ndship, cemented as Alberry
and I were discussing for some weeks the international social questions
involved, is among the dearest and tenderest friendships I have ever
made; and I learned more about the various minor differences of social
life in England and American while we were thus at work together than I
could have learned in a residence there of five years. I have time to
give you only a few of the points. Take the engagement of Lilian, broken
in act first. An engagement in England is necessarily a family matter,
and it could neither be made or broken by the mere fiat of a young girl,
without consultation with others, leaving the way open for the immediate
acceptance of another man's hand. In the English version, therefore,
there is no engagement with Harold Routledge. It is only an
understanding between them that they love each other. Not even the most
rigid customs of Europe can prevent such an understanding between two
young people, if they can once look into each other's eyes. They could
fall in love through a pair of telescopes. Then the duel--it is next to
impossible to persuade an English audience that a duel is justifiable or
natural with an Englishman as one of the principles. So we played a
rather sharp artistic trick on our English audience. In the American
version, I assume that, if a plucky young American in France insults a
Frenchman purposely, he will abide by the local customs, and give him
satisfaction, if called upon to do so. So would a young Englishman,
between you and me; but the laws of dramatic construction deal with the
sympathies of the audience as well as with the natural motives and
actions of the characters in a play; and an English audience would think
the French count ought to be perfectly satisfied if Routledge knocked
him down. How did we get over the difficulty? First, we made Routledge a
British officer returning from India, instead of an artist on his way
from Rome--a fighting man by profession; and then we made the Count de
Carojac pile so many sneers and insults on this British officer, and on
the whole British nation, that I verily believe a London audience would
have mobbed him if he hadn't tried to kill him. The English public
walked straight into the trap, although they abhor nothing on earth more
than the duelling system. I said that the comic characters were not
affected by the changes made in America; the change of nationality did
affect them to a certain extent. A young