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If you put Scotch and Irish humor under the microscope, you discover that most of the best Scotch and Irish jokes are as old as the Greeks and the Egyptians. You pick up a copy of Fliegende Blätter and you get keen amusement from its revelation of German humor. But how much of this humor, after all, is either essentially universal in its scope or else a matter of mere stage-setting and machinery?
"Der Fliegende Holländer," a romantic opera in three acts, words by the composer, the subject taken from Heinrich Heine's version of the legend, was first produced at Dresden, Jan. 2, 1843, with Mme. Schröder-Devrient and Herr Wechter in the two principal rôles. It was also produced in London in 1870 at Drury Lane as "L'Ollandose dannato," by Signor Arditi, with Mlle.
At our present rate of progress, the drawings in all our amusing weeklies will soon be as good as those in the 'Fliegende Blatter. The change is marvelous; and the popular taste has so improved that it would not be profitable to go back to the ill-drawn illustrations of twenty years ago.
"People tried," said Clovis, "but it must have been rather like composing the storm music of the 'Fliegende Hollander. Jane was willing to take back some of her most libellous remarks if Dora would take back the hen, but Dora said that would be owning herself in the wrong, and you know she'd as soon think of owning slum property in Whitechapel as do that."
In the Fliegende Blatter two young clerks were represented discussing the question of summer holidays. "Where are you going?" asks A of B. "Nowhere," answers B. "Can't you afford it?" asks the sympathetic A. "Only been able to save up enough for the postcards," answers B, gloomily; "no money left for the trip."
The hedge at the Cafe Boulevard was green and the tables were in the yard and on the balconies; but Feuerstein entered, seated himself in one of the smoke-fogged reading-rooms, ordered a glass of beer, and divided his attention between the Fliegende Blatter and the faces of incoming men. After half an hour two men in an arriving group of three nodded coldly to him.
Much of 'Tannhäuser' is conventional, but it nevertheless shows a great advance on 'Der Fliegende Holländer, in the disposal of the scenes as much as in the mere treatment of the voices. But in the orchestra the advance is even more manifest.
Much of the music is picturesque and effective, even in the lowest sense, but its strength lies in the extraordinary power which the composer displays of individualising his characters a power of which in 'Der Fliegende Holländer' there was scarcely a suggestion.
The guiding theme, which in 'Der Fliegende Holländer' only makes fitful and timid appearances, is used with greater boldness, and with increased knowledge of its effect.
She laughed with him at the tastelessness of the race which they were destined to marvel at more and more; but she made him own that the stewardesses whom they saw were charmingly like serving-maids in the 'Fliegende Blatter'; when they went ashore she challenged his silence for some assent to her own conclusion that the Colmannia was perfect. "She has only one fault," he assented. "She's a ship."
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