Hobbies for Husbands Girls, it is a mistake to suppose that it is absolutely necessary to give up being in love directly you are married. Of course, it is hard to love a lord and master as much as the sycophantic slave who told you over and over again that he was entirely unworthy of your affection; who said, perhaps on bended knee, that it was incredible to him that so perfect a creature as yourself could possibly care for so worthless a being as he. If you are really anxious to remain in love with your husband, even after marriage, it is a wise plan to arrange for him to have a hobby. will agree with you, but in all probability he will want the hobby to be himself. Husbands are terribly human. He Of course, your idea is that you shall be the hobby, and if you can convince him that this is a sound scheme, all will be well. (The chances are a million to one against your pulling it off.) The prudent wife will induce her husband to select some form of occupation which, if it does not increase his wife's attractiveness, at least will not detract from it. The habit of giving house-parties is to be advised only to those husbands who are good hosts. If a man eats peas with a knife, or talks about radium, or gets drunk in the drawing-room, he will not be well advised to spend much money on entertaining; he will be a failure as a host. The famous runner, who has been Borrowing money is not a bad habit, in some respects. It tends to alienate the husband's friends, and drives him back into the society of his wife. So Shakespeare was wrong. Borrowing does not dull the edge of husbandry. To put money into theatrical speculations is a good thing for the husband. It opens his mind, and if matters come to a crisis, the fact that he was "mixed up with theatrical people" is certain to produce sympathy for the wife. Few women-few married women at leastcan be really happy without a certain amount of sorrow. Some husbands, who have taken the precaution to marry wealthy wives, write plays. Up to a certain point, much may be said in favour of this hobby. It certainly takes the man away from home, and detains him at Bohemian Clubs into the small hours of the morning. But a man who has once had a play produced becomes impossible as a conversationalist. When he is not talking about himself and his "works," his anguish becomes painful even for the least sympathetic wife to witness. Do you think (Continued on page 58) Photographed during Saturday's football match between Brentford and Fulham. The game was remarkable for the number of fouls, the whistle being blown every few minutes, and one of them is shown above. Otherwise, the match was fairly fast and exciting. The two goals which secured victory for Fulham were.made in about two minutes, at the close of the game, after the spectators had put it down as a draw, and were leaving the field that the wife of a playwright is allowed to talk. about foularde and surah, and appendicitis and zibelline, and underhousemaids and second footmen, and other subjects dear to the perfect woman? If you do, you are wrong. She is not allowed to talk at all; but, by Jove, she is compelled to listen; and more women have died of listening than of broken hearts. (It may be that if a woman cannot break silence her heart automatically breaks.) Any form of literary work is bad for a husband, unless, of course, he gets well paid for it; then it is a good scheme to let him have a room for the purpose -the box-room will do. Even if your husband is making £10,000 a year as a novelist, don't let him have a superb room, furnished with rare etchings, costly tapestries, and fascinating bibelots. These things will tend to distract his attention from his work. And the harder he works, the better for you. Don't deliberately point this out to him, but say, slightingly but lovingly, "It's very hard, isn't it, George, or Rider, or Anthony, or Hall (or whatever your husband's name is), that you shouldn't be making the income of a leading tenor or a comic lion. Now get back to the box-room, dear old man." Games of skill, such as chess or dominoes, are good for the husband, provided he does not insist on his wife playing too. It is terrible to play chess. It is revolting to play dominoes. But I can imagine nothing more terrible than a woman having to play either of these games with her own husband. Backgammon is just as horrid. Stamp-collecting is not a bad thing in its way. But you will have a pretty poor time if your husband. brings philatelists home to dinner. When threecornered Cape of Good Hope talk is going on over the walnuts and the wine, it is scarcely worth while to pay extra for being present. I should hesitate to map out any scheme which would purport to suit all husbands. There are husbands and husbands. Some are even worsesome wear whiskers. If your husband wears whiskers, make a point of fastening some straw in them before he leaves for business in the morning. He will not return. Don't advertise for him. They will treat him very kindly where he is. A Romantic Marriage LORD MALDEN CARRIES OFF HIS BRIDE IN A MOTOR-CAR A Motor Elopement The runaway motor match has at last come upon us. Viscount Malden, the twenty-one year old son of the Earl of Essex, selected it as his method of accomplishing marriage with Miss Eveline Freeman, the daughter of Mr. R. Stewart Freeman, J.P., D.L., of the Old Manor House, Wingrave, Bucks. Unbeknown to any human soul far less the parents of the young couple -the venturesome Viscount appeared in his motor outside the gates of the Old Manor House at six o'clock on the appointed morn a week or so ago. Three sharp calls from his motor-horn, and Miss Freeman suddenly appeared, boarded the car, and the two sped swiftly, and as silently as possible, through sleeping villages towards Cirencester. The motor, however, somewhat spoilt itself for romantic possibilities by breaking Photo by down thrice, compelling the runaways at Oxford to take the less original train to Cirencester, where the marriage took place by special license. Why the young couple should have elected to elope must, of course, remain a mystery, for, to the outer world, theirs would appear to be a delightfully straightforward and conventional match. Lord Malden met Miss Freeman hunting with the Rothschild Staghounds in the Vale of Aylesbury, while he himself was a student at the Cirencester Agricultural College, and that the match has the full approval of their parents may be assumed by the announcement that "after the honeymoon, Lord and Lady Malden will return to Cassiobury Park, Watford, the country residence of Lord Essex." Altogether, a pretty, well-planned, and highly proper deviation from correct usage. J. T. Newman Whose romantic marriage with Lord Malden, heir to the Earldom of Essex, attracted much attention. horsewoman, and is here shown with the Whaddon Chase Foxhounds J. T. Newman Lady Malden is an accomplished THE PLAYHOUSES "HARA-KIRI" AT THE SAVOY The new Japanese play which is being performed in front of What the Butler Saw, at the Savoy Theatre, starts an interesting train of thought. From the argument kindly supplied by the management, we gather it is a tragedy of the deepest dye. Yet Hara-Kiri leaves us almost helpless from the efforts to overcome the gusts of merriment raised by the performance. At first we are impressed by the vast difference between the canons of dramatic art of two countries. What is tragedy to one people is comedy to another. Hara-Kiri made an English audience almost forget their manners. The fact that it was difficult, even with the aid of the argument, to follow the story of the play, was not wholly responsible for this strange state of affairs. Making Allowances Acting is an art which can be appreciated by those who have no knowledge of the language of its exponents. The facial play of the actor, his gestures, the tones of his voice, afford sufficient clues to the comprehension of his meaning. Many a playgoer, with no more knowledge of French than is derived from the tuition at an English public school, Photo by Thus does the intelligent playgoer continue to pile up allowances for his unseemly mirth at HaraKiri until he must be struck with the fact that he has delved for his excuses among the absurdities of our own melodrama. This may prove the key of the riddle. Hara-Kiri may represent a species of entertainment as hilarious to the modern Japanese playgoer of Tokio to-day as a "fit-up" performance of The Worst Woman in London might be to us. As for the acting in HaraKiri, it is difficult to believe that it represents the best that Japanese players can give us. We can recall the performances of Mme. Sadu Yacco, and, taking this accomplished actress as a standard, we are led to the supposition that the performers at the Savoy, earnest and painstaking as they may be, belong to a different order.. Japanese art is not understanded of the English people all in a flash. Japanese dramatic art may be governed by canons as dissimilar; but it is difficult to shut out the suspicion that in presenting Hara-Kiri to an English audience as an essentially Japanese production-and by this we understand as one which represents the highest standard of Japanese dramatic art to-day-somebody has been having a little joke with us. E. C. S. "Hara-Kiri" New Jap drama at the Savoy has wept with Sarah Bernhardt and smiled with Réjane. Yet so different are the methods of the Japanese players at the Savoy from those to which we are accustomed, that their scowling faces, strange exaggerated gait, and guttural tones, appeal to the English observer as irresistibly funny. The intelligent observer casts about for a solution of this mystery. His cogitations may run on some such lines as these: "I must make the utmost allowance for differences of stage method, of costume, and of delivery. So when Kagekiyo, the Samurai, moves about the stage with a gait which is something between a mariner's roll and a hooligan's slouch, I must put this down to stage tradition. This walk may be stereotyped by long usage, even as our own stage villain (he of the opera cloak, the cigarette, and the patent boots) has mannerisms by which he stamps his purpose upon us. Perhaps the transpontine stage villain would be as funny to a Japanese as Kagekiyo is to us." Play Pictorial A Sporting Supplement With our Hunting Number this week we present a plate as a Supplement entitled, "Forrard Away!" from an original drawing by F. A. Stewart. It is reproduced in a light brown tint, and should make an attractive addition to the gallery of plates which have been presented by THE BYSTANDER. |