4.26–27 Kaiserliche boar-tusk moustache] A pointed and curled mustache in the style of the German emperor Wilhelm II (1859–1941; ruled 1888–1918).
4.28 Dundreary whiskers] Style of oversized bushy whiskers popular in the mid-nineteenth century, named for Lord Dundreary, a character in Our American Cousin (1858), play by the English playwright Tom Taylor (1817–1880).
8.13–14 “You’ll Remember Me,” . . . Marble Halls,”] Arias from the light opera The Bohemian Girl (1843), music by the Irish composer Michael W. Balfe (1808–1870), libretto by the English theater manager Alfred Bunn (1796–1860).
8.14 “Silver Threads Among the Gold,”] Popular ballad (1873), with lyrics by the American poet Eben Rexford (1848–1916) and music by the American songwriter Hart Pease Danks (1834–1903).
8.14–15 “Kathleen Mavourneen,”] Song (1839) with music by the English-born American composer Frederick W. Nicholls Crouch (1808–1896); the “Mrs. Crawford” credited with its words has been identified variously as several women with that married name.
8.15 “The Soldier’s Farewell.”] Of the several nineteenth-century songs with this title or subtitle, most likely a composition by the German composer Johanna Kinkel (1810–1858).
8.17 “Olivette” and “The Mascotte”] Comic operas (1879, 1880) by the French composer Edmond Audran (1840–1901).
8.17–18 “The Chimes of Normandy”] Comic opera (1877) by the French composer Robert Planquets (1848–1903), originally staged in Paris as Les Cloches de Corneville.
8.18 “Giroflé-Girofla” and “Fra Diavolo.”] Comic operas (1874, 1830) by, respectively, the French composers Charles Lecocq (1832–1918) and Daniel Auber (1782–1871).
8.19–20 “Pinafore” and “The Pirates of Penzance” and of “Patience.”] Operettas (1878, 1879, 1881), three of the many stage collaborations of the English poet and librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the English composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900).
8.20–23 This last was needed . . . furniture.] Patience satirizes the Aesthetic Movement, which made the appreciation and creation of beauty a supreme value and championed “art for art’s sake” in all spheres of creative expression, especially painting, poetry, interior design, and furniture. Its furnishings incorporated forms derived from nature (flowers, peacock feathers) and were often influenced by the decorative arts of Japan and China.
8.23 what-nots] Lightweight furniture with shelves, so called because they were meant to display a variety of small ornamental items.
9.4 Tosti’s new songs] Beginning in the 1880s, the songs of the Italian-born English composer Paolo Tosti (1846–1916) were enormously popular in England and abroad.
9.11 Edwin Booth] American classical and Shakespearean actor (1833–1893), one of the most renowned actors of his era.
9.13 “The Black Crook” . . . shocking girls dressed as fairies.] Lavish musical melodrama (1866) with music selected and composed by Thomas Baker, with book by Charles M. Barras (1826–1873); it featured a large contingent of scantily clad female dancers.
13.8 “Hazel Kirke”] Long-running domestic comedy (1880) by the American playwright Steele MacKaye (1842–1894).
16.13–23 the Fauntleroy period had set in . . . “Lean on me, grandfather,”] In Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), best-selling novel by the English-American writer Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924), the American boy Cedric Errol discovers he is heir to a British title and goes to live with his grandfather on an English estate. The book’s success made the protagonist’s black velvet suit, lace collar, and long curly hairstyle a popular style for young boys. When the seven-year-old Cedric first encounters his cantankerous grandfather, who suffers from gout, the boy helps him take a short walk after asking the old man to lean on him.
23.16–17 “Turn down your pants, you would-be dude! Raining in dear ole Lunnon!] The accusation is that George is affecting a foppish urban fashion, rolling up his trouser legs as if he were in London (so they would not get wet from the rain). This was a familiar joke in the newspapers of the 1890s.
24.17 Lillian Russell] Renowned beauty (1861–1922) whose stage vehicles included The Grand Duchess (1890) and, with the burlesque team Weber and Fields, Fiddle-dee-dee (1900) and Whoop-dee-doo (1903).
24.22 “Sappho,”] Sapho, novel (1884) and play (1885) by the French writer Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897).
24.22–23 “Mr. Barnes of New York,”] Popular novel (1887) by the American novelist and playwright Archibald Clavering Gunter (1847–1907).
24.25 “The Little Minister,”] Novel (1891) and play (1897) by the British writer J. M. Barrie (1860–1937).
24.29 Della Fox in “Wang”] the American comic actor and singer Della Fox (1870–1913) played the role of Prince Mataya in the comic opera Wang (1891), music by Woolson Morse (1858–1897), book and lyrics by J. Cheever Goodwin (1850–1912).
24.30–31 John L. Sullivan] American heavyweight boxer (1858–1918), the last of the bare-knuckles prizefighting champions.
24.32 “A Reading From Homer.”] Painting (1885) by the Dutch-born British artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912).
32.26 “The Fencing Master”] Operetta (1892) by the American composer Reginald DeKoven (1859–1920).
34.4 “Oh, Promise Me”] Song (1889) with music by Reginald DeKoven and lyrics by the English writer Clement Scott (1841–1902).
35.20 Edward the Seventh beard.] Closely trimmed beard in imitation of the style worn by the British king Edward VII (1841–1910; ruled 1901–1910).
36.7 “La Paloma.”] “The Dove,” popular song (1859) by the Spanish composer Sebastian de Yradier (1809–1865).
41.19 cutter] Sleigh with a single seatboard meant to carry two people and to be drawn by a single horse.
43.26 Pitt, at twenty-one, prime minister of England] The twenty-one-year-old William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) became a member of Parliament (not the prime minister) in January 1781. He would become the youngest prime minister in British history in 1783, at age twenty-four.
54.10 surry] A Surrey sleigh, which had front and rear seating compartments that could transport two passengers each.
55.29 a real Brummell] Byword for a man who is consistently fashionably dressed, after the English dandy Beau Brummell (1778–1840).
58.36–38 more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repented than over all the saints who consistently remain holy] A paraphrase of Luke 15:7.
64.7–9 She breathes, she stirs; she seems to feel a thrill of life along her keel!”] Cf. “The Building of the Ship” (1849), poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), lines 349–50: “She starts,—she moves,—she seems to feel / The thrill of life along her keel.”
64.13–14 “The Danube River.”] Popular song (1864) by the English poet, novelist, and dramatist Charles Hamilton Aide (1829–1906).
66.33–34 “O moon of my delight that knows no wane”] Cf. rubái 74 in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, freely translated (1859) from the eleventh-century Persian by Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883): “Ah, Moon of my Delight who know’st no wane.”
78.6 Modjeska] Helena Modjeska (1840–1909), Polish actor renowned for her Shakespearean performances.
79.17–18 “Henry Esmond” and “The Virginians.”] Novels (1852, 1857–59) by the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863).
82.39 “Thrift, Horatio!”] From Shakespeare, Hamlet, I.ii.180.
98.7–13 “As I walk along the Boy de Balong . . . bank at Monte Carlo!”] Chorus from “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” (1892), popular song by the English theatrical agent and songwriter Fred Gilbert (1850–1903). “Boy de Balong” is the Bois de Boulogne, the large park at the edge of the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris.
118
.3 Mister Bones] A stock minstrel-show character, who banters with and answers questions from a Mr. Interlocutor.
135.38 duck skirt] Skirt made from cotton or linen duck cloth.
142.24 an old air from “Fra Diavolo.”] See note 8.18; the comic opera contains the song “On Yonder Rock Reclining” mentioned just below.
181.5–6 the romantic ballad of Lord Bateman.] Traditional ballad with origins in Scotland and England.
199.20–29 “’Tis not alone my inky cloak . . . trappings and the suits of Woe.”] Hamlet’s lines in Hamlet, I.ii.77–78, 85–86. The phrase “times, so out of joint” (199.25) make reference to I.v.188–89: “The time is out of joint—O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!”
210.16 marche funèbre] The third movement of Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Sonata no. 2 in B-flat Minor, op. 35.
210.21 “Robin Adair” . . . “Bedelia”] “Robin Adair,” traditional Scottish tune with words written in the mid-eighteenth century by Lady Caroline Keppel (c. 1734–1769) during her romance with the Irish surgeon Robin Adair; “Bedelia” (1903), song by the American songwriting duo William Jerome (1865–1932) and Jean Schwartz (1878–1956).
211.17 But the great change was in the citizenry itself.] For the version of The Magnificent Ambersons that was included in the Growth trilogy (1927), Tarkington added the following passage:
But another had prophesied more passionately—not as Eugene did, upon evidence and reason—but out of the new inspirational faith in Bigness that was growing to its climax in the land. The inner necessity for Giantism, the craving for it in the American heart, now manifested itself in works, and the city almost reached to the border of that “Ornaby Addition” Isabel had once thought part of the insanity of her friend’s son, Dan Oliphant. This dreamer, the great prophet of his time, was now thought not so mad; and there were new names that began to be lustrous “downtown”; one among them, Sheridan, being held of significance. Also, there were Kohns and Hensels and Komiskeys.
For there was a change in the citizenry itself. [. . .]
257.14 Almanach de Gotha, or Burke] Guides to European and British aristocracy, respectively.
272.34–35 “Oh, love for a year . . . alway—”] From “Sweethearts” (1875), song by Gilbert and Sullivan that is based on their operetta of the same name first staged the previous year.
ALICE ADAMS
306.14 Georgette with Malines flounces.”] Dress made of a sheer lightweight fabric with lace flounces named for the Belgian city of Malines (the French name for Mechelen).
322.37 tin Lizzie,”] Nickname for the Ford Model T; flivver: a small, old, inexpensive car, a jalopy.
359.31 “La Paloma,”] See note 36.7.
365.8–10 “O, swear not . . . Lest thy love prove——”] Romeo and Juliet, II.ii.109–11.
378.13 Nast] Thomas Nast (1840–1902), American political cartoonist and illustrator.
394.20–22 horrible old Juggernaut . . . throwing them under the wheels] An annual festival held in Puri in eastern India is devoted to the Hindu god Jagannath (Juggernaut in its Anglicized form), an avatar of Krishna. Nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries published widely read accounts of processions in which chariots bearing wooden carvings of Jagannath and other deities crushed people under their wheels as they were pulled through the streets of the city.
421.25 The way of the transgressor——”] From Proverbs 13:15: “Good understanding giveth favor; but the way of the transgressor is hard.”
446.21 “Mi chiamano Mimi,”] Aria (“They call me Mimi”) from La Bohème (1895), opera by Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924).
IN THE ARENA
526.10 Parkhurstian fashion] Charles H. Parkhurst (1842–1933), a Presbyterian minister, was president of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, 1891–1909, and author of Our Fight with Tammany (1895), which recounted his struggles with the city’s Democratic Party political machine.
527.19 Madam Roland] The French revolutionary and salonnière born Jeanne-Marie Phillipon (1754–1793).
528.20 good old free and easy Hayes and Wheeler times] The Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) and his vice president William A. Wheeler (1819–1887), whose victory in the disputed 1876 presidential election was marred by fraud and corruption on the part of election officials.
534.19 that John the Baptist didn’t precede and herald him.] I.e., he thinks he’s as good as Jesus, whom John the Baptist prophesied to be “mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear” (Matthew 3:11).
543.4 “Ach du lieber Augustine,”] “Ach Du Lieber Augustin” (“Oh, dear Augustin”), Austrian folk song about the Great Plague of Vienna in 1679 and attributed to the seventeenth-century Austrian minstrel Marx Augustin. The song is based on an anecdote of the plague in which a drunken Augustin passes out and, mistakenly thought to be dead, is thrown into a corpse-pit but awakes before being buried alive.
543.15 chromos] Chromolithographs.
551.32 that eagle. Vote a Republican!”] Referring to the Republican Party being represented by an eagle on ballots; the Democratic Party’s emblem was a rooster.
560.23 engraving of the “Rock of Ages.”] Print made after a painting (1867) by the German-born American artist and clergyman Johannes Adam Simon Oertel (1823–1909) showing a woman clinging to a cross in the midst of a raging sea. This work’s popular title (not Oertel’s) was taken from the hymn “Rock of Ages,” whose words, written in 1776 by Anglican cleric Augustus Montague Toplady (1740–1778), were adapted and set to music in the nineteenth century.
568.19 sea-green Incorruptible] Epithet applied to the French revolutionary François Maximilien Isidore de Robespierre (1759–1794).
579.17–19 Dem’cratic party, mos’ glorious party of Douglas . . . Washin’ton.] Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861) was a Democratic U.S. congressman from Illinois, 1843–47, a senator, 1847–61, and a candidate for president in 1860. New York governor Samuel Tilden (1814–1886) and Indiana governor Thomas Hendricks (1819–1885; later U.S. vice president in 1885) were the Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates in the 1876 election. The politician and statesman Henry Clay (1777–1852) was a member and co-founder of both the National Republican and Whig Parties; George Washington did not belong to a political party.
583.24 “Another Daniel Webster] The American politician, statesman, and attorney Daniel Webster (1782–1852) was a renowned orator.
584.11 G. A. R. reunion] Grand Army of the Republic.
585.3–4 “Horatius at the Bridge”] Widely popular ballad (1842) by the English historian, essayist, and poet Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859).
585.4–5 quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius] In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, IV.iii.
591.24–25 that bourne whence no traveller returns?] Cf. Hamlet, III.i.78–79.
592.16 Edwin Booth] See note 9.11.
595.14–21 Barras . . . dared to oppose the path of one of the eternal stars!”] Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras (1755–1829), was a member of the five-man Directory that ruled France during the French Revolution, which was abolished after the bloodless coup d’état of November 9 (18 Brumaire), 1799, which made Napoleon first consul.
597.20 Lochinvar] Romantic hero in the long narrative poem Marmion (1808), Canto V, by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832); he abducts his beloved on the evening of her betrothal to another man.
608.40–609.2 that man who has suffered most of all . . . did!”] Jesus; “knew not what he did” refers to his words while being crucified as given in Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
630.30–31–631.2 the call of Delilah . . . locks have been shore!] See Judges 16, where Delilah, in exchange fo
r payment from the leaders of the Philistines, discovers from the Israelite judge and warrior Samson that shaving his head will diminish his great strength. One night, while Samson is sleeping on her lap, Delilah orders her servant to cut off his hair, which enables the Philistines to capture and blind him. Samson later takes revenge when, after God grants his wish for a final act of superhuman strength, he pulls down the pillars of a temple, killing himself and the people inside.
633.2 MME. BERNHARDT and M. Coquelin] The renowned French actors Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) and Constant-Benoît Coquelin (1841–1909).
633.3 “L’Aiglon.”] Historical drama (1900) set in 1830–32 by the French playwright Edmond Rostand (1868–1918) whose title character (“the eaglet”) is Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte (1811–1832), the son of Napoléon and his second wife, Marie-Louise, duchess of Parma (1791–1847). Living in Austria for most of his life, François Bonaparte (Napoléon II) was known as Franz and by his title the duke of Reichstadt (the “Dook of Reishtod” mentioned at 636.31).
634.30 ‘Cyrano’] Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (1897).
634.37–39 “That death scene!” . . . after ‘Wagram’] Wagram, the site in Austria of a battle Napoleon won in 1809, provides the setting for the fifth act of Rostand’s play; François Napoléon dies in the final act while a description of his christening in Paris during his father’s reign is read aloud.
635.3 Goethe’s ‘More Light’] The last words of the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) are said to have been “More light! More light!”
636.5 that huntin’-lodge appointment] In act 4 of L’Aiglon the play’s hero asks the young woman Thérèse to meet him for a tryst (which never takes place) at his hunting lodge.
636.15 they all talked in rhyme] Rostand’s play was written in rhyming alexandrines.
636.17–18 never quit on the subject of himself and his folks] In the political, not personal, sense: the play’s hero has to decide, given significant Bonapartist support, whether to return to France to install himself as emperor in continuation of his father’s line.
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