dded the adaptability of Fitch. But
there are no seams or patches to "Captain Jinks of the Horse
Marines"--its freshness caught the freshness of Ethel Barrymore, and
Fitch was confident of the blend. His eye was unerring as to stage
effect, and he would go to all ends of trouble, partly for sentiment,
partly for accuracy, and always for novelty, to create the desired
results. Did he not, with his own hands, wire the apple-blossoms for
the orchard scene in "Lovers' Lane?" Was he not careful to get the
right colour for the dawn in "Nathan Hale," and the Southern evening
atmosphere in "Barbara Frietchie?" And in such a play as "Girls," did
he not delight in the accessories, like the clatter of the steam-pipe
radiator, for particular New York environment which he knew so
graphically how to portray?

That was the boy--the Peter Pan quality--in Clyde Fitch; it was not
his love for the trivial, for he could be serious in the midst of it.
His temperament in playwriting was as variable as Spring weather--it
was extravagant in its responsiveness to the momentary mood. He would
suggest a whole play in one scene; a real flash of philosophy or of
psychology would be lost in the midst of a slight play on words for
the sake of a laugh. One finds that often the case in "A Happy
Marriage." He was never more at home than when squeezing all the human
traits and humour out of a given situation, which was subsidiary to
the plot, yet in atmosphere complete in itself. The _Hunter's_
drawing-room just after the funeral, in "The Climbers;" the church
scene in "The Moth and the Flame," which for jocularity and small
points is the equal of Langdon Mitchell's wedding scene in "The New
York Idea," though not so sharply incisive in its satire; the deck on
board ship in "The Stubbornness of Geraldine" (so beautifully
burlesqued by Weber and Fields as "The Stickiness of Gelatine"); and
_Mr. Roland's_ rooms in _Mrs. Crespigny's_ flat, which almost upset,
in its humourous bad taste, the tragedy of "The Truth"--these are
instances of his unusual vein. One finds it is by these fine points,
these obvious clevernesses that Fitch paved the way to popular
success. But there was far more to him than this--there was the
literary sense which gave one the feeling of reality in his plays--not
alone because of novelty or familiarity of scene, but because of the
uttered word.

Human foibles and frailties were, therefore, his specialty. Out of his
vast product of