File:Richard Mansfield as Dick Dudgeon.jpg

Identifier: lifeartofrichard02wint (find matches)
Title: Life and art of Richard Mansfield : with selections from his letters
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Winter, William, 1836-1917
Subjects: Mansfield, Richard, 1857-1907
Publisher: New York : Moffat, Yard and company
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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ddenly reveal heroism,and show itself immeasurably superior to the averagetype of smug, vapid, complacent, commonplacevirtue. .Better a cynical scoffer who can act noblyfor others than the cautious, time-serving, nig-gardly Pharisee who lives for himself alone. Sucha man is Dick Dudgeon, and he readily gainedMansfields sympathy. The first act of the playis only notable for the excellent drawing of thecharacter of Mrs. Dudgeon, Dicks mother, a NewEngland woman of the Revolutionary times, whoselife has been spoiled and whose heart has beenembittered by her sacrifice of love to a bigoted senseof Christian duty. The second act becomes animatedwith invention and incident, and is rich in piquantlines. The recklessness of Dick, in allowing himselfto be arrested in place of the Minister, is dramati-cally and effectively shown, providing a situationthat Mansfield made brilliant and touching by hisimpetuosity, incipient kindness, and winning serio-comic humor. The play is acrimonious toward the
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M \\SFIKLD AS DICK DUDGEON DUDGEON—COURVOISIER 233 theology of Jonathan Edwards, the politics of Georgethe Third, and the accomplishments of the Britisharmy, and no discerning auditor of it could fail tosurmise that it was written by an agnostic and anIrishman; but, aside from its polemics, it is a goodplay, and Mansfields impersonation of its hero, DickDudgeon, was, in a high degree, picturesque, sympa-thetic, and effective. EUGENE COURVOISIER. THE novel of The First Violin, by JessieFothergill, upon the basis of which a play wasmade for Mansfield, by J. I. C. Clarke andMeridan Plielps (Richard Mansfield), contains thestory of a brave and gentle person, a Germannobleman, who took upon himself the consequencesof a criminal misdemeanor committed by his frivo-lous wife, and who, thereupon, after her suddendeath, patiently endured reproach, poverty, andgrief, in order to shield the reputation of the dead.The essential fibre of that story is suffering, and, forthe obvious reason that su

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