The musical comedy lyric is an interesting survival of the days, long since departed, when poets worked. As everyone knows, the only real obstacle in the way of turning out poetry by the mile was the fact that you had to make the darned stuff rhyme. Many lyricists rhyme as they pronounce, and their pronunciation […]

And the Six Best Performances by Unstarred Actors What lessons do we draw from the past theatrical season? In the first place, the success of The Wanderer proves that the day of the small and intimate production is over and that what the public wants is the large spectacle. In the second place, the success […]

I had always wanted to be a dramatic critic. A taste for sitting back and watching other people work, so essential to the make-up of this sub-species of humanity, has always been one of the leading traits in my character. I have seldom missed a first night. No sooner has one periodical got rid of […]

Which Shows Why Librettists Pick at the Coverlet The trouble about musical comedy, and the reason why a great many otherwise kindly and broadminded persons lie in wait round the corner with sudden scowls, their whole being intent on beating it with a brick the moment it shows its head, is that, from outside, it […]

Indoor golf is that which is played in the home. Whether you live in a palace or a hovel, an indoor golf-course, be it only of nine holes, is well within your reach. A house offers greater facilities than an apartment, and I have found my game greatly improved since I went to live in […]

To the thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we are becoming a nation of minor poets. In the good old days poets were for the most part confined to garrets, which they left only for the purpose of being ejected from the offices of magazines and papers to which […]

I look in my glass, dear reader, and what do I see? Nothing so frightfully hot, believe me. The face is slablike, the ears are large and fastened on at right-angles. Above the eyebrows comes a stagnant sea of bald forehead, stretching away into the distance with nothing to relieve it but a few wisps […]

I could tell my story in two words–the two words “I drank.” But I was not always a drinker. This is the story of my downfall–and of my rise–for through the influence of a good woman, I have, thank Heaven, risen from the depths. The thing stole upon me gradually, as it does upon so […]

This is peculiarly an age where novelists pride themselves on the breadth of their outlook and the courage with which they refuse to ignore the realities of life; and never before have authors had such scope in the matter of the selection of heroes. In the days of the old-fashioned novel, when the hero was […]

“In Denmark,” said the man of ideas, coming into the smoking room, “I see that they have original ideas on the subject of advertising. According to the usually well-informed Daily Lyre, all ‘bombastic’ advertising is punished with a fine. The advertiser is expected to describe his wares in restrained, modest language. In case this idea […]

I found Reggie in the club one Saturday afternoon. He was reclining in a long chair, motionless, his eyes fixed glassily on the ceiling. He frowned a little when I spoke. “You don’t seem to be doing anything,” I said. “It’s not what I’m doing, it’s what I am not doing that matters.” It sounded […]

To the Game-Captain (of the football variety) the world is peopled by three classes, firstly the keen and regular player, next the partial slacker, thirdly, and lastly, the entire, abject and absolute slacker. Of the first class, the keen and regular player, little need be said. A keen player is a gem of purest rays […]

A silence had fallen upon the smoking room. The warrior just back from the front had enquired after George Vanderpoop, and we, who knew that George’s gentle spirit had, to use a metaphor after his own heart, long since been withdrawn from circulation, were feeling uncomfortable and wondering how to break the news. Smithson is […]

PROLOGUE After we had sent in our card and waited for a few hours in the marbled ante-room, a bell rang and the major-domo, parting the priceless curtains, ushered us in to where the editor sat writing at his desk. We advanced on all fours, knocking our head reverently on the Aubusson carpet. “Well?” he […]

Into the basking warmth of the day there had crept, with the approach of evening, that heartening crispness which heralds the advent of autumn. Already, in the valley by the ninth tee, some of the trees had begun to try on strange colours, in tentative experiment against the coming of nature’s annual fancy dress ball, […]

On the young man’s face, as he sat sipping his ginger-ale in the club-house smoking-room, there was a look of disillusionment. “Never again!” he said. The Oldest Member glanced up from his paper. “You are proposing to give up golf once more?” he queried. “Not golf. Betting on golf.” The Young Man frowned. “I’ve just […]

The young man, as he sat filling his pipe in the club-house smoking-room, was inclined to be bitter. “If there’s one thing that gives me a pain squarely in the centre of the gizzard,” he burst out, breaking a silence that had lasted for some minutes, “it’s a golf-lawyer. They oughtn’t to be allowed on […]

A pleasant breeze played among the trees on the terrace outside the Marvis Bay Golf and Country Club. It ruffled the leaves and cooled the forehead of the Oldest Member, who, as was his custom of a Saturday afternoon, sat in the shade on a rocking-chair, observing the younger generation as it hooked and sliced […]

The young man came into the club-house. There was a frown on his usually cheerful face, and he ordered a ginger-ale in the sort of voice which an ancient Greek would have used when asking the executioner to bring on the hemlock. Sunk in the recesses of his favourite settee the Oldest Member had watched […]

In the smoking-room of the club-house a cheerful fire was burning, and the Oldest Member glanced from time to time out of the window into the gathering dusk. Snow was falling lightly on the links. From where he sat, the Oldest Member had a good view of the ninth green; and presently, out of the […]