Enchanted Aisles by Alexander Woollcott; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1924

Of this passion and capacity for work--what Shaw in his essay on Cæsar describes as "the power of killing a dozen secretaries under you, as a life or death courier kills horses"--the wanderer back stage in our own theater will find some stray examples. Maude Adams had it--a tireless general.

Is it an idle fancy to, suggest that something of this gift which Cinderella had is among the many possessed by Booth Tarkington? You can't be many minutes with his, books and plays before you begin thinking of your early days. Just as certain weddings in New York bring out onto the highways a type of inhabitant most of us never see here from one year's end to another, just as even several years, ago you had to sit down and look about you in a Maude Adams audience to be reminded from time to time how many delightful people still lived in New York, so the plays and books of Booth Tarkington not only set astir a thousand, memories of an America that was, but what is more important, suggest to those of us who, live, in exile here that, that America continues.

If we were in New York, stopping at the Holland House or the Fifth Avenue Hotel, we drove up town in the evening to see the new risen star named Maude Adams, who was appearing at the Empire in "The Little Minister," under the management of one of those brothers whom the uncomprehending Ada Rehan was referring to disdainfully as "these Frohmans." At home the grownups played duplicate whist or progressive euchre and the kids gathered under the lamppost at the corner to compare their collections of those white celluloid buttons which one wore on the lapel with those of more indecent import hidden underneath to be exposed only furtively. The girls spent untold hours copying Gibson heads and framing them in passe-partout as Christmas gifts, and grandma shook her head sadly over the coarse tendency to shout "Nit" and "Rubber" manifested by the younger generation. The really smart fellow was the swagger one who was beginning to appear at the beaches and golf courses (golf was coming in) minus his coat and, wonder of wonders, minus his suspenders. (But Mr. Tarkington may not use the bold Shirt Waist Man in this play of ours because Marc Connelly already has him in mind for some scene of his own concoction.)

I should have liked to serve, too, as messenger boy for one nosegay that went to the Biltmore that night. It was a handful of rosemary. Said the card that went with it: "This is for remembrance, dear Uncle Jasper." The card was unsigned, but Mr. Drew must have known that it could have come from only one person in all the world-- Maude Adams.

We immediately became busy with plans for our own box party on that occasion. We wanted seats for Mrs. Fiske, Maude Adams, Booth Tarkington, Kate Douglas Wiggin and Sir James M. Barrie. Two vacant seats were held until the final curtain because of a persistent notion that somehow those for whom they were intended would manage to attend a performance they were so especially equipped to enjoy. Thus there was a seat for Eugene Field and another for Charles Dickens.

AN OPEN LETTER TO A LADY

ANY WELL REGULATED HOME,

December 24, ANY YEAR.

DEAR MAUDE ADAMS:

This is just a line to carry the season's greetings and to tell a little of how much we all miss you. Here it is Christmas Eve. As our old friend Captain Hook observed on a celebrated occasion, "I should be feeling deevy, yet over me broods a disky spirit, premonition of impending doom, embracing me inexorably like a closing umbrella." To-morrow the land may be snow mantled and all the frosty air above it a tingle and gay with chimes and sleigh bells. Yet there will come no sound from that abandoned creature, Tinker Bell , nor all her tribe that used to riot in the treetops at sundown.

It is such a long time since Peter Pan waved good-by from his front doorstep in those treetops. It is such a long time since the self-important Liza last stamped her foot for the music to begin, since the lost children built the house for Wendy , since Nibs danced the pillow dance and Michael , after slaying a pirate or two, wiped off his cutlass and exclaimed: "I like it, Wendy, I like it very much."

Of course you must not think there are no good things on the stage this year. Indeed, there are probably more things that are fine and bold and aspiring than ever before. But I would steal a line from that love letter the enamored bobby wrote to his Cinderella from the police station. "There are thirty-four policemen sitting in this room, but I'd rather have you, my dear."

Well, Miss Adams, a Merry Christmas to you. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I send you my love.

Your fond, multitudinous friend,

THE AMERICAN PLAYGOER.

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