from a locked drawer._
KATE. [_Taking it._] Yes, this is it. Harry, how you did crumple it!
[_She reads, not without curiosity._] "Dear husband--I call you that for
the last time--I am off. I am what you call making a bolt of it. I won't
try to excuse myself nor to explain, for you would not accept the
excuses nor understand the explanation. It will be a little shock to
you, but only to your pride; what will astound you is that any woman
could be such a fool as to leave such a man as you. I am taking nothing
with me that belongs to you. May you be very happy.--Your ungrateful
KATE. _P.S._--You need not try to find out who he is. You will try, but
you won't succeed." [_She folds the nasty little thing up._] I may
really have it for my very own?
SIR HARRY. You really may.
KATE. [_Impudently._] If you would care for a typed copy----?
SIR HARRY. [_In a voice with which he used to frighten his
grandmother_.] None of your sauce! [_Wincing._] I had to let them see it
in the end.
KATE. I can picture Jack Lamb eating it.
SIR HARRY. A penniless parson's daughter.
KATE. That is all I was.
SIR HARRY. We searched for the two of you high and low.
KATE. Private detectives?
SIR HARRY. They couldn't get on the track of you.
KATE. [_Smiling._] No?
SIR HARRY. But at last the courts let me serve the papers by
advertisement on a man unknown, and I got my freedom.
KATE. So I saw. It was the last I heard of you.
SIR HARRY. [_Each word a blow for her._] And I married again just as
soon as ever I could.
KATE. They say that is always a compliment to the first wife.
SIR HARRY. [_Violently._] I showed them.
KATE. You soon let them see that if one woman was a fool, you still had
the pick of the basket to choose from.
SIR HARRY. By James, I did.
KATE. [_Bringing him to earth again._] But still, you wondered who he
was.
SIR HARRY. I suspected everybody--even my pals. I felt like jumping at
their throats and crying: "It's you!"
KATE. You had been so admirable to me, an instinct told you that I was
sure to choose another of the same.
SIR HARRY. I thought, it can't be money, so it must be looks. Some dolly
face. [_He stares at her in perplexity._] He must have had something
wonderful about him to make you willing to give up all that you had with
me.
KATE. [_As if he was the stupid one._] Poor Harry.
SIR HARRY. And it couldn't have been going on for long, for I would have
noticed the change in you.
KATE. Would you?
SIR HARRY. I knew you so well.
KATE. You amazing man.
SIR HARRY. So who was he? Out with it.
KATE. You are determined to know?
SIR HARRY. Your promise. You gave your word.
KATE. If I must--[_She is the villain of the piece, but it must be
conceded that in this matter she is reluctant to pain him._] I am sorry
I promised. [_Looking at him steadily._] There was no one, Harry; no one
at all.
SIR HARRY.. [_Rising._] If you think you can play with me----
KATE. I told you that you wouldn't like it.
SIR HARRY. [_Rasping._] It is unbelievable.
KATE. I suppose it is; but it is true.
SIR HARRY. Your letter itself gives you the lie.
KATE. That was intentional. I saw that if the truth were known you might
have a difficulty in getting your freedom; and as I was getting mine it
seemed fair that you should have yours also. So I wrote my good-by in
words that would be taken to mean what you thought they meant, and I
knew the law would back you in your opinion. For the law, like you,
Harry, has a profound understanding of women.
SIR HARRY. [_Trying to straighten, himself._] I don't believe you yet.
KATE. [_Looking not unkindly into the soul of this man._] Perhaps that
is the best way to take it. It is less unflattering than the truth. But
you were the only one. [_Summing up her life._] You sufficed.
SIR HARRY. Then what mad impulse----
KATE. It was no impulse, Harry. I had thought it out for a year.
SIR HARRY. A year? [_Dazed._] One would think to hear you that I hadn't
been a good husband to you.
KATE. [_With a sad smile._] You were a good husband according to your
lights.
SIR HARRY. [_Stoutly._] _I_ think so.
KATE. And a moral man, and chatty, and quite the philanthropist.
SIR HARRY. [_On sure ground._] All women envied you.
KATE. How you loved me to be envied.
SIR HARRY. I swaddled you in luxury.
KATE. [_Making her great revelation._] That was it.
SIR HARRY. [_Blankly._] What?
KATE. [_Who can be serene because it is all over._] How you beamed at me
when I sat at the head of your fat dinners in my fat jewelry, surrounded
by our fat friends.
SIR HARRY. [_Aggrieved._] They weren't so fat.
KATE. [_A side issue._] All except those who were so thin. Have you ever
noticed, Harry, that many jewels make women either incredibly fat or
incredibly thin?
SIR HARRY. [_Shouting._] I have not. [_Is it worth while to argue with
her any longer?_] We had all the most interesting society of the day. It
wasn't only business men. There were politicians, painters, writers----
KATE. Only the glorious, dazzling successes. Oh, the fat talk while we
ate too much--about who had made a hit and who was slipping back, and
what the noo house cost and the noo motor and the gold soup-plates, and
who was to be the noo knight.
SIR HARRY. [_Who it will be observed is unanswerable from first to
last._] Was anybody getting on better than me, and consequently you?
KATE. Consequently me! Oh, Harry, you and your sublime religion.
SIR HARRY. [_Honest heart._] My religion? I never was one to talk about
religion, but----
KATE. Pooh, Harry, you don't even know what your religion was and is and
will be till the day of your expensive funeral. [_And here is the lesson
that life has taught her._] One's religion is whatever he is most
interested in, and yours is Success.
SIR HARRY. [_Quoting from his morning paper._] Ambition--it is the last
infirmity of noble minds.
KATE. Noble minds!
SIR HARRY. [_At last grasping what she is talking about._] You are not
saying that you left me because of my success?
KATE. Yes, that was it. [_And now she stands revealed to him._] I
couldn't endure it. If a failure had come now and then--but your success
was suffocating me. [_She is rigid with emotion._] The passionate
craving I had to be done with it, to find myself among people who had
not got on.
SIR HARRY. [_With proper spirit._] There are plenty of them.
KATE. There were none in our set. When they began to go down-hill they
rolled out of our sight.
SIR HARRY. [_Clenching it._] I tell you I am worth a quarter of a
million.
KATE [_Unabashed._] That is what you are worth to yourself. I'll tell
you what you are worth to me: exactly twelve pounds. For I made up my
mind that I could launch myself on the world alone if I first proved my
mettle by earning twelve pounds; and as soon as I had earned it I left
you.
SIR HARRY. [_In the scales._] Twelve pounds!
KATE. That is your value to a woman. If she can't make it she has to
stick to you.
SIR HARRY. [_Remembering perhaps a rectory garden._] You valued me at
more than that when you married me.
KATE. [_Seeing it also._] Ah, I didn't know you then. If only you had
been a man, Harry.
SIR HARRY. A man? What do you mean by a man?
KATE. [_Leaving the garden._] Haven't you heard of them? They are
something fine; and every woman is loath to admit to herself that her
husband is not one. When she marries, even though she has been a very
trivial person, there is in her some vague stirring toward a worthy
life, as well as a fear of her capacity for evil. She knows her chance
lies in him. If there is something good in him, what is good in her
finds it, and they join forces against the baser parts. So I didn't give
you up willingly, Harry. I invented all sorts of theories to explain
you. Your hardness--I said it was a fine want of mawkishness. Your
coarseness--I said it goes with strength. Your contempt for the weak--I
called it virility. Your want of ideals was clear-sightedness. Your
ignoble views of women--I tried to think them funny. Oh, I clung to you
to save myself. But I had to let go; you had only the one quality,
Harry, success; you had it so strong that it swallowed all the others.
SIR HARRY. [_Not to be diverted from the main issue._] How did you earn
that twelve pounds?
KATE. It took me nearly six months; but I earned it fairly. [_She
presses her hand on the typewriter as lovingly as many a woman has
pressed a rose._] I learned this. I hired it and taught myself. I got
some work through a friend, and with my first twelve pounds I paid for
my machine. Then I considered that I was free to go, and I went.
SIR HARRY. All this going on in my house while you were living in the
lap of luxury! [_She nods._] By God, you were determined.
KATE. [_Briefly._] By God, I was.
SIR HARRY. [_Staring._] How you must have hated me.
KATE. [_Smiling at the childish word._] Not a bit--after I saw that
there was a way out. From that hour you amused me, Harry; I was even
sorry for you, for I saw that you couldn't help yourself. Success is
just a fatal gift.
SIR HARRY. Oh, thank you.
KATE. [_Thinking, dear friends in front, of you and me perhaps._] Yes,
and some of your most successful friends knew it. One or two of them
used to look very sad at times, as if they thought they might have come
to something if they hadn't got on.
SIR HARRY. [_Who has a horror of sacrilege._] The battered crew you live
among now--what are they but folk who have tried to succeed and failed?
KATE. That's it; they try, but they fail.
SIR HARRY. And always will fail.
KATE. Always. Poor souls--I say of them. Poor soul--they say of me. It
keeps us human. That is why I never tire of them.
SIR HARRY. [_Comprehensively._] Bah! Kate, I tell you I'll be worth half
a million yet.
KATE. I'm sure you will. You're getting stout, Harry.
SIR HARRY. No, I'm not.
KATE. What was the name of that fat old fellow who used to fall asleep
at our dinner-parties?
SIR HARRY. If you mean Sir William Crackley----
KATE. That was the man. Sir William was to me a perfect picture of the
grand success. He had got on so well that he was very, very stout, and
when he sat on a chair it was thus [_her hands meeting in front of
her_]--as if he were holding his success together. That is what you are
working for, Harry. You will have that and the half million about the
same time.
SIR HARRY. [_Who has surely been very patient._] Will you please to
leave my house?
KATE. [_Putting on her gloves, soiled things._] But don't let us part in
anger. How do you think I am looking, Harry, compared to the dull, inert
thing that used to roll round in your padded carriages?
SIR HARRY. [_In masterly fashion._] I forget what you were like. I'm
very sure you never could have held a candle to the present Lady Sims.
KATE. That is a picture of her, is it not?
SIR HARRY. [_Seizing his chance again._] In her wedding-gown. Painted by
an R.A.
KATE. [_Wickedly._] A knight?
SIR HARRY. [_Deceived._] Yes.
KATE. [_Who likes_ LADY SIMS--_a piece of presumption on her part_.] It
is a very pretty face.
SIR HARRY. [_With the pride of possession._] Acknowledged to be a beauty
everywhere.
KATE. There is a merry look in the eyes, and character in the chin.
SIR HARRY. [_Like an auctioneer._] Noted for her wit.
KATE. All her life before her when that was painted. It is a
_spirituelle_ face too. [_Suddenly she turns on him with anger, for the
first and only time in the play._] Oh, Harry, you brute!
SIR HARRY. [_Staggered._] Eh? What?
KATE. That dear creature, capable of becoming a noble wife and
mother--she is the spiritless woman of no account that I saw here a few
minutes ago. I forgive you for myself, for I escaped, but that poor lost
soul, oh, Harry, Harry.
SIR HARRY. [_Waving her to the door._] I'll thank you--If ever there
was a woman proud of her husband and happy in her married life, that
woman is Lady Sims.
KATE. I wonder.
SIR HARRY. Then you needn't wonder.
KATE. [_Slowly._] If I was a husband--it is my advice to all of them--I
would often watch my wife quietly to see whether the twelve-pound look
was not coming into her eyes. Two boys, did you say, and both like you?
SIR HARRY. What is that to you?
KATE. [_With glistening eyes_.] I was only thinking that somewhere there
are two little girls who, when they grow up--the dear, pretty girls who
are all meant for the men that don't get on! Well, good-by, Sir Harry.
SIR HARRY. [_Showing a little human weakness, it is to be feared._] Say
first that you're sorry.
KATE. For what?
SIR HARRY. That you left me. Say you regret it bitterly. You know you
do. [_She smiles and shakes her head. He is pettish. He makes a terrible
announcement._] You have spoiled the day for me.
KATE. [_To hearten him._] I am sorry for that; but it is only a
pin-prick, Harry. I suppose it is a little jarring in the moment of your
triumph to find that there is--one old friend--who does not think you a
success; but you will soon forget it. Who cares what a typist thinks?
SIR HARRY. [_Heartened._] Nobody. A typist at eighteen shillings a week!
KATE. [_Proudly._] Not a bit of it, Harry. I double that.
SIR HARRY. [_Neatly._] Magnificent!
[_There is a timid knock at the door._]
LADY SIMS. May I come in?
SIR HARRY. [_Rather appealingly._] It is Lady Sims.
KATE. I won't tell. She is afraid to come into her husband's room
without knocking!
SIR HARRY. She is not. [_Uxoriously._] Come in, dearest.
[_Dearest enters, carrying the sword. She might have had the sense
not to bring it in while this annoying person is here._
LADY SIMS. [_Thinking she has brought her welcome with her._] Harry, the
sword has come.
SIR HARRY. [_Who will dote on it presently._] Oh, all right.
LADY SIMS. But I thought you were so eager to practise with it.
[_The person smiles at this. He wishes he had not looked to see if
she was smiling._
SIR HARRY. [_Sharply._] Put it down.
[LADY SIMS _flushes a little as she lays the sword aside_.
KATE. [_With her confounded courtesy._] It is a beautiful sword, if I
may say so.
LADY SIMS. [_Helped._] Yes.
[_The person thinks she can put him in the wrong, does she? He'll
show her._
SIR HARRY. [_With one eye on_ KATE.] Emmy, the one thing your neck needs
is more jewels.
LADY SIMS. [_Faltering._] More!
SIR HARRY. Some ropes of pearls. I'll see to it. It's a bagatelle to me.
[KATE _conceals her chagrin, so she had better be shown the door. He
rings._] I won't detain you any longer, miss.
KATE. Thank you.
LADY SIMS. Going already? You have been very quick.
SIR HARRY. The person doesn't suit, Emmy.
LADY SIMS. I'm sorry.
KATE. So am I, madam, but it can't be helped. Good-by, your
ladyship--good-by, Sir Harry.
[_There is a suspicion of an impertinent courtesy, and she is
escorted off the premises by_ TOMBES. _The air of the room is
purified by her going._ SIR HARRY _notices it at once_.
LADY SIMS. [_Whose tendency is to say the wrong thing._] She seemed such
a capable woman.
SIR HARRY. [_On his hearth._] I don't like her style at all.
LADY SIMS. [_Meekly._] Of course you know best.
[_This is the right kind of woman._
SIR HARRY. [_Rather anxious for corroboration._] Lord, how she winced
when I said I was to give you those ropes of pearls.
LADY SIMS. Did she? I didn't notice. I suppose so.
SIR HARRY. [_Frowning._] Suppose? Surely I know enough about women to
know that.
LADY SIMS. Yes, oh yes.
SIR HARRY. [_Odd that so confident a man should ask this._] Emmy, I know
you well, don't I? I can read you like a book, eh?
LADY SIMS. [_Nervously._] Yes, Harry.
SIR HARRY. [_Jovially, but with an inquiring eye._] What a different
existence yours is from that poor lonely wretch's.
LADY SIMS. Yes, but she has a very contented face.
SIR HARRY. [_With a stamp of his foot._] All put on. What?
LADY SIMS. [_Timidly._] I didn't say anything.
SIR HARRY. [_Snapping._] One would think you envied her.
LADY SIMS. Envied? Oh, no--but I thought she looked so alive. It was
while she was working the machine.
SIR HARRY. Alive! That's no life. It is you that are alive. [_Curtly._]
I'm busy, Emmy. [_He sits at his writing-table._
LADY SIMS. [_Dutifully._] I'm sorry; I'll go, Harry.
[_Inconsequentially._] Are they very expensive?
SIR HARRY. What?
LADY SIMS. Those machines?
[_When she has gone the possible meaning of her question startles
him. The curtain hides him from us, but we may be sure that he will
soon be bland again. We have a comfortable feeling, you and I, that
there is nothing of_ HARRY SIMS _in us_.
TRADITION
BY
GEORGE MIDDLETON
_Tradition_ is reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher,
Henry Holt & Company, New York City. All rights reserved. For permission
to perform, address the author, in care of the publisher.
The author and publisher of this play have permitted this reprinting of
copyrighted material on the understanding that the play will be used
only in classroom work. No other use of the play is authorized, and
permission for any other use must be secured from the holder of the
acting rights.
GEORGE MIDDLETON
George Middleton, one of the first to write and publish a volume of
one-act plays in America, was born in Paterson, New Jersey, 1880. He was
graduated from Columbia University in 1902. Since 1921 he has been
literary editor of _La Follette's Weekly_, and, in addition, has been a
frequent contributor to magazines and reviews on dramatic and literary
subjects. During the last few years he has spent much of his time
abroad.
George Middleton's chiefest interest has been in the one-act play. He
has been an ardent champion of the shorter form of drama. Among his
three volumes of one-act plays are _Embers_ (including _The Failures_,
_The Gargoyle_, _In His House_, _Madonna_, and _The Man Masterful_),
_Tradition_ (including _On Bail_, _Their Wife_, _Waiting_, _The Cheat of
Pity_, and _Mothers_), and _Possession_ (including _The Grove_, _A Good
Woman_, _The Black Tie_, _Circles_, and _The Unborn_). Other one-act
plays are _Criminals_ and _The Reason_. His longer plays are _Nowadays_
and _The Road Together_. Mr. Middleton has lectured widely on the
one-act play before colleges, in Little Theatres, and clubs. Perhaps his
most notable article is _The Neglected One-Act Play_, which appeared in
_The New York Dramatic Mirror_ in 1912.
_Tradition_ is one of Mr. Middleton's best and most popular one-act
plays; and it most nearly conforms to the organic technic of the one-act
play.
FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE BERKELEY THEATRE, NEW YORK CITY, JANUARY 24,
1913.
(Produced under the personal direction of Mr. FRANK REICHER.)
THE PEOPLE
GEORGE OLLIVANT MR. GEORGE W. WILSON
EMILY, _his wife_ MISS ALICE LEIGH
MARY, _his daughter, an actress_ MISS FOLA LA FOLLETTE
TRADITION[B]
SCENE: _The sitting-room at the_ OLLIVANTS' _in a small town
up-State. It is an evening late in the spring._
_A simple room is disclosed, bearing the traces of another
generation. Old-fashioned window-doors at the right, overlooking
the garden, open on a porch; another door in back opening on the
hall-way. A large fire-place at the left, now concealed by an
embroidered screen; the horsehair furniture, several terra-cotta
statuettes, and a woodcut or two on the walls create the subtle
atmosphere of the past. There is a lamp on the table, and another
on a bracket by the door in back. Moonlight filters through the
window-doors._
_The_ OLLIVANTS _are discovered together_. MARY, _a rather plain
woman of about twenty-five, with a suggestion of quick
sensibilities, is standing, lost in thought, looking out into the
garden. Her mother_, EMILY, _nearing fifty, quiet and subdued in
manner, is seated at the table trimming a hat. Occasionally she
looks at_ MARY, _stops her work, glances at her husband, closes her
eyes as though tired, and then resumes. The silence continues for
some time, broken only by the rattle of the town paper which_
GEORGE OLLIVANT _is reading. He is well on in middle life, with a
strong, determined face not entirely without elements of kindness
and deep feeling. When he finishes, he folds the paper, puts it on
the table, knocks the ashes carefully from his pipe into his hand,
and throws them behind the screen; takes off his spectacles and
wipes them as he, too, looks over toward his daughter, still gazing
absently into the garden. Finally, after a slight hesitation, he
goes to her and puts his arm about her; she is startled but smiles
sweetly._
OLLIVANT. [_Affectionately._] Glad to be home again, Mary?
MARY. [_Evasively._] The garden is so pretty.
OLLIVANT. Hasn't changed much, eh?
MARY. It seems different; perhaps it's the night.
OLLIVANT. I guess it isn't up to its usual standard. Haven't seen your
mother there so often this spring.
EMILY. [_Quietly._] This dry spell is not good for flowers.
OLLIVANT. It's only the cultivated flowers that need care; can't help
thinking that when I see the wild ones so hardy in my fields on the
hill. [_Turning to_ EMILY _and patting her_.] Is there any of that spray
mixture left, Emily, dear?
EMILY. I haven't looked lately.
OLLIVANT. I'll order some to-morrow. [_Taking up his pipe again and
looking for the tobacco._] Think it would be a good idea, daughter, if
you'd spray those rosebushes every couple of weeks. The bugs are a pest
this spring. Where's my tobacco?
EMILY. On the mantel.
OLLIVANT. Wish you would always leave it on the table; you know how I
hate to have things changed.
[OLLIVANT _goes to the mantel, filling his pipe, and while his back
is turned_, MARY _makes a quick questioning gesture to her mother,
who sighs helplessly_. MARY _ponders a moment_.]
MARY. How's Ben been doing these two years, father?
OLLIVANT. Hasn't your brother written you?
MARY. Only once--when I left home; he disapproved, too.
OLLIVANT. Had an older brother's feeling of wanting to take care of you,
Mary.
MARY. Yes; I know. How's he doing?
OLLIVANT. He's commencing to get on his feet. Takes time and money for
any one to get started these days.
MARY. But he's still in partnership with Bert Taylor, isn't he?
OLLIVANT. Yes. He'd have been somewhere if he'd worked in with me as I
did with _my_ father. Things should be handed down. Offered him the
chance, tried to make him take it, as your mother knows; but that
college chum--nice enough fellow, I've heard--turned his head another
way. [_Lighting his pipe and puffing slowly._] It's best to humor a
young fellow's ideas if he sticks them out, but I'd like to have had us
all here together now. The place is big enough even if he should want to
marry. Your mother and I came here, you know, when your grandfather was
still alive.
MARY. Then Ben isn't making any money?
OLLIVANT. [_Reluctantly._] Not yet--to speak of.
EMILY. [_Quietly._] But he's promised to pay his father back, Mary.
MARY. I see. [_Thoughtfully._] College and then more help to get
started, because he's a man.
OLLIVANT. [_Complacently._] He'll have to support a family some day;
I've had to keep that in mind.
MARY. I'd like to have a real talk with him.
OLLIVANT. When did his letter say he'd be coming for a visit, Emily?
EMILY. The fifteenth.
MARY. Not till then? That's too bad.
OLLIVANT. Eh?
MARY. [_After exchanging a quick glance with her mother and gaining
courage._] Father, I hope you didn't misunderstand my coming back?
OLLIVANT. Not at all. We all make mistakes--especially when we're young.
Perhaps I was a bit hasty when you left home, but I knew you'd soon see
I was right. I didn't think it would take you two years--but perhaps if
I'd written you before you'd have come sooner. I told your mother I'd
like to make it easy for you to come home.
MARY. Mother suggested that you write me?
OLLIVANT. Well, I suppose you might put it that way. I always felt she
thought I was a bit hard on you, but I'm not one to back down easily.
MARY. Don't blame me then, father, if I showed I was your daughter.
OLLIVANT. Let's forget my feeling; but naturally I was set back.
MARY. Because you didn't take my going seriously until I was actually
leaving.