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Magdalens
Jane Shore
BODIES roped to railway lines, heroes in cellars where tide-water is rising, circular saws or steam-hammers threatening the lives of helpless victims, early Christians about to be thrown to the lions, sinking ships, cars over precipices, earthquakes, volcanoes, tempest, fire and flood — spectacles such as these are expected by audiences that await the rising of the curtain on melodrama. Yet it still functions when deprived of scenic excitement. How little it needs such " special attractions " as real water, real animals or real machinery, has been demonstrated over and over again. Its essence was once supposed to be the contrast of innocence in poverty with vice amid wealth, but while many hundreds of plays support this theory, many dozens do not. Virtue triumphant is the theme of some and crime exultant of others, from which it has been argued that all characters in a world peopled by heroes, heroines, villains, over-wrought parents and loyal servants must be either black or white. Otherwise how could right do battle against wrong ? That is reckoning without the sense of guilt which contains the struggle within one breast.
There never has been a more popular protagonist than the erring woman who is chaste in soul though guilty in deed. " The Magdalen " is her oldest name. She got it in a manner which brings discredit on everybody but herself, for only our inherent love of scandal-mongering can identify the woman in Luke's Gospel who wept for her sins with Mary called Magdalen out of whom went seven devils. It is too late to vindicate her. Magdalens are penitents, and maudlin are the tears we shed over them.
The one who has caused more such floods than any other is as well known in fact as in fiction. Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV, did penance outside St. Paul's in 1483, and was represented in plays for centuries after. It remained for a German author to bring upon the stage a Magdalen who was both wife and mother. Misanthropy And Repentance, by Kotzebue, won world-wide fame, and under the title of The Stranger was constantly acted in England throughout the nineteenth