THE GREATER GLORY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 310, 24 September 1921, Page 3

THE GREATER GLORY

A COMEDY IN ONE ACT (Dedicated to Dr. Truby King.) f (By F.E.8.) Time: Morning. Scene: A richly-fur-nished apartment in the "best" part of any large city. Evidently it is the apartment of artists —popular, successful artists —for the mark of expensiveness is on every piece of furniture, on every book, every article in the room. On a wonderful couch, that cost anything from -£7O, reclines a woman, a cigarette in her mouth. She is Alicia, the wife of John Desmond, the famous artist. In her day—for she is now only 26—she has been a world-famous writer of stories: stories that tell of the home, of children, of true love. . . . Standing by an easel, with a suggestion of a sneer on his handsome face, is Desmond, a man of 30. On his easel is the drawing of a woman —a Madonna, with a child reclining in the crook of her arm. It in a facsimile of a wonderful bas-relief he found'while travelling in Macedonia with his wife, who wanted to get material for her book, "The Child In All Countries.” On the wall 'a re numbrous pictures of children, for Desmond, who is a great favourite in society, piaints pictures of children for old maids and childless couples. . . . John and Alicia are childless, and have a ioint income of .£20,000 a year: for Alicia’s royalties seem never ending, and John's commissions pour in steadily. John throws a cigarette into a bronze dish he found in Banares, and utters a curse. . . , JOHN: Damn! It’s always the same. . . . Satiated with success. ' They say nothing succeeds'like success. Tommyrat, I call it. If anyone asked me, I should say that nothing achieves failure so much as success. No, I'm not crazy! (savagely, with a thump of his fist on an elaborate mahogany table.) I’m all right. But I'm fed up with everything. To-day, it’s about eleven o’clock. And on mornings like this for the last five, years it has been nothing but cheques, letters from crazy admirers, cadging letters from fake societies, invitations to sycophants’ houses, where you only go because you’re supposed to be something ... to talk hypocritical nothings to old women . . . immoral old women, who pose as blushing saints. . . . My God, Alice, if I only had not succeeded these five years! I remember the old studios at Chelsea, with old Leon Sarget as the maitre, and the dear, dirty old saveloys in the Pig’s Ears’ restaurant. That was the the time you were on "The Wire,” writing those little things about “Children and the homo; they were great yarns, little woman j. . . . wonderful little yarns,

with a wealth of soul. Do you know, I was in lovo with you long before I read those in “The Wire," and met you. . . . And do you remember the days in the little flat at—where we had those chintz blinds .... nnd Tony Gra-

ham, and Jack Ville, and tho rest of them .... still on their papers.

finding happiness, while we find only ennui and sorrow in our wealth. That we should be hooted by crowds and called "capitalist and profiteer” when wo go for a run lor this! Lord, I think the humblest porter is happier than we are. ... , (He takes a cigarette, .absentmindedly, from a diamond-studded golden case, presented him by the Rajah of F.miden after that great picture that was hung at the academy in—in—.anyway, the ono that set the world talking—and throws himself on to a tapestry-covered 'settee. The pictures of the children seem to laugh at him, and he glares savagely at the unfinished 1 Macedonian Madonna. His wife who lias been sobbing, looks! up, dabbing at her tear-dimmed eyes with a silken foamy, handkerchief). ALICIA (tearfully): John, I’m feeling simply terrible about everything. 1 don’t know what to think about anything. This success is appalling. Everywhere you go you ro talked over for your work. Only yesterday I was at Lady Fitzjim's for five o'clock tea, and that terrible de Trafford woman, who has a brood of youngsters—about seven of the vulgar things—said she had been reading a scries of articles about children in a certain paper. John, dear, she didn’t know that "Mater” was my pen-name for the "Daily Ticker, ana she went, on to condemn the writer of the articles. And she called- tho writer a hypocrite—(sob)—and said that no decent woman would read tho articles, for she was sure they were written by h nnstv angular old maid, who thought of children only as things to give brimstone and treacle to. . • • Well, Lady l , got rodder and redder, and I got whiter and white, biri the de Trafford person didn’t stop. "In my opinion, she said, "tho literary woman who writes about home and tho children simply parades herself before Iho world as a woman who does not know her duty . . . 1 have met these women,- and they are mostly of that typo, except a few married ones. . . - They’ve got no right *to tell of things they know nothing about.” She stopped then and I got up, and said I had a headache, and just got to my limousine when the tears camo. Oh, John, I'm so unhappy! JOHN: Poor old chap. (Ho goes over to her and strokes her wavy golden hair.) Toor old sonme. . . • do yoi know, I heard nasty things about myself too. . . Archdeacon Johns was praising my picture "Christmas. p” 1 . n T? the one with the little girl kneehng before her bed, and the Christmas angel, and all the rest of it, when some old fool broke in to lie B. told me, so it's true. An-hdba-con," he eaid, "it> beautiful stuff, but there’s no soul in it. Just ado . evident that the man who paintc i doesn’t know anything about children. ..." I felt pretty much of a fool. . . . (Ho puffs savagely at his cigarette.) Ah. To think that wealth brings this state of mind: Boredom! Satiation! Ln happiness! ... Is there no relief, no happiness, no pleasure in this I'fe.lN . ALlClA’(dully): No! M ealthandwaste, yiches and ruin, money and (She sneers. Fine sounding sentences for my next novel, eh? What ehall 1 <«I1 it: "The Elysium of the V ealthj . (She laughs mirthlessly. Her •is silent: smoking, his face dark wi ll his feelings. Alicia buries her face m a cushion. There they mt, in slle’’ce3or a space of time-anythnig tetuwn a minute and an hour. Of a sudden Alicia’s eyes.glisten. ALICIA: John (softly). JOHN (sullenly): Well? ALICIA: I forget—forgot stops, and hides her face he (John n makes one tremendous leap over to her, and yells at the top of his voice.)

JOHN: It is . . • , . ALICIA: Yes—it is. And in future we’ll give up this artificiality, and be like Mrs. de Trafford, who isn t famous. . . The greater glory. John! Iho greater glory! No more books. ... JOHN (enraptured): No more pictures(He picks up a stool. hurls it at some of the pink and white doll pmWalking back to Alicia, he gathers her in his arms. The Macedonian Madonna smiles. . . . Curtain.