a Jonah, and will wreck the theatrical craft, so don’t have Brown Jones. Such a pity, because he’s a good fellow and a splendid mummer.” Of how many unfortunate actors has this been said? Dozens. At the present time to our knowledge there are several excellent comedians “walking about,” vainly advertising for shops, who have nothing against them except that they are “unlucky.” Why? Simply because they have played in several failures right off. But then surely it was the play, the author, and not the actor who was to blame? How can any one man bring bad luck to a drama or to a theatre? What is this intangible thing called “luck?” Who has it? How is it obtained? Good luck or bad luck? There is just now a clever lady playing in one of the biggest successes of the day who is supposed to be proverbial for her good luck, and there is another, playing in another success, who has been noted for her bad luck. How can this be accounted for? Of course, it is all ridiculous superstition—the superstition with which the stage is permeated. Cross-eyed comedians used to be looked upon as theatrically dangerous individuals, not unrelated to the gentleman whose name is not mentioned in polite society—yet at the present moment there are several very successful actors whose visual orbs gaze not straight ahead, except with difficulty. Madame Bernhardt would not have a certain actor in her company because she declared he had the “evil eye,” whatever that may be, so the management had the pleasure of paying a large salary to an inoffensive gentleman to “walk about.” Prejudice is largely to blame for these foolish charges and statements, and, one is tempted to add, wicked ignorance. For many people, through having the absurd fallacy of being unlucky promulgated against them, have been, and are, deprived of earning their livelihood. Occasionally, wilful spite is the root of the trouble. For instance, here is a true story. A certain actor of high repute was engaged to support a certain actress who had rapidly come to the front. The theatre is still in the Strand. The actress took an unreasonable dislike to the actor, and in the next new production—a Shakespearian revival—she asserted that he spoilt her scenes through being fluffy—through not knowing his lines. The charge itself was childish, as the actor in question knew his Shakespeare backwards, as they say. However, it was persisted in, and one night, through absolute nervousness brought about by the harm that rumour was doing his professional character, he was “fluffy,” and it was noticed by the stage-manager and several of the actress’s friends in front. That was the beginning of the end of that man’s career. He left the theatre at the completion of his engagement somewhat under a cloud. For two years he was out of an engagement. Then he got one at a smaller salary, and then the story went about again that he had dried up with Miss So-and-So, and he had the usual fortnight’s notice. So, in the end, he grew sick of battling against what seemed the inevitable, and had to leave the profession. Luckily, he had saved money, and he still lives in retirement on a modest income. And these things came about through the “hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.” Label an actor “unlucky” or “unreliable,” and you sign his death-warrant. Men and houses are frequently classed alike. In London there have been many theatres ruined through a bad reputation gratuitously bestowed. There was the old Queen’s in Tottenham-street. That has a most adventurous career, and, as the Dust-Bin, seemed doomed to extinction, until the Bancrofts went to the rescue. From the unluckiest, they converted it into the luckiest theatre in the metropolis, and it was only when the Salvation Army tried to “save” the place that it lost all its glory and went back to its bad old ways. Another Queen’s—the one in Long-acre—was an unfortunate house from the beginning. It never made any real mark except, perhaps, when H. J. Byron’s Dearer than Life was played there in 1868, with such people as Henry Irving, Charles Wyndham, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, Henrietta Hodson, and J. L. Toole. That, perhaps, and during the runs of The Lancashire Lass, The Turn of the Tide (revival), and ’Twixt Axe and Crown, by Tom Taylor, with the beautiful Mrs Rousbey, was the only period in the whole of its existence that the theatre was not considered unlucky. Then it fell into decay and the clerical folk stepped in and made the building into a stores. After that a coach builder tried his fortunes, with what “luck” we know not. At one time the Olympic was spoken of with doubt and fear, and yet Mr Henry Neville not only made his reputation there but a very big sum of money too. The Ticket-of-Leave Man had many runs there, and yet the insanes thought opening the house was like flying in the face of Providence. The Globe, too. If any one dared to produce anything but a “crying” piece there, then that creature was honestly believed to be demented. Originality in a playhouse years ago was looked upon as sacrilege. Think, too, of the hard names (and titles) bestowed upon the old Novelty, because, forsooth, the entertainments were not good! Mr Penley is proverbially a “lucky” man, and, no doubt, he will make the Novelty lucky also. Of the Opera Comique one hardly knows what to say. No theatre with so brief a life has had more ups and downs. Days of prosperity—chiefly under John Hollingshead and D’Oyly Carte—it has enjoyed, but think of the unprosperous—think of the weeks and months it has been untenanted through—bad luck? No, prejudice. The house is right enough. The plays and the performances have failed to attract—that is all. Fortune favours the brave, and many brave men have tried the Opera Comique, only they have not been brave enough. If the public don’t know where a playhouse is they can’t be expected to attend and patronise the “show.” Though if the show were good they would soon find that out. It is not the house that is unlucky but the management in the choice of the wares offered. No player, no playhouse can be unlucky—it is nonsense for anyone to say so. There is no such thing as luck unless we are permitted to say that the lucky man is he who is lucky enough to get what he deserves, and the same applies to places.

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