Ben Bolt
gray, were all magnified into a strange, almost holy poetic dignity and splendor.”
And behold, “Ben Bolt” was once more the rage. For Trilby swept the country from end to end, and even contributed a new word to the language. Everybody, once again, after the lapse of half a century, was singing, or whistling, or playing “Ben Bolt.”
“That unsophisticated little song,” Du Maurier calls it, “which has touched so many simple British hearts that don’t know any better.” He little suspected that he was almost to break a simple American heart by resurrecting it! And yet, of course, it was exactly the song which Patrick Michael O’Ferrall would have sung in the circumstances mentioned. The vogue of the book ceased with a suddenness which still remains one of the puzzles of the publishing business, but a play had been made from it and lasted for several seasons—was even revived from time to time. It helped to keep “Ben Bolt” before the public, for a portion of the song was sung off-stage during the third act. And when the book got into the movies, “Ben Bolt” of course was part of the musical program.
Thomas Dunn English died in 1902, at the age of eighty-three, knowing that his song had outlived him. His collected works would fill many volumes; but of his fifty plays only one,
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