"THE MIRACLE. "
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."j SIR,—The outspoken delight and enjoyment expressed by your correspondent " X." with regard to one of the Christmas. pantomimes are themselves rather interesting phenomena, almost as refreshing as he apparently finds the entertainment in question. His powers of admiration are apparently omni- vorous, and include even the limelight men, who, "slung at some peril of their lives in swinging cradles from the roof,"' send down "shafts of blinding light of all colours" upon the scene below. Alas!! I can lay no claim to your correspondent's: occult powers, and dare not affirm with his (doubtless well- founded) confidence that " that is the deliberate intention of Providence," either with regard to theatrical or Matterhorn., scenery. Without pretending to be in the confidence either of Providence or of the great London public, but merely as a humble member of the latter, just a mere " man of no import- ance," may I venture to express a word of sincere regret ate first, the choice of subject and, secondly, its treatment ?
Of course we all know that Christmas and other panto- mimes are apt to have little or no connexion with theia• ostensible subject. That "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Robin- son Crusoe," or "Dick Whittington" should all be represented' by comely young ladies in tights is traditional—and also perhaps, indicative of the keen sense of the fitness of things possessed and enjoyed by many theatrical managers and their appreciative audiences. No one would be so churlish as to grudge any appropriate praise or appreciation either to the shapely young ladies, or to the enterprising management, or oven to the limelight men ; for they, at least, do not, as a rule, lay any special claims to be judged by standards of high art or to anything more than-they-fully-deserve.
But is it not rather a pity that, in eager search for some- thing " new," one of the most charming of the many medieval legends in honour of Our Lady should have been chosen as a vehicle for pantomimic sensationalism, as " made in Ger- many"? The present "production" (bolstered up and gal- vanized into unnatural life by elaborate and lavish advertisement) would seem to bear about the same relation to the original as that of a flaring poster to an " old master," of a jig on a barrel organ to a fugue of Bach's, or of the "shafts of blinding light, &c. " (so much admired by your corre- spondent) to the light of day or of a moonlight night.
It is pleasant to find oneself in absolute agreement with your correspondent on one point at least. He is rightly eareastic concerning the ineptitude of the idea of treating the story as a dream ; it is, of course, absurd. The original paints, -or attempts to paint, the infinite pity of Notre Dame for frail humanity as typified by the erring sister. In the face of ecclesiastical severity and strict monastic asceticism, the erring nun is admitted straightway to heaven—having suffered her purgatory, poor thing I on earth. " Her sins which are many are forgiven." Her purgatory has been ?real, and no mere bad dream, or even nightmare I Unhappily, for purposes of theatrical display, it has been deemed appro- priate to visualize, corporealize, and thus emphasize the poor sister's frailties—a glaring error of taste and lack of all sense of artistic proportion, which is the more unpardonable as that side of the subject has already been treated by Maeterlinck, with his unerring instinct for sheer beauty, as being told in confession to the Virgin. The difference between his beau- tiful version of the legend and that now under consideration would seem to show the contrast between the artist's touch and the heavy hand of the artificer or artisan.
That this entirely false proportion, destroying as it does the balance and beauty of the original legend, has given a " twist " to the whole story (capable, one fears, of disturbing the rest of the good monk who first composed it) is shown, I think, by a comment overheard by chance the other day. A young fellow, the typical "man in the street," happened to remark to another as I passed, "It's rather a sordid story, you know—about a nun who goes wrong ! " I heard no more, but it was obvious, of course, to what he referred; and equally -obvious that the latest achievement of the latest form of so-called "dramatic art," of which we have heard so much recently, has been the conversion of a beautiful legend to the praise and glory of Our Lady into—a " sordid story" I Perhaps that is the miracle !--I am, Sir, Sic., NEMO. London.
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