almost as buried as that of the
primitive peoples. Charming rovers, content with life near to the
bright sky, charming people, for whom life is but one long day in
which to make beautiful their bodies, and make joyful the eyes of
those who love to look at them!

JOHN BARRYMORE IN PETER IBBETSON

The vicissitudes of the young boy along the vague, precarious way, the
longing to find the reality of the dream--the heart that knew him
best--a study in sentimentality, the pathetic wanderings of a "little
boy lost" in the dream of childhood, and the "little boy found" in the
arms of his loved mother, with all those touches that are painful and
all that are exquisite and poignant in their beauty--such is the
picture presented by John Barrymore, as nearly perfect as any artist
can be, in "Peter Ibbetson." Certainly it is as finished a creation in
its sense of form, and of color, replete with a finesse of rare
loveliness, as gratifying a performance, to my notion, as has been
seen on our stage for many years. Perhaps if the author, recalling
vain pasts, could realize the scum of saccharinity in which the play
is utterly submerged, and that it struggles with great difficulty to
survive the nesselrodelike sweetness with which it is surfeited, he
would recognize the real distinction that Barrymore lends to a role so
clogged by the honeyed sentimentality covering most of the scenes.
Barrymore gives us that "quickened sense" of the life of the young
man, a portrayal which takes the eye by "its fine edge of light," a
portrayal clear and cool, elevated to a fine loftiness in his
rendering.

The actor has accomplished this by means of a nice knowledge of what
symbolic expression means to the art of the stage. He is certainly a
painter of pictures and moods, the idea and his image perfectly
commingled, endowing this mediocre play with true charm by the
distinction he lends it, by sheer discretion, and by a power of
selection. All this he brings to a play which, if it had been written
nowadays, would certainly have convicted its author, and justly too,
of having written to stimulate the lachrymal effusions of the
shop-girl, a play about which she might telephone her girl friend, at
which she might eat bon bons, and powder her nose again for the
street. No artist, no accepted artist, has given a more suggestive
rendering than has Barrymore here. It would be difficult to say where
he is at his best, except that the first half of