A note of piquancy was given to Mr. DU MAURIER'S part by his broken
English. "Broken" is perhaps not quite the word, unless we may speak of a
torrent as being broken by pebbles in its bed. There were momentary
hesitancies, and a few easy French words, such as _pardon?_ _pourquoi
donc?_ _c'est permis?_ _alors_, were introduced to flatter the
comprehension of the audience; but for the rest his fluency--and at all
junctures, even the most unlikely--was simply astounding. Few people,
speaking in their native tongue, can ever have commanded so facile an
eloquence. What chance had a mere Englishman against him?
The action of _The Prude's Fall_ was supposed to take place in 1919, but
its atmosphere was clearly ante-bellum. Anyhow there was no sign of the
alleged damage done to our moral standards by the War. But nobody will
quarrel on that ground with Mr. BESIER and Miss EDGINTON, the clever
authors of this very interesting play. And if we have to be taught how to
behave by a Frenchman, to the detriment of our British _amour propre_,
there is nobody who can do it so nicely and painlessly as Mr. DU MAURIER.
"WEDDING BELLS."
I begin to suspect that the possible situations of marital farce are
becoming exhausted. Certainly we have lost the power of being staggered by
the emergence of an old wife out of the past. But Mr. SALISBURY FIELD, who
wrote _Wedding Bells_ for America, is not content with a single repetition
of this ancient device; he must needs give us these intrusions in
triplicate, showing how they affect the career of (1) the hero, (2) his
man-servant, (3) a poet-friend.
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