have it in the guide-book)—one young man, "sobbing, buries his head in his hands, upsetting thereby a dish of fruit." As for Potiphar, it failed to sir the sombre depths of his abysmal boredom, but his wife, whose ennui had hitherto been of the most profound, began to sit up and take notice, and at the end of the dance she sent for Joseph and supplemented his rather exiguous costume with a gross necklace of jewels, letting her hand linger awhile on his bare nexk. Already, it will be seen, she was intrigued with the "unknown divine." Joseph, on the contrary, received her attentions without empressement.
In the next scene—after a rather woolly and unintelligible interlude—we see Joseph retiring to his couch in an alcove behind the place where the banqueting-table had been. You will judge how urgent was the lady's keenness to probe the mysteries of his divine nature when I tell you that she could not wait till the morning to pursue her enquiries, but must needs visit him in his chamber at dead of night, and wearing the one garment of the hour. At first, still half dreaming, he mistakes her for an angel (he had already seen one in his sleep), but subsequently, growing suspicious, he repels her with a dignified disdain. For I must tell you that, whatever the guide-book may allege about the loftiness of her designs, the music gave her away. It reverted, in fact, to the motive of those passages which had already accompanied and illustrated the nuptial dance, the dance (as Herr Tiessen calls it) of "burning Love-longing."
At this juncture, Potiphar and his minions break upon the sciene. His wife, after denouncing Joseph, is distracted between passion of hatred and passion of love, and there is some play (reminding one of L'Après-midi d'un Faune) with the purple cloak which Joseph had discarded. Presently she eludes her dilemma by fainting.
Meanwhile it has been the work of a moment to order up a brazier, a pair of pincers, a poker, a headsman and an axe. The instruments of torture waste no time in getting red-hot; and we anticipate the worst. Joseph, however, who has ignored these preparations and maintained an attitude of superbly indifferent aloofness, suddenly becomes luminous under great pressure of limelight; and most of the cast, including a ballet of female dervishes, are abashed to the ground.
Now appears, on the open-work entresol at the back of the stage, an archangel. The guide-book is in error where it says that he glides downwards on a shaft of light radiating from a star. As a matter of fact he walks down the main staircase to the ground floor. Approaching Joseph he takes him by the hand and "leads him heavenwards" by the same flight of steps; and we are to understand that, in the opinion of Herr Strauss, the boy's subsequent career, as recorded in the Hebraic Scriptures, may be treated as negligible.
I should like, in excuse of my own flippancy, to assume the same detachment, and to regard this ballet-theme as having practically no relation whatever to Biblical history, but being just one of many themes out of Oriental lore, mostly secular, that lend themselves to the drama of disappointed passion. My only serious protest is against the hypocrisy which pretends, with regard to Potiphar's Wife, to see a spiritual significance in what is mere vulgar animalism.
I ought, by the way, to have said that, in a spasm of chagrin, she chokes herself with the pearl necklace which lent the only touch of superfluity to her night attire, and was carried out—but not up the main staircase. Thus ends this sordid tragedy that so well illustrates that quality in Herr Strauss to which my guide refers when he speaks of his realization of a "poignant longing for divine cheerfulness."
"Excuse me, Sir, but would you like to buy a nice little dawg?"
"No, thanks very much. He looks as though he would bite."
"'E won't bite yer if you buy 'im, Guv'ner."
And no more seeks my gaze; I wonder why!
The smile of welcome that I loved of old
No longer lights her eye.
I asked no surer guide than Cupid's chart;
I said, Your eyes reveal the depths below,
And I can read your heart."
And smiling asked, "Is then my face a screed,
My brow an open love-letter, where all
The world my thoughts may read?
Is blind! Myself alone may see the signs,
And know the message written on your brow:
I read between the lines."
Gone somewhere is the love-light from her eye;
And, when our ways meet, stately she doth hold
Her course. I wonder why.
"Curiously, the Australian Minister of Defence in the last Parliament bore the same name as the Prime Minister in that which has just been dissolved."
Westminster Gazette.
A similar curious coincidence happened in England, the War Minister in the last Parliament bearing the same name as the present Lord Chancellor.
"MEN FOR THE ANTARCTIC.
105 Canadian Dogs to go with Sir E. Shackleton."
Daily Express.
A gay lot, these Canadians.
