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 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. g 
 
DRAMATISTS 
 OF TO-DAY 
 
 ROSTAND, HAUPTMANN, SUDERMANN, 
 PINERO, SHAW, PHILLIPS, 
 MAETERLINCK 
 
 Being an Informal Discussion of their 
 Significant Work 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE, JR. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1905 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONG I 
 
 Two Coi 
 
 APR 12 1905 
 
 Copyright Fntrv 
 
 afa. /, /C I D ^ 
 
 n^r*f A, 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 Copyright, 1905 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 Published April, igoj 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J. 
 
 LC Control Number 
 
 tmp96 031284 
 
Three or four passages in the following pages 
 appeared originally in The Dial, which used to 
 give me opportunities to write on these matters, 
 for which I have always been grateful. I have 
 not thought it necessary to break the continuity 
 by quotation marks or acknowledgment. Ulti- 
 mately it is due to the indulgent kindness of the 
 editor of The Dial that these papers came into 
 being at all, and where there is so much general 
 obligation, it is not important to note a few par- 
 ticular paragraphs. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Pace 
 
 A Note on Standards op Criticism . . 1 
 
 Rostand 12 
 
 Hauptmann 37 
 
 sudermann 62 
 
 PlNERO 83 
 
 Bernard Shaw ..... 102 
 
 Stephen Phillips ... . . . 126 
 
 Maeterlinck . . . . . .147 
 
 Our Idea of Tragedy .... 176 
 
 Appendix 203 
 
 Index 225 
 
A NOTE ON STANDARDS OF 
 CRITICISM 
 
 Of old a " Critick " studied the masters in any 
 given form of art and thus learned the rules of 
 that art. He might then consider whatever came 
 to his notice and pronounce it good or bad. We 
 commonly do much the same sort of thing now, 
 when we read merely for fun. We have, every 
 one of us, got together, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, some ideas on what's what as to novels or 
 short stories or plays or pictures, and when we 
 read or hear or see anything, we instinctively form 
 some judgment of it according to whatever those 
 ideas may be. The process we perhaps express 
 by saying, " I don't pretend to know anything 
 about criticism, but I know what I like." Whether 
 we acknowledge it or not, we commonly form our 
 opinion about current books and plays on some 
 such basis. 
 
 This mode of judgment, still popular with the 
 general reader, was abandoned by many brilliant 
 critics some time ago. It seemed foolish to com- 
 
2 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 
 
 pare indifferently artists of all countries and 
 ages, to call Shakespeare a barbarian because he 
 was not Sophocles, or Sophocles an old grand- 
 mother because he was not Shakespeare. And 
 with the growing idea of natural development in 
 every line of human interest came that form of 
 criticism which seeks to explain every work of art 
 by the circumstances, which views it, not in and 
 by itself, but in its coming to be. The idea has 
 taken all forms: Herder in Germany, Mme. de 
 Stael, Chateaubriand, Sainte-Beuve, Taine in 
 France developed the idea, not only as applied to 
 the character of any individual artist, but as the 
 expression of the spirit of national life. Morelli 
 immensely influenced the modern criticism of 
 painting by bringing the matter down to the 
 psychic and physical habits and powers of any 
 given artist, and there have been many minor 
 efforts to do the same thing in literature. The 
 main idea is in all cases the same: the work of art 
 — picture, poem, play — is the result of certain 
 forces; if you would rightly understand the art, 
 first get at the forces. This view may seem to be 
 historical or scientific rather than critical; if 
 everything is just what it had to be in the due 
 course of nature, can we call one thing better than 
 another? Taine was extremely ingenious in offer- 
 ing an answer to this question. 
 
STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 3 
 
 The world was getting rather accustomed to 
 this idea when it was called upon to accept an- 
 other. Ruskin proclaimed that art was a teacher, 
 and drew away after him a third part of the art- 
 lovers of the world into a place whence it has been 
 hard to escape. In time it appeared, however, 
 that it was not especially necessary that art 
 should be a teacher: the significance of the earlier 
 criticism of Walter Pater lies in the fact that he 
 saw that art was a power working upon the human 
 spirit. This is so obviously the case — indeed 
 Hazlitt had assumed it a century ago — that it 
 was natural that the idea should be carried to its 
 logical conclusion by somebody. Anatole France 
 presumably came upon it himself, for it is the 
 most natural accompaniment of his delightful 
 effort to reduce everything to = 0. And many 
 others have used the idea with great effect, notably 
 Mr. Berenson, who, having found out to the utter- 
 most jot and tittle how Italian art came into 
 existence, now goes on and tells us what it was 
 and has been to the world, and what it may be 
 to us. 
 
 The drama is more a personal than a theoret- 
 ical matter. Every one goes to see plays; every 
 one is in some way or other affected by them. In 
 most cases the effect will be no more than comes 
 from a period of rest to a spirit wearied by the rest- 
 
4 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 
 
 less work or play or ennui of life from day to day. 
 A relaxation, a recess, a recreation; such is the 
 theatre to most. But even as such it must be 
 something more. If this man always does one 
 thing and that man does something else, they will 
 certainly differ in time. If one man commonly 
 goes for an evening's amusement to so-called 
 vaudeville, and another for an evening's amuse- 
 ment commonly goes to see Shakespeare (suppos- 
 ing he had the chance), there will surely be some 
 difference finally, other things being equal, be- 
 tween the two. The theatre is too powerful a stim- 
 ulus for any spirit at all sensitive to escape it 
 wholly. Let us look at its possible effects. 
 
 This, at least, is what I commonly find myself 
 doing. No one will entirely avoid being dogmatic 
 or descriptive; no one will avoid some thought of 
 environment or influence or development. But the 
 main thing is the effect upon the spirit. I shall 
 not of course emulate the example of Ruskin, with 
 his notion that art is didactic and that one must 
 become as a little child at the feet of prophets, 
 who at the present day are as apt to resemble 
 Hosea as Isaiah. Nor shall I follow the steps of 
 the charming arch-sceptic of our time, which lead 
 to that void of absolute zero in which his spirit 
 bathes with such obvious refreshment. I remain 
 on an isthmus of a middle state. Somewhere about 
 
STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 5 
 
 halfway between the holy mountain and the abyss 
 do I mount beside the puppet booth and give, as 
 though a barker, some comment on the dramatists 
 of our day. 
 
 From such a standpoint no one will expect 
 broad and comprehensive surveys; the real pleas- 
 ure and stimulus in a mountain view, say, or in- 
 deed any other view, does not consist in a mastery 
 of all the details; it is something very different. 
 A delightful landscape charms one at the moment 
 and makes itself thenceforward an influence in the 
 mind, so that one is happier at one or another 
 moment for the thinking of it. So it is with other 
 things in life, and especially with art; one is im- 
 mensely struck by a picture, it may be, and it 
 remains in one's thoughts a long, long time, 
 having part in all sorts of unknown psychoses; 
 one hears music, and a melody or a phrase stays by 
 one, often running in the head in very trivial 
 fashion, but often serving finer ends. To discern 
 and analyse these things is something that crit- 
 icism has hardly tried to accomplish, but it is cer- 
 tainly a thing to be done. The purists always 
 think they can tell you what correct pronuncia- 
 tion ought to be, but it is really necessary, first, 
 to know what everyday pronunciation is. Before 
 one can lay down the law as to how one ought to 
 
6 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 
 
 feel about a drama, it is but reasonable to try to 
 find out how one really does feel. 
 
 And this is somehow not a very easy matter: 
 it would seem as though people after a play pre- 
 ferred to think rather than feel. It is not very 
 difficult to think about a play that one has seen 
 or read, and that may be the reason that most 
 people do so. But note theatrical criticism and 
 see how little consists of impression, save in the 
 most general terms, and how much of knowledge, 
 opinion, gossip. It is true that one must have a 
 good deal in the way of facts and recollections ; 
 the impressions made by a play upon a mind like 
 Locke's white paper will not be of much interest 
 in a complex civilisation. One must do a good 
 deal in the way of description and analysis of 
 character, construction, situation, for that is 
 often the only way that one can present one's im- 
 pressions, and those things are immensely inter- 
 esting and valuable for themselves or in relation 
 to other criticism. All is, they are not the main 
 thing here : if they were, I should have to apologise 
 for many omissions and, I suppose, not a few com- 
 missions. No one, I hope, will carp at my neglect- 
 ing academic system and completeness. I have so 
 much lecturing on literature from day to day, so 
 much of the academic way of looking at things, 
 that it is really a means to mental health to do 
 
STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 7 
 
 something else. There are many other dramatists 
 of our day who ought to have their part in any 
 real treatise on the current drama. From the 
 ferocious Strindberg on the north to the equally 
 ferocious d'Annunzio on the south, from the sym- 
 bolic Mr. Yeats on the other side of the water 
 to our own Mr. Clyde Fitch, whose cymbals tinkle 
 rather differently, there are several dramatists as 
 interesting as some of whom I speak. And then 
 there is Ibsen; no one can neglect him, nor, in- 
 deed, have I done so; for although Ibsen is not 
 precisely a dramatist of our day, he is a remark- 
 able influence on the drama of our day. To us in 
 America Ibsen belongs to the past or to the future, 
 surely not to the present. And since there are many 
 books and essays on Ibsen, I have thought it as well 
 not to attempt any new estimate of his work. In 
 fact these papers make no attempt at a complete 
 and systematic view. In trying to form such a 
 view of the work of our time, much of the freshness 
 and spontaneity would be lost, and even then the 
 game would not be worth the candle, for in a few 
 years something would turn up that would make 
 what had been systematic seem very desultory. 
 Current criticism should, I suppose, result from 
 something pretty definite in the way of ideas, but 
 I doubt if it need result in anything definite in the 
 way of system. 
 
8 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 
 
 A play presents its material to us in a concen- 
 trated form attained by certain devices which, 
 though literary in character, are usually devel- 
 oped from the necessities of the stage of the 
 period. When the play is actually presented on 
 the stage, its effect is heightened by many devices 
 which are not literary in character, as acting, 
 stage-setting, and so forth. It is interesting to 
 note these devices, these ways in which the im- 
 pression is made upon us, to point them out, to 
 talk of them. There is an immense amount of 
 very interesting stuff here; indeed, it makes the 
 greater part of technical dramatic criticism. But 
 it is all only means to an end ; the real end is that 
 we ourselves shall be affected somehow or other 
 by the play. If we are nowise affected, or affected 
 in a way we dislike, we might as well stay at home ; 
 or if we are at home reading the play, we might 
 as well read something else or nothing at all. Our 
 interest in these contemporary dramatists is that 
 we get something from them. 
 
 This something, in the case of a play of any 
 value, always lasts for a while, perhaps a day or 
 two only, perhaps merely during supper after the 
 theatre, but generally longer. To state precisely 
 the general nature of this effect in simple lan- 
 guage is not at all easy ; I do not know that it has 
 ever been very systematically analysed. Neglect- 
 
STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 9 
 
 ing, however, such accidents as a sweet smile, a 
 phrase of music or of words, a beautiful dress, we 
 may say that we shall usually have in mind a bit 
 of human experience. This experience may be, in 
 its general circumstance, familiar to us, as in 
 " Candida," or it may be quite unfamiliar or even 
 impossible, as in " Die versunkene Glocke," but 
 human experience it is, or it does not remain long 
 with us. 
 
 Just what we do with this new possession will 
 differ according as we differ, but the main things 
 that we do will be one or another of these follow- 
 ing. We may deal with it as we should with any 
 piece of real life, laugh or cry over it at the time, 
 think about it and talk about it afterwards as 
 though it were real. How was it with Mrs. Tan- 
 queray? Was it right or wrong that the world 
 should have used her as it did? Our views on 
 these matters may very probably be influenced by 
 the dramatist, but we commonly neglect that con- 
 sideration and think and talk as we should of real 
 people. Or next, we may be pleased with some- 
 thing in the play because, though not real life, it 
 is such an absolute resemblance of it. Miss 
 Prossy, for instance, and " Prossy's complaint " 
 will give a thrill of pleasure because they so per- 
 fectly resemble something that may not in itself 
 be so very interesting to us. It is very fine, we 
 
10 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 
 
 say, because it is so true. Thirdly, this human 
 experience may concentrate itself, as it were, in a 
 figure or situation that will appear to us to imply 
 or signify something of importance, which figure 
 or situation will recur to the mind at one time or 
 another with a good deal of the original feeling 
 with which we first experienced it. This is one 
 reason why Mme. Bernhardt is such a powerful 
 ally to any dramatist: she readily makes herself a 
 dramatic figure. 
 
 This last process, I rather think, is the most 
 specifically connected with the drama. The first 
 is a little naive ; it reminds one of the many stories 
 about inexperienced persons in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury or in frontier towns or early in life, who 
 thought that the play actually was real life. It 
 is something which has no especial connection with 
 the drama; it may occur well enough with any 
 form of representative art just as it may with life 
 itself. The second is a great pleasure undoubt- 
 edly; it has been noted by many an analyst be- 
 fore and after Pope; still it gets from the drama 
 only what one may get from all literature and all 
 graphic art as well. The last seems to me the 
 pleasure particularly dramatic, for just this 
 result the drama is particularly fitted to give by 
 all its especial powers and devices, and to quite 
 the same degree no one of the other arts can give 
 
STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 11 
 
 it. Something of the kind we have from painting 
 and from fiction and poetry, but the drama com- 
 bines the powers of the two. It gives us figures 
 for the eye and for the imagination at the same 
 time. To have such impressions is in itself an 
 aesthetic pleasure of the purest kind. What re- 
 sults from it is another matter. 
 
ROSTAND 
 
 When M. Edmond Rostand became a member 
 of the French Academy, he was accepted as a man 
 of letters of the first rank by a body which has 
 made mistakes, but still holds the respect of the 
 world. His reception was therefore an event. I 
 read that even from the outside of the Palais de 
 PInstitut one could " measure all the importance 
 of that ceremony." To perform that feat, my 
 authority continues, it was enough, at least for 
 an observer well up in his " Tout Paris," to see 
 the people going in and coming out ; the different 
 persons of importance in " les mondes litteraire, 
 artistique, scientifique, aristocratique, diploma- 
 tique," who formed groups " d'un charactere sug- 
 gestif et d'un interet document aire." Not being 
 very strong myself in " Tout Paris," I must con- 
 fess tliat the only one of these groups presented by 
 V Illustration that was of real interest to me was 
 that consisting of M. Rostand himself in a cocked 
 hat and a cloak, with a sword sticking from under 
 it, preceded by an usher. And from a considera- 
 tion of the other groups, I incline to think that the 
 12 
 
ROSTAND 13 
 
 importance of the occasion may be measured, per- 
 haps, but not fully estimated, by a consideration 
 of the persons who were present at it, although it 
 is of interest to be told that there were more guests 
 than there have been at any such occasion in the 
 last half -century. 
 
 In fact various writers have estimated the sig- 
 nificance of the event in a totally different manner. 
 They have considered it as bringing forward the 
 question of M. Rostand's position from the stand- 
 point of literature. 
 
 From the standpoint of literature it will be ob- 
 served, rather than from the standpoint of the 
 theatre. For it seems obvious that a man need 
 not have any position in literature by virtue of 
 theatrical masterpieces alone. Other positions he 
 will have thereby, but not a position in literature ; 
 for that one must produce books that people will 
 read. Literature is a matter of letters rather 
 than of sounds, one may say. A man may be a 
 great talker, but only rarely does one gain a place 
 in literature by conversation alone; Boswells are 
 too rare. One may be a great orator, but even 
 so, one is known in literature by the printed form, 
 as when Macaulay wrote out his speeches, ten and 
 twenty years after he made them, not in the pre- 
 cise words he had used, which were irrevocably lost, 
 but in words which he might have used. So with 
 
14 ROSTAND 
 
 the dramatist. If his work have anything of 
 literature in it, it will be something that will stand 
 the test of type. 
 
 The theatre, undoubtedly, produces often mat- 
 ters that are most delightful when put in book 
 form, but the theatre, as such, is not concerned 
 in that fact. Of the innumerable forms of the 
 drama, many have little about them that can be 
 called literature, — melodrama and farce, as a rule, 
 the clever extempore drama of Italy and other 
 lands, the pantomime which often has a strikingly 
 dramatic quality without a single word, and, we 
 may add, the now extinct Weber and Fields bur- 
 lesque, which seems to have been a theatrical genre 
 of great interest to the student of the stage, in its 
 possibilities at least. 
 
 This matter is clear enough to the keen-eyed 
 critics of M. Rostand's own country. They looked 
 upon his reception into the Academy with interest, 
 because, as they said, although he had dominated 
 the purely theatrical criticism, he had not, up to 
 that time, wholly won over the critics of literature. 
 " If the people of the theatre can hardly speak of 
 M. Rostand without a sort of amorous emotion in 
 the voice, literary people have been able, on the 
 contrary, to make him the subject of a more un- 
 moved criticism." Such at least was the view of M. 
 Gustave Kahn, who went on to consider " la 
 
ROSTAND 15 
 
 valeur litteraire " of the author of u Cyrano H 
 and " L'Aiglon." 
 
 I must leave M. Kahn to his own opinions, for 
 it is surely none of my business to controvert or 
 agree with the ideas of a French critic on the 
 position in French literature of a French drama- 
 tist. But the point is noteworthy in this way : M. 
 Rostand had a great success, out of France at 
 least, for reasons that were somewhat non-theat- 
 rical, or that were at least supposed to be. In 
 Germany the critics, at least, laid stress upon his 
 ideas and in this country something of the sort was 
 the case. Not that it was not delightful to see his 
 plays at the theatre; not that, had he presented 
 his ideas in other forms, they would have been as 
 successful as they were; neither of these supposi- 
 tions is the case. But given the theatrical success 
 of M. Rostand, a thing that he possessed in com- 
 mon, for instance, with Mr. Clyde Fitch or Mr. 
 David Belasco, that which was the staying quality, 
 outside of France at least, was the literature and 
 not the extreme theatrical skill. 
 
 Of course many of those most ready or compe- 
 tent to speak on this subject are of a very different 
 opinion. But what will you have? A man cannot 
 be always thinking like other people, he must wan- 
 der off by himself sometimes. And if, in such wan- 
 derings, his views are false or foolish, the best 
 
16 ROSTAND 
 
 thing to do is to speak them out, for then he will 
 be corrected by those who are wiser. So I offer 
 my view of the literary element and quality in the 
 work of M. Rostand with perfect cheerfulness, 
 even though it is very different from that of — well, 
 various people of consideration. And there is cer- 
 tainly pleasure in looking over the work of M. Ros- 
 tand, as though he were not a successful play- 
 wright who maybe seen (let us hope, again) at the 
 theatre, presented by the most charming or the 
 most dominating of the actresses of the day, but 
 rather — what shall I say? — rather as though he 
 were one of the great dramatists of the literature 
 of the past, whose work is now withdrawn from 
 the glare of the footlights and enclosed silently 
 between covers, for the delight, not of the ground- 
 ling or the man from the street, but of the pale 
 student under the midnight bulb or the member of 
 a popular literary club. 
 
 In M. Rostand's first work for the stage, " Les 
 Romanesques," he was surely attractive, but not 
 very much more. A writer who thinks that in that 
 charming little play we have M. Rostand " tout 
 entier, ou il est le meilleur, dans la picaresque 
 et la funambulesque," seems to miss so much 
 suggested by the later plays that one is tempted 
 to ask: Is it really there, all this that we think 
 moves us? or can it be that we are reading into 
 
ROSTAND 17 
 
 the work of the poet ideas which were nothing to 
 him and thereby neglecting the very things that 
 were in his own mind the real ones? Yet I shall 
 for the moment believe that it is not so, and go on 
 to say that " Les Romanesques " is not what might 
 be expected of the author of " Cyrano de Berge- 
 rac." Not because it is slight, nor because it is 
 little more than attractive, but because it is a deli- 
 cate satire upon the tribe of romancers in general. 
 Percinet and Sylvette, two young people who live 
 on estates separated by a high wall, are full of a 
 fine desire for colour, and beauty, and charm. They 
 long for a wonderful life and condemn the com- 
 monplace. Their fathers appreciate their dispo- 
 sition, too, and, not unwilling to pose a bit them- 
 selves, they affect to be bitter enemies. The lovers 
 are transported into the seventh heaven and be- 
 come Romeo and Juliet. How can they be united? 
 They suggest ridiculously impossible plans, and 
 then their fathers humour them with a scheme of 
 their own. It is delightful while they think it 
 genuine, but when they find out that they have been 
 tricked they are enraged. Sylvette refuses to be 
 married and Percinet goes forth to seek for adven- 
 ture in the world. Of course he returns and the 
 play ends happily, as the saying is. 
 
 M. Rostand's great triumph was in romance. 
 Is it to be said that to begin with a burlesque on 
 
18 ROSTAND 
 
 romance and to succeed with a romantic triumph 
 shows a lack of sincerity ? 
 
 That is not just the way to put it. Men do not 
 often jest at what they deem great. But they do 
 jest (and often very bitterly, as Rostand does 
 not) at the world's perversions of what they deem 
 great. Rostand believes in romance, let us say, 
 but he has his laugh at the romancers. Did not 
 Sir Walter make fun of Julia Mannering? 
 
 These charming lovers are doubtless silly; they 
 think they must have exquisite mystery, recondite 
 sensation, something strange, out-of-the-way, fas- 
 cinating, anything in short that they have not 
 got. But so it is also with their everyday fathers : 
 they also think they will be satisfied with what 
 they have not, but when they have it, Pasquinot is 
 bored at Ber gamin's watering pot, and Bergamin 
 is bored at Pasquinot's always having a button off 
 his waistcoat. Youth is one thing, age is another, 
 but both, in so far as they substitute dreams for 
 reality, are fair food for wit. 
 
 But what is reality? And here Percinet speaks 
 possibly for M. Rostand. 
 
 " It was real for us who thought it real. 
 
 Sylvette. No. My being carried off, like your 
 duel, was all made-up. 
 
 Percinet. Your fear was not, madame." 
 . The mind that is sincere makes the reality, but 
 
ROSTAND 19 
 
 people are too ready with the conventional com- 
 monplace as with the conventional romance. Ro- 
 mance itself may be real enough if it only be real 
 romance and not the conventional, the make-believe, 
 the fashionable. Percinet on the road, Sylvette in 
 the garden, learn that life is not made up of 
 phrases and attitudes. 
 
 This was the thing that the Realists and the 
 Naturalists and the rest had always had in mind. 
 They had laughed at the old romance and its cos- 
 tumes and properties, its phrases and attitudes. 
 They themselves presented truth. 
 
 So would Rostand, only he would present truth 
 differently: the realists presented truth by its 
 ever-varying myriad circumstance, he would pre- 
 sent it by its essence, its idea, its type. Hence 
 " La Princesse Lointaine." 
 
 In " La Princesse Lointaine " we have the ideal- 
 ist, the ultra-romantic Rudel, faithful to the 
 very door of death to the Princess whom he has 
 never seen. But we also have the Princess, too, 
 and she is not faithful. She fondles the idea of 
 an absent lover devoted to her image, and when she 
 hears from the redoubtable Bertrand that her 
 lover is at hand sick to death, awaiting her on his 
 mattress laid on deck, she will not go to him. And 
 why? The subtle Sorismonde suggests a reason. 
 " You will not see him who was dear to you in the 
 
20 ROSTAND 
 
 divine splendour of a dream, because you would 
 not see him in the horrible haggardness of the fact ; 
 you would keep the recollection of your love still 
 noble." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! " says the Princess, " that is the 
 only reason." 
 
 But it is not really the contrast of the vision- 
 ary love and the haggard fact that moves her. 
 It is the contrast between the imaginary love and 
 the actuality of the passion that she feels for the 
 messenger. Sorismonde tells her that she passes 
 from a dream into real life. She says herself that 
 she denies the pale flower of the dream for the 
 flower of love. But when the experiment is made 
 it appears that the flower of love, that the actual- 
 ity of life, has been bought at too high a price, 
 that there was something even more real in the im- 
 agination, in the dream, in the romance. Squar- 
 ciafico cannot understand such a thing when it 
 occurs in his own humorous accompaniment to 
 the lyric motive. He grasps it no better than the 
 average realist. " But I am opening your eyes ! " 
 he says to the sailors. " And suppose we prefer 
 to keep them closed ? " they say in their blundering 
 faith, not differing much from many readers of 
 Zola. It is only when she has given up the passion 
 of actuality, and returned to the old ideal that she 
 believed in, that Melissande finds herself on firm 
 
ROSTAND 21 
 
 ground. At the end she knows the one thing 
 needful. 
 
 " La Princesse Lointaine " was not successful 
 upon the stage, I believe, and it is not wholly con- 
 vincing here and there when one reads it. That 
 goes rather without saying. Had it been a first- 
 rate play, M. Rostand would have been famous be- 
 fore " Cyrano." There is much that is beautiful 
 in " La Princesse Lointaine." The indomitable 
 hero, the faithful sailors, the audacious quest, the 
 intensity of the moment of action, and a very ex- 
 quisite reconciliation to the tragic end remain in 
 one's mind and may well outweigh a lightness and 
 over-refinement of handling. At least one is im- 
 pressed with the feeling that here is one who can 
 say his word on the deep things of life and give 
 his imagining the form of beauty. And here is a 
 word spoken with no uncertain voice for the power 
 of romance. 
 
 As to " La Samaritaine," that is certainly a 
 matter rather hard for the average Anglo-Saxon 
 to handle. It is hard to understand the mental 
 attitude which conceived the play. It is of course 
 not the simplicity which presented much the same 
 thing five centuries before, in the mystery plays. 
 But then it is hardly the balmy scepticism with 
 which another Frenchman, some time since, offered 
 the world a Galilean idyl in exchange for an 
 
22 ROSTAND 
 
 inspired Gospel. However we take it, though, 
 we have a play made from an episode in the career 
 of the greatest idealist the world has ever seen. 
 To my ears, however, all that rings true in the 
 play is that which reminds me of words otherwise 
 long familiar. The play was not unsuccessful, but 
 excited no great interest. 
 
 It was at the very end of the year 1897 that 
 " Cyrano de Bergerac " was produced and at once 
 achieved an immense success in Paris, and not very 
 long after, throughout Europe and America. It 
 was a great day for Romance, a second " Her- 
 nani." 
 
 In the history of the literature of the nineteenth 
 century Cyrano de Bergerac will be a well-remem- 
 bered figure — would be something much more than 
 that, except that people do not read plays as much 
 as they read novels. But even as it is, Cyrano de 
 Bergerac is, and will remain, one of the great 
 figures which the French literature of our time 
 offers the world. As we look back, any one of us, 
 into the vista of our earlier days, and recognise 
 the figures that arise from the readings of our 
 youth, the first to strike us, when we think of our 
 early acquaintance with French literature, is the 
 figure of the heroic d'Artagnan. Or is it Con- 
 suelo? Never mind — the elder Dumas and George 
 Sand were the great French writers of our earlier 
 
ROSTAND 23 
 
 days, as they were of an earlier part of the cen- 
 tury. It must have been later in life that we be- 
 came acquainted with the Comedie Humaine and 
 Marguerite Gautier, with Madame Bovary and the 
 Rougon-Macquart family. Whether it were so or 
 not in our own individual youth, it was practically 
 so with the youth of our time. To readers nour- 
 ished on Byron and Scott, France gave the " Three 
 Musketeers " and " Monte Cristo," " Mauprat " 
 and " Consuelo." Then came the turn of the tide, 
 and a generation brought up on Dickens and 
 Thackeray and George Eliot put aside childish 
 things and were thrilled by the tragedies of Bal- 
 zac, Dumas fils, Flaubert, Zola. Of course there 
 were other realists, too, — realists everywhere, — 
 but these were the men who represented France, 
 and who created the typical characters that seize 
 the imagination and recollection of all. 
 
 Then, as the century was coming to an end, 
 France presented another figure, — and that not 
 realistic, but romantic again, — presented it to a 
 world that was ready to enjoy romance once more. 
 Just as a generation fed on Scott welcomed 
 d'Artagnan, so a generation fed on Stevenson 
 welcomed Cyrano de Bergerac. The pendulum 
 had swung back. 
 
 When, after the duel in the first act, a brilliant 
 and heroic musketeer strides out of the crowd and 
 
24 ROSTAND 
 
 shakes the victorious Cyrano by the hand and dis- 
 appears, the incident is more significant than the 
 audience appreciates. " Who is that gentle- 
 man ? " says Cyrano to Cuigy. " It is M. 
 d'Artagnan," says he, and Cyrano turns round; 
 but the older hero is gone, and Cyrano holds the 
 attention alone. The two are alike and are dif- 
 ferent. Both are heroes who fire the old-time 
 savage element of the soul, — Gascons, swordsmen, 
 indomitable, men of the compelling word and the 
 convincing stroke, hot-blooded, honourable, heroic. 
 But there is also a difference: one is striking, 
 brilliant, magnificent, and the other is almost 
 grotesque. He is cruelly grotesque; there is 
 nothing to lighten it; it is nothing one can pity, 
 like a hump or a club-foot; nothing one can 
 delude oneself into thinking fine, like a mountain 
 belly and a rocky face or a Rochester sort of 
 hideousness; nothing that one can fancy is sig- 
 nificant, like a birthmark or a distorted mouth. 
 All these things the world would forgive or for- 
 get. Here is something ridiculous, something 
 that would make any of us shiver and writhe if 
 we saw it by our fireside. Here is something that 
 touches us cynical, susceptible, bantering people, 
 touches us in a very tender place. 
 
 And yet one swallows it, and with it all minor 
 matters. Cyrano might, by an enemy, be called a 
 
ROSTAND 25 
 
 bully and a braggart, but that possibility is 
 quite lost in our general sympathy. We do not 
 think of that any more than of his nose; we feel 
 only that he is a noble figure. This is rather a 
 curious thing. It is the result of Realism, I take 
 it. In the old, old fairy tale, the beast stopped 
 being a beast' when he was loved. The monster 
 became Cupid. But Realism pricked that bubble, 
 and we recognise to-day even in literature, as a 
 rule, that human nature is, and will long continue 
 to remain human. We must accept the strange 
 mixture of the god and the animal. We must rec- 
 ognise that the old-time dreams are dreams — 
 beautiful, encouraging, inspiring, to be remem- 
 bered and to be thankful for, but not truths that 
 we shall ever know. Realism fixed upon us the 
 pre-eminent thought of our time that the triumph 
 of the spirit is despite the flesh, and the new 
 Romanticism profited by the lesson. Our English 
 romancers — Mr. Stanley Weyman is a good exam- 
 ple of a hundred — did not quite dare. They were 
 conscious that their heroes must not be the old-time 
 impossibilities, but they compromised, as a rule, 
 by having their heroes chumps, stupid though 
 well-meaning, and of course successful at the end. 
 They did not dare to go to the impossible extreme 
 which so often makes the type. M. Rostand did 
 dare to do so, and succeeded. 
 
26 ROSTAND 
 
 Is it a curious thing this swinging over to Ro- 
 mance? We used to think that romance was some- 
 thing for children. They read about d'Artagnan 
 fighting duels or Ivanhoe in the tournaments, while 
 their elders read (aloud) Anthony Trollope's ac- 
 counts of everyday life reaching the culmination of 
 excitement in a rattling fox-hunt. And then sud- 
 denly we found that the tide had turned. Not sud- 
 denly, perhaps, for long ago I remember my in- 
 ward wonder when a man whose taste I esteemed 
 told me of his joy in " King Solomon's Mines." 
 No, it was not sudden, for no change in taste is sud- 
 den, but it was sure nevertheless, so that it is per- 
 haps not the less curious. 
 
 Still we may ask, Is the new Romance the same 
 as the old? Is Scott the same as Stevenson? Is 
 " Cyrano " the same as " Hernani " ? 
 
 Certainly Stevenson is not Scott. He is not so 
 large a man for one thing, but for another he is 
 not of the same kind. So far as real life is con- 
 cerned there is no comparison, Scott is the only 
 one to think of. But so far as romance is con- 
 cerned, there is little enough comparison either. 
 Incomplete as Stevenson is, powerless often to ex- 
 press his own convictions, he never tried to present 
 figures as empty of real significance as the Master 
 of Ravenswood and the Disinherited Knight. He 
 sought for the romance of the spirit and not for 
 
ROSTAND 27 
 
 the external romance of costume and circumstance 
 that satisfied Scott. In fact, Realism has had its 
 effect, for it has made people more serious. 
 
 Cyrano is surely a character for the playwright. 
 " Mais quel geste," he says. It surely was a good 
 attitude, — just why who can divine? — that throw- 
 ing the bag of crowns on the stage. Nor was Cy- 
 rano ever at a loss for such attitudes. He is quite 
 without affectation when he sets forth to march 
 through Old Paris at the head of that strange 
 procession of musicians and soldiers and ac- 
 tresses, as well as when the Spanish officer asks: 
 " Who are these so determined on death? " he 
 replies : " Ce sont les cadets de Gascogne ! " and 
 charges the crowd of Imperialists with the few 
 that are left. 
 
 Such things are characteristic of him. He must 
 do them. We cold-blooded creatures do not un- 
 derstand such things. They seem perhaps sense- 
 less to us and foolhardy, we do not know what 
 they mean. This melodramatic character thrills 
 us perhaps, but we cannot sympathise because we 
 cannot interpret. To us Cyrano is an actor, and 
 we Anglo-Saxons are not individually apt to act, 
 nor to respect the actor as such. So we miss one 
 side of the man, one of his perfectly natural means 
 of expressing himself. 
 
 Only this one side, however, need we miss, if that 
 
28 ROSTAND 
 
 to some degree. For this dramatic expression so 
 natural to Cyrano, as I suppose to all French and 
 many more, is but one side of the character. It is 
 a mode of expression for certain things, but not 
 for everything. There are things about Cyrano 
 that do not come to such expression. 
 
 We Anglo-Saxons want ideas or we think we do. 
 All else we put aside as being superficial, insincere, 
 and so miss the greater part of the dramatic spirit 
 of the Latin. But Cyrano has his ideas, too, as 
 well as his poses. He is less conscious of them 
 perhaps, but he has them, or rather, as we should 
 say of his poses, he is them. 
 
 Cyrano is in fact a type — a type of the largest 
 class of people in the world (for it includes every 
 one), namely those who do not get what they know 
 they deserve, who find no chance to do what they 
 know they could do, who are so much greater to 
 themselves than to the cold world. He is also the 
 type of a much smaller class who do not make a 
 fuss about the matter, but carry it all off so gaily 
 and finely that no one has any consciousness of com- 
 plaint, murmuring, repining ; indeed perhaps there 
 is at bottom hardly a suspicion of anything of the 
 kind. From the girl who is not like other girls, 
 from that strange commercial traveller some years 
 ago who published poems that his friends might 
 know his real self, to the philosopher with his " To 
 
ROSTAND 29 
 
 be great is to be misunderstood," or to the professor 
 who fretted and fumed and lamented, and tor- 
 mented himself " because, as he acknowledged to 
 himself, the Thou sweet gentleman was not suffi- 
 ciently honoured," to the great Queen exclaiming: 
 " If my people only knew me as I am ! " we all 
 nurse an ideal in our hearts and most of us know 
 that it will never be realised, even that it cannot be 
 realised. For one reason or another, doubtless, — 
 not always a nose, — perhaps even it is the neces- 
 sary nature of things, though that is rarely the 
 view that we take of it. 
 
 And so Cyrano takes our sympathy. We are 
 even as he. With him it is a nose, with us fortu- 
 nately a something else, that prevents our stand- 
 ing forth to the world for all we are worth. This, 
 besides many minor matters, good each in its own 
 way, is the thing that unconsciously touches all. 
 
 Yet, because M. Rostand is not Shakespeare or 
 some one like him, we do not have everything. 
 Some would say because he is a Frenchman, 
 decadent, pessimist, morbid, he has nothing more 
 to say than just that. Here is a man who was 
 fine, strong, brave, good, and never got his due. 
 What of it? Well, the rest is silence, or nearly 
 so. The last act is pathetic, touching, but not 
 illuminating. Certainly Roxane did not love him, 
 — or suppose she did, what of it? He had no 
 
30 ROSTAND 
 
 comprehension of it. And suppose he had had, 
 what then? Would that have been what we feel 
 the true, the inevitable end? I fear not. 
 
 Still it is a beautiful play. To-night, seven 
 years after I read it first and saw it on the stage, 
 I read it once more, and that with some misgiving. 
 But the beautiful verse has lost none of its beauty ; 
 the gaiety and verve and spirit have lost none of 
 their lightness; the situations have lost no thrill; 
 and the play has much the same meaning as that 
 first night when I read it, and it pursued itself 
 through my mind till morning, — as much and 
 more. 
 
 When a man does something very fine indeed 
 he may well fear — or at least his friends may 
 fear for him — that he will not be able to do some- 
 thing else worthy of being compared with it. 
 Until we get used to it, genius so often seems acci- 
 dent. There must be some high wave that no 
 other wave will reach. When M. Rostand had 
 surprised the world with " Cyrano de Bergerac," 
 it was not unnatural that the world should sup- 
 pose that the next play would not sustain the 
 effect. 
 
 Such doubts were set at rest on the appearance 
 of " L'Aiglon," when the book was read, and 
 doubly so when the play was seen. Many thought 
 that M. Rostand had bettered his masterpiece. 
 
ROSTAND SI 
 
 This tragedy, with its poor, weak little hero, with 
 all its frivolity, all its decadent circumstance, 
 made a stronger effect than its wonderful prede- 
 cessor — stronger, if less obvious. 
 
 As before, we have under very special condi- 
 tions a figure of general appeal. This young 
 man, yearning after that great inheritance which 
 he hears, which he feels is his, imagining it in all 
 sorts of glittering and deceptive circumstance, 
 treasuring scraps of others' reminiscences, gain- 
 ing hope from misinterpreted detail, indulging 
 his fancy with aimless triviality, daring in ill- 
 advised effort, — for he hardly knows just what, 
 — failing and surrendering himself to the inev- 
 itable currents of life and even death, — he is not 
 for us particularly the young Napoleon, he is 
 merely what he essentially is, a poignant example 
 of the fate that stands ready for all humanity. 
 
 " L'Aiglon " was first produced in New York not 
 long after a revival of " Hamlet," so that it was 
 not unnatural to think of the Prince of Denmark 
 in his weeds of customary black while looking on 
 the French prince in his Austrian white. With- 
 out comparing M. Rostand with Shakespeare, we 
 may still compare the great figure of English 
 romanticism in its heydey with this later figure of 
 French romance. It is perhaps singular that in 
 an age pre-eminent for exuberant conception and 
 
32 ROSTAND 
 
 fulfilled achievement the greatest creation of lit- 
 erature should have been the man who thought 
 too closely on the event, and kept on living to 
 say, This thing's to do, until circumstances took 
 the matter out of his hands. Not less singular is 
 it — if either be singular at all — that at the end 
 of a century of unrivalled material achievement 
 should appear this presentation of the prince who 
 strove to realise his fancies and failed. 
 
 So M. Rostand is not merely a Romanticist in 
 the sense that he gives us rattling sword-and- 
 mantle plays, in which things happen, according 
 to the saying of the day. He is that sort of neo- 
 Romanticist whose figures are types — a romancer, 
 we may think, of the school of Hawthorne. And 
 his figures generally typify the same thing. 
 Rudel is the poet whose love for the ideal leads 
 him to his own death, happily unknowing of the 
 reality which is nearest him. Cyrano is the 
 average man, perhaps, though one of immense 
 talent, the man who sees what he really is, what he 
 really might be, perhaps, but reconciles himself 
 slowly to the impossibility of ever making the 
 ideal conquer the world. And the Due de Reich- 
 stadt surely is an idealist of the first water. No 
 confident holder of the faith in the presence of 
 undeniable fact was more determined than the 
 Duke as he listens to Metternich and finally breaks 
 
ROSTAND 33 
 
 the mirror. He, too, gives way to the fact of the 
 matter, but he is broken and not bent. 
 
 What is it that leads M. Rostand to this pres- 
 entation of invariable failure? Is it because he is 
 morbid, cynical, pessimistic, etc., etc., etc.? 
 Hardly. It is due to something far more general 
 than such possibilities, namely, the tragic quality 
 of great drama — I had almost said of great lit- 
 erature. In spite of all that has been said about 
 the agreement of literature and life, there is this 
 singular and important difference, that literature 
 is in its greatest moments tragic, and that life is 
 not. M. Rostand writes as he does because he is 
 a dramatist, a poet, a man of letters, and not a 
 pastor, a philanthropist, or a philosopher. As 
 such he cannot present the world as being all de- 
 lightful and right in the end. No great poets 
 while they were great have done so; Job, Helen, 
 Hamlet, Don Quixote, Faust, Colonel Newcome, — 
 these all are tragic figures. 
 
 I cannot pretend to explain, from the stand- 
 point of aesthetics, why this should be so. The 
 frivolous (and I am often one of them) will say 
 that every story must have an end, and that death 
 is the only end that will stay ended, among matters 
 of importance. Minor matters certainly come to 
 an end, as clothes, for instance, the best even of 
 dinners, light loves in the portal. But with the 
 
34 ROSTAND 
 
 really important things it is different. Marriage, 
 of course, often plays the role of conclusion, on 
 the stage or in the book, but it is one of the un- 
 realities of comedy that it does so. Look about 
 for an end, and you will find it hard to think of 
 any but death or disappointment, which, if it be 
 really an end, is much the same thing. 
 
 Without taking this view too seriously, we 
 shall perhaps admit that it is not for literature 
 to demonstrate that things are going all right. 
 That seems rather the office of philosophy (if it 
 wants to try it) or of religion. Literature is for 
 our emotions. Now happiness is emotionally de- 
 lightful, but by its very nature it is not perma- 
 nent. " Even in the very temple of Delight, 
 veiled Melancholy hath her sovran shrine," said 
 Keats, with that direct, far-seeing intensity of 
 his. While man is what he is, mere satisfaction 
 can never be final. And however this may be in 
 art in general, or even in literature or in poetry, 
 it is readily enough seen to be so in the drama. 
 Comedy certainly is delightful, but the great 
 things are tragic. And that is because a great 
 dramatic moment, one that will remain with us, 
 be permanent, must be complete in itself — that is 
 to say, final. Now Romeo and Juliet in the tomb 
 of the Capulets are final figures. So Hamlet as 
 he utters " The rest is silence." So Lear on the 
 
ROSTAND 35 
 
 heath, beyond even the power of Nahum Tate. 
 Comic figures there are also, but one cannot bear 
 to think of Falstaff always laughing. Romantic 
 figures there are too, suave and beautiful. Ferdi- 
 nand and Miranda, as they play at chess, and 
 certainly we should like to believe them eternal, 
 but the appeal is very ad hominem, and the wise 
 will take it for no more than it is. 
 
 So Cyrano throwing his bag of money on the 
 stage is a permanent figure. " Quel geste," he 
 says, feeling the thing to the bottom, but without 
 troubling to analyse it. So L'Aiglon breaking 
 the mirror is a permanent figure. So Rudel on 
 the deck of his galley. 
 
 These figures give us dramatic moments. But 
 they also mean something, and we Anglo-Saxons 
 are dead set on seeing what they mean. " The 
 most popular play of the final decade of the cen- 
 tury presents no problem whatsoever, and avoids 
 any criticism of life," says a critic of eminence, 
 as though it were a fault. Mme. Bernhardt and 
 M. Coquelin, however, see that these things 
 have their meaning for those who appreciate them 
 and never think of explaining. So M. Rostand. 
 He contents himself with dramatic figures. They 
 justify themselves. Explanation belongs to the 
 philosopher. 
 
 And we, too, may be satisfied with M. Rostand, 
 
36 ROSTAND 
 
 in spite of the invariable shade. A greater man 
 would perhaps be more reassuring. Tennyson 
 has King Arthur fail because it is not in the plan 
 of things for any individual to bring in the mil- 
 lennium, and Browning believes that a man's reach 
 must exceed his grasp. We need not be concerned 
 at M. Rostand's being a pessimist, if such he be; 
 it is often a fine thing to recognise and admit 
 pessimism as an element in life. It is of course 
 a pity that his handling is not perfect; the last 
 acts of " Cyrano," of " L'Aiglon," are they not 
 weak? But even here there is something in har- 
 mony with the idea. 
 
HAUPTMANN 
 
 Ten years ago, say, the name of Gerhardt 
 Hauptmann was a magic name; it was almost a 
 charm in itself to cause the most glorious aesthetic 
 thrills. It represented the finest things in litera- 
 ture. It is now rarely heard. " So sinks the 
 daystar in the ocean bed, and yet anon flames in 
 the forehead of the morning sky." There is for- 
 tunately plenty of time. 
 
 Hauptmann, however, never achieved such im- 
 mediate, such inordinate, such universal success 
 as did M. Rostand. But though he became more 
 gradually, if less widely, known, he was, in a way, 
 more stimulating and inspiring thereby. M. Ros- 
 tand became famous at one stroke. With Haupt- 
 mann each new play was a successive emotion and 
 excitement. Every new play was a new revela- 
 tion of the soul of the artist; it raised, for one 
 and another while, those clouds which keep from 
 the average soul that intellectual horizon which it 
 longs for, that emotional sunlight which puts 
 everything into the vivid reality, and makes 
 even common things for the time being lovely. 
 
 37 
 
38 HAUPTMANN 
 
 Hence the thrill with which one first read the 
 words — 
 
 " Open the window. Let in Light and God ! " 
 To those who had followed Hauptmann play after 
 play, they had the added demonstration of actual 
 experience. 
 
 It was in 1889 that " Vor Sonnenaufgang " 
 was given by the Freie Biihne. The performance 
 was made a battlefield between the old school and 
 the new. The inordinate excitement of that war, 
 of the war of which that was a campaign, has now 
 died down. I remember it, and would wonder at 
 myself for having been so stirred by it, did I 
 not remember also how sincere the emotion was. 
 " Horrible things were witnessed " in that play ; 
 " A picture of hell itself would have paled by the 
 side of it; Zola and Tolstoi would have had to 
 confess ' He can do better than we.' " Such were 
 the expressions of Spielhagen some time after- 
 ward, who held the battlefield to have been a 
 Waterloo for the new school. 
 
 When we look back it seems natural enough. 
 Hauptmann was of a very sensitive, artistic dis- 
 position. He had not found his real power in 
 his efforts at sculpture, nor in his studies in 
 zoology, nor in his essays at poetry. It was very 
 natural that, unless he had been strongly impelled 
 in some very different direction, he should have 
 
HAUPTMANN 39 
 
 followed the influences of the moment. And given 
 so much, it was not remarkable that he should 
 have gone ahead of the advance. 
 
 When one reads Hauptmann's early plays, " Vor 
 Sonnenaufgang," " Das Friedensfest," " Einsame 
 Menschen," one thinks, necessarily almost, of 
 Tolstoi, Zola, Ibsen. They give us pretty con- 
 sistent realism in form and matter. The last is 
 by far the best, but if Hauptmann had done no 
 better, he would hardly remain in the minds of 
 those who have no especial turn for German lit- 
 erature. Looking back to the play, I recall most 
 readily the figure of Anna Mahr. It is almost 
 worth while to re-read the play to vivify that 
 strong and delicate figure, typical of so much of 
 the life of her time and of ours, at once suggestive 
 and tragic. And yet even as a figure — entirely 
 aside from the play — Anna Mahr is not the 
 dramatic figure that will flash to mind in Magda. 
 And whether she be or not, the play itself is cer- 
 tainly not greater than " Mutter Erde." So far 
 at least Hauptmann had not shown himself 
 greater than Sudermann or Max Halbe. He 
 went on, however, and did more. 
 
 He remained a realist, even a naturalist. But 
 there is not much reminiscence of the great leaders 
 in the plays that immediately followed. Haupt- 
 mann now strikes out more for himself. In " Die 
 
40 HAUPTMANN 
 
 Weber " he goes as far as one can readily imagine 
 the stage can go. The play is written of a weavers' 
 strike. It is not, however, a play that takes a 
 weavers' strike for a background, or a setting, 
 or a situation in which a hero, or heroine, other 
 characters shall be presented. The play takes 
 the strike itself for its subject. There is no hero 
 and no heroine; characters there are, but only 
 because there must be people on the stage to have 
 any play at all. The same people do not hold 
 our interest; quite a new set of people appear in 
 the third act, and we hardly hear of the old ones. 
 The strike, however, is before us throughout; the 
 strike is the only character of importance; men 
 and women appear and disappear only that the 
 strike may be presented to us. An extraordinary 
 conception, and one subversive of the common 
 ideas of the stage, but logical enough realism. 
 Hauptmann read about the strike in a pamphlet, 
 and proceeded to put it on the stage. The wonder 
 is that he could make it seem dramatic and power- 
 ful. This wonder, however, he was able to accom- 
 plish. 
 
 Still realistic, but this time with a truly artistic 
 contempt for logic, Hauptmann next produced a 
 play about a beaver-skin. You may see it on the 
 German stage to-day : " Devilish funny, but no 
 drama and no art," I am told by a wholly com- 
 
HAUPTMANN 41 
 
 petent authority. I am sorry to say that of it I 
 can read only about one word in four, which gives 
 me but a fragmentary idea of what it presents. I 
 must pass it by; I have enjoyed Hauptmann 
 greatly without it. 
 
 This play, however, and another, " College 
 Crampton," I learn from the conscientious biog- 
 rapher of Hauptmann, were suggested in spirit 
 by Moliere. And without as a rule going into 
 the question of influences and sources and so on, 
 it is curious to note for the moment the different 
 forms in which this realist presents himself to us, 
 or, rather, presents his view of the world. Real- 
 ism, in Zola's phrase, consists of the facts of life 
 seen through a temperament. Hauptmann's tem- 
 perament would seem to be that of the chame- 
 leon ; he is a modern Proteus, and sounds his horn 
 from under many disguises. In his first play he 
 is like Tolstoi, in his second like Zola, in his third 
 like Ibsen. In his fourth we see through the eyes 
 of Dr. Zimmermann the pamphleteer. In the fifth 
 it is Moliere. Certainly (if Zola be right) it is 
 a curious thing that the man will not see through 
 his own temperament. 
 
 Still it is to be remarked that another man, and 
 he also the greatest artist in letters of his nation 
 of his day, did just the same thing. Robert 
 Louis Stevenson was a very different man from 
 
42 HAUPTMANN 
 
 Hauptmann, and had a very different view of the 
 world. But he was like him in that, whatever 
 his temperament, his artistic and poetic nature 
 was always curiously trying and testing new and 
 particular methods and ways of doing what he 
 wished to do, — " Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde," 
 " Prince Otto," " Treasure Island," " Will o' the 
 Mill," " The Black Arrow," he is as romantic as 
 Hauptmann is realistic. We might recognise all 
 those books as by the same man, but in them, 
 as in Hauptmann's first plays, we see the man 
 using the different forms, the modes of expression 
 that we are familiar with elsewhere. It is not 
 that an original genius must of necessity invent 
 an original form; that is far from the truth. 
 But that an original genius should adopt such 
 varying specialities of form, each of which seems 
 characteristic of something in itself, that does 
 seem singular. It would seem to be one of the 
 curious things in the psychology of the artist 
 that the most exquisite natures often have this 
 mimetic character. Perhaps it is because they 
 are the most sensitive ; Whistler was a man rather 
 like that. 
 
 In all these things, however, Hauptmann was 
 a realist, by which I mean that he was absorbed 
 and interested in the facts of life, and thought 
 it well to present them in much the same way that 
 
HAUPTMANN 43 
 
 he saw them. The romanticist does not do that: 
 he commonly presents his view of life in forms 
 that he has not seen. M. Rostand has something to 
 say; he likes to present it in forms very different 
 from the forms he sees around him. A fanciful 
 anywhere " if the costumes are pretty," the mar- 
 vellous East of the Crusades, the bare but glowing 
 hills of Galilee, Old Paris, Schonbrunn and the 
 field of Wagram, — these places and the people 
 appertaining to them are interesting to him. 
 They recur to his mind, take form and combina- 
 tion there, gain a significance from his theory of 
 life, from their relation to it, and when they de- 
 velop into a finished play they are found to pre- 
 sent a fact or facts, a meaning, a lesson, even, for 
 such as wish to be taught, but all in the glowing, 
 glorious, poetic, imaginative, beautiful figures 
 that the poet loved. 
 
 It is not so with Hauptmann. His ideas are 
 different from those of M. Rostand for one thing. 
 M. Rostand stands aloof and generalises. But 
 Hauptmann is near enough to be intensely moved 
 by great wrongs and great struggles for redress. 
 He is so near the particular thing that he becomes 
 absorbed in it. Why should a man who wants to 
 present the cruelty and crime involved in the fail- 
 ure of a great strike, why should he write about 
 the Sacred Mount and the belly and the members? 
 
44 HAUPTMANN 
 
 True, Shakespeare took that way to say what he 
 wished to say, but then Shakespeare can hardly 
 have felt about current life as Hauptmann did. 
 He was a larger man and had larger views, but 
 certainly he controlled very well any great sym- 
 pathy he might have had for some of his more 
 limited brothers and sisters. 
 
 Hauptmann went in for it seriously. He would 
 show the world as it was. And whether he took 
 the method of Ibsen or of Moliere, he was always 
 there himself with his sympathy, his ideas, and 
 his poetry. 
 
 For that he was a poet appeared in what came 
 next. I like " Hanneles Himmelfahrt " best of 
 all Hauptmann's work, and I am quite sure that 
 it is the most characteristic thing he has done. I 
 mean to re-read it at this moment. Or, rather, 
 I would, except that here it is better to write from 
 one's recollection than with one's eye on the text. 
 The drama ought to make, to have made, an im- 
 pression on one; if it does not it fails, and by as 
 much as the impression is not lasting, by so much 
 has the drama failed of its possibilities. 
 
 From the midst, then, of a time years back, a 
 time full of other work and other interests, a time 
 separated from Now by all sorts of differences, 
 appears the figure of Hannele cowering in her 
 miserable little bed, and of the Angel of Death 
 
HAUPTMANN 45 
 
 looming up affectionately before the high stove; 
 and again of the little girl all aglow with interest 
 and excitement, and the good and kind tailor, 
 who has brought her the white dress and crystal 
 slippers ; and again of the appearance of the 
 stranger, the worker, the physician, him of the 
 robe without a stain who comes to guide her 
 whither she is to go. 
 
 Well, and what of it all? I can imagine some 
 disagreeable person saying. Frankly, reader, I 
 do not quite know. Those figures were very 
 beautiful to me once — if I read the play again 
 they would be beautiful once more. 
 
 But beyond that they have their significance. 
 I cannot now remember just what they did signify 
 to me once, nor can I say that in Hauptmann's 
 mind they ever signified such and such thoughts. 
 That would give something of a false idea. Haupt- 
 mann, himself a thorough-paced realist so far, 
 now presents an object different from anything 
 that had come from his hand. It is now realistic 
 psychology, as we may say, that is the main thing. 
 Here is the country almshouse and the wretched 
 creatures in it; here is a poor, abused little girl 
 who is brought there to die. The play follows 
 her last hours and presents her feverish and fan- 
 tastic thought. All that follows — the figure of 
 her dead mother, the three angels, the sudden 
 
46 HAUPTMANN 
 
 changes, the great angel with dark garments and 
 dark wings, the village tailor, the stranger — is but 
 the creation of the fading power of the childish 
 soul, mingled curiously with the realities of the 
 Deaconess, Pastor Gottwald, and the poor crea- 
 tures of the almshouse. That, as a subject for 
 a " dream poem," was Hauptmann's interest, I 
 suppose, and not such and such ideas signified 
 thereby. 
 
 Still the figure and the passing dream bring 
 ideas and moods, and bring, too, moments of 
 serenity to the soul, even when somewhat choked 
 with the materialities of ashes and sugar plums. 
 
 In this play Hauptmann is more himself than 
 ever before or since. Heretofore he had tried 
 different forms, henceforward he tries more; there 
 seems no end to his power of varying the mask 
 of form. But everything else that he wrote could 
 be put alongside of something else. The early 
 plays have easy analogues ; even " Die Weber " 
 was preceded by Verhaeren's " The Dawn," which 
 is not unlike it. The later plays, too, are in gen- 
 eral not unlike others. " Die versunkene Glocke " 
 is one of a number of Marchendramen, " Florian 
 Geyer " is a historic play, in form at least much 
 what Wildendruch might have written ; in " Fuhr- 
 mann Henschel " he was said at once to have " re- 
 turned " to something that his admirers approved. 
 
HAUPTMANN 47 
 
 But " Hanneles Himmelf ahrt," the Traum- 
 dichtung, resembles nothing else that I can think 
 of. It has all the rest of Hauptmann, — the real- 
 ism, the psychology, that we have seen, — joined 
 to the romance and the poetry that were to have 
 freer play in years to come. In motive it is a 
 little like Maeterlinck's " Mort de Tintagiles," 
 and creates something of the same effect. But 
 that is a very different kind of work, and entirely 
 lacks the vitality which is one of the virtues of 
 " Hannele." 
 
 Like most of the previous plays, " Hannele " 
 created a considerable stir, this time on religious 
 grounds as well as those of art. Hauptmann 
 went on calmly, and instead of trying to do again 
 anything he had done well once, he wrote a his- 
 torical drama, " Florian Geyer," into which he 
 put his whole energy, only to meet with a failure. 
 It was followed by " Die versunkene Glocke," the 
 play which made Hauptmann really famous, by 
 which he is generally known. 
 
 And yet the play is, in a way, not representa- 
 tive. If you read only " A Tale of Two Cities " 
 you might perhaps wonder that Dickens is often 
 thought of as a humourist. If you read only 
 " Die versunkene Glocke " you will wonder, per- 
 haps, why Hauptmann should be thought of as 
 a realist. For it is a romantic, fairy play in 
 
48 HAUPTMANN 
 
 poetry, very different certainly from the plays 
 which had gone before, and different too from 
 those that followed. It is without much doubt 
 the greatest piece of work of its author, but it is 
 work in a very different direction from that in 
 which we are accustomed to look for him. It 
 was first acted in 1896, and will doubtless be re- 
 membered by many either at the Irving Place 
 Theatre or as given by Mr. Sothern. 
 
 The play begins at once. Up the mountain, 
 into the old, undisturbed world of romance, comes 
 the artist, broken-hearted at the failure of his 
 work for men. He had tried, perhaps, to do too 
 much, and has met failure. 
 
 It is very beautiful, certainly, this world of 
 romance. It was beautiful on the stage, and it 
 is still beautiful in the play, for one of the charms 
 with which literature compensates for its lack of 
 vivid visual impressions is that it lasts. It is 
 like the walls of Camelot, which were not built at 
 all and are therefore built for ever. So we can 
 go at will to that upland mountain-meadow, with 
 its violets and primroses, and the bees that sip 
 gold from the crocuses, and the pines that rustle 
 round about. There the Nickelmann lives, or there 
 he appears in the spring from his home deep down 
 underneath the hills. He is hoary and covered 
 / with moss and weeds. There, too, lives the wood- 
 
HAUPTMANN 49 
 
 scrattle, a coarse and licentious creature who 
 strangely smokes a pipe. There, also, are dwarfs 
 and elves. There is Rautendelein, half human, it 
 would seem, and half a bit of nature. She plays 
 with the bee and teases the Nickelmann and dances 
 with the elves, if she chooses, and jeers at the 
 wood-scrattle and his goatish legs. She has a 
 grandmother, too, a wise woman, who leads rather a 
 surly existence among these simple folk and feeds 
 the little Trolls with milk. The German forest 
 is certainly a fine place, and I have always loved 
 it, from early readings in Grimm down; we have 
 no such creatures in our forests. And I have 
 forgotten the dwarfs who are there, too; and all 
 is up on the mountain-side, far above the abodes 
 of men. Nature has withdrawn to herself before 
 the march of civilisation. What elements of 
 humanity there are are merely animal, unless we 
 except the natural knowledge of the Wittich. 
 
 So much the play certainly has developed and 
 carried out with description and picture ; so much 
 for every one, whether more or not. Nature and 
 art the play presents, and like any fine big piece 
 of work, it is full of all sorts of things that reward 
 a reader who may come again and again, as one 
 may climb a mountain again and again, and 
 always find something new on the way, although 
 there is always the same view from the top. When 
 
50 HAUPTMANN 
 
 Keats wrote " Endymion " he very sensibly noticed 
 that it was one of the things that people liked, 
 to have enough in a poem to be able to pick and 
 choose, to find always some new charm or some- 
 thing perhaps that had once charmed and then 
 slipped from mind. In this forest region we can 
 walk often, always finding something to notice, 
 something quaint, beautiful, stimulating. 
 
 Into this world of nature wanders Heinrich, the 
 artist. He had almost finished a great and beau- 
 tiful work and has been bitterly disappointed by 
 failure at the final moment. He gains by chance 
 a glimpse of Nature in her secret beauty and 
 charm. Before he is brought back to the valley 
 by his friends who have come to look for him, he 
 sees Rautendelein. 
 
 And here, with the very beginning of the action 
 of the play, comes an element into the play that 
 is not so simply handled — namely, that which is 
 loosely called the symbolism of the play. It would 
 seem that in this play of the Artist and Nature 
 and the World of Men, there must be some hidden 
 meaning. It arouses our curiosity, — a little, I 
 am afraid, like a cryptograph, — we want to know 
 what it all means. 
 
 The artist who has endured a bitter failure has 
 a glimpse of the secrets of nature, and though 
 borne down to his home on lower levels, it is by 
 
HAUPTMANN 51 
 
 one of the spirits of nature that he is cured. He 
 leaves his home, and with the fresh, natural being 
 he has learned to know he goes up the mountain, 
 back to nature once more. He finds his strength 
 increased tenfold. But the power of humanity 
 is too strong; his dead wife draws him down from 
 his retreat. And as for his beautiful spirit of 
 nature, half human as she seems, the power of 
 nature is too much for her; she is drawn down 
 among the founts at the foundations of the earth. 
 This is the essential story of the " Versunkene 
 Glocke " shorn of its colour, and beauty, and body. 
 What would Hauptmann signify by it? 
 
 If it were pretty obvious that he wished to sig- 
 nify something of importance, I should think that 
 one ought to know what it is. But as the signifi- 
 cance is clearly something not, on the face of it, 
 obvious — for the author's countrymen have pre- 
 sented quite a number of different explanations 
 of it — I am content to read the play as a play 
 rather than a conundrum. 
 
 So then it may be asked: Is the figure of Hein- 
 rich without significance? And, if so, why should 
 any dramatic poem have significance ? What does 
 Rudel stand for? Cyrano? L'Aiglon? If these 
 figures are significant, why not Heinrich? Surely 
 it is an eccentric outcome to one's speculation that 
 presents M. Rostand as the dramatist of ideas and 
 
m HAUPTMANN 
 
 Hauptmann the dramatist of legendary romance 
 alone. 
 
 The play certainly offers us dramatic situations. 
 Let us take one at random. The Pastor has come 
 to persuade Heinrich to leave the mountain where 
 he is living joyfully and doing great work and to 
 return to his home. The artist is flushed with 
 success; the visitor is by no means disconcerted 
 at what he sees around him. " Now God be 
 thanked ! " says he. " You are the same old 
 friend. 
 
 Heinrich. I am the same — and yet another, too. 
 Open the window. Let in Light and God. 
 
 Pastor. A noble saying. 
 
 Heinrich. I know none better. 
 
 Pastor. I know of better — still that one is 
 good." 
 
 Here, certainly, in these few words between the 
 Artist who has abandoned his place among men 
 and gone to the heart of nature, and the Priest 
 who has gone to put before him the claim of a 
 power higher than nature, here there certainly is 
 significance, such as any one can see, such as is 
 almost explicit in words and characters. But 
 further there cannot be any symbolic significance 
 found for it which equals the real and fundamental 
 significance of the words and situation. Take 
 the simplest kind of symbolic significance — let us 
 
HAUPTMANN 53 
 
 say, there are Art and Religion. Surely any such 
 abstraction as that is absolutely empty of mean- 
 ing when we compare it with the creation of the 
 Artist and the Man of God. We have the meaning 
 when we merely create in our minds Heinrich, the 
 Bell-caster, who is at work among the mountains, 
 and the Pastor of his earlier days, who seeks to 
 bring him back to his home. I do not mean to go 
 into it as a question of Realist or Ideal Philosophy, 
 but merely to speak of it as a matter of the drama. 
 And here, we may say without the slightest doubt, 
 that whatever abstract idea may be implied in 
 words and situation, it can add little to the real 
 meaning of them. Compared with the intellectual 
 and emotional powers which could create the situ- 
 ation and words, any further thinking which 
 could be tacked to them by allegory, will seem 
 feeble in the extreme. " To one reader, ' Die 
 versunkene Glocke,' conveys a certain impression; 
 to another an entirely different significance may 
 be suggested. Both may be right." On the other 
 hand both may be, and probably are, wrong, if 
 " significance " means explanation of the meaning, 
 for the real appeal of the drama is not in any 
 significance or meaning, but in its figures and its 
 situations and what they are. Heinrich leaves his 
 wife and children and goes up the mountain with 
 Rautendelein. Why say that it typifies anything 
 
54 HAUPTMANN 
 
 more than Rip Van Winkle, who did much the 
 same thing, except that his elfish beings were 
 stout little Dutchmen instead of charming young 
 women. The situation is certainly one which 
 makes a wide appeal to all sorts of lurking in- 
 stincts of the heart. Man is not yet so absolutely 
 civilised that such a rush to freedom does not at 
 times seem an escape from bothers and monotonies 
 which he would often be without. But is it any 
 real addition to the impression to say that Art 
 finds Domesticity irksome and seeks the freedom 
 of Nature? I fancy not. That is a very simple 
 piece of generalisation and from a very small num- 
 ber of examples, but however that may be, it is 
 not as a generalisation that the thing will interest 
 us. If we wanted a generalisation we should go to 
 the moralist, who would give us the facts with the 
 proper inductions and deductions. What we want 
 is something for the imagination, something that 
 we can sympathise with, something that will have 
 more effect upon the fierce fret and grind of darker 
 moments than any abstraction has yet been found 
 to have. And that we get from the figure itself, 
 not from any meaning which it symbolises. 
 
 No — I think we shall gain little by inquiring as 
 to the symbolism of " Die versunkene Glocke." 
 If it were real symbolism it would be another 
 thing. In real symbolism — as that of William 
 
HAUPTMANN 55 
 
 Blake — the poet, or the painter, has some meaning 
 that he conveys by absolute symbols, which, unless 
 we know their meaning, will give us no more hint 
 of it, than a page of Plato would give a newborn 
 child. Thus, in Blake's illustrations to the book 
 of Job, we observe the moon to be sometimes in 
 one corner of the picture, sometimes in the other. 
 That conveys a difference of meaning. I forget 
 what it is — I thought it of interest at the time I 
 knew it — but the point is that unless you know 
 that difference of meaning, you will miss the idea 
 of the picture. That is real symbolism. If you do 
 not know the key to Blake, it is impossible (unless 
 you make one) to know what his pictures are 
 about. 
 
 With Hauptmann, as with most artists with 
 whom the question is raised, the matter is different. 
 With them we generally have, not almost arbi- 
 trary symbols, but typical figures. The difference 
 is very clear. The cross is a symbol ; the fish used 
 to be a symbol. But nobody could have guessed 
 what they were symbols of who did not know the 
 associations which gave them meaning. On the 
 other hand, the Good Samaritan is no symbol; as 
 soon as any one knows who and what he was his 
 significance is plain and needs no explanation. In 
 like manner Heinrich is doubtless a typical figure, 
 just as Faust is, or Manfred, or Brand. But 
 
56 HAUPTMANN 
 
 whatever he is a type of, he himself is, so that one 
 who knows him, and who feels his passion and his 
 action, has what the poet meant to present, and 
 more important, has it in the form in which the 
 poet meant to present it. A man may prefer to 
 translate the poet's language into his own, but 
 that will be because he does not understand poetry, 
 or does not like it. It may be a curious intellectual 
 exercise to speculate farther, but unless there is 
 very good ground for supposing that the poet 
 himself went farther, we shall probably miss what 
 he meant to express in aiming at what he did not 
 think of. 
 
 Of the succeeding plays of Hauptmann, I do 
 not propose to speak. Those who thought of 
 " Die versunkene Glocke " as the beginning of a 
 new epoch, received a shock in " Fuhrmann Hen- 
 schel." " Die versunkene Glocke " was presented 
 toward the end of 1896 ; a year afterwards ap- 
 peared " Cyrano de Bergerac," and it appeared 
 that a great romantic awakening was beginning. 
 It seems almost cynical for Hauptmann at such 
 a period to be considering the situation of a Sile- 
 sian carter, who having promised his dead wife not 
 to marry, now wished to marry the maid of the 
 house. The play was psychological. Now psy- 
 chology has its romance, but " Fuhrmann Hen- 
 schel " did not carry on the torch uplifted in " Die 
 
HAUPTMANN 57 
 
 versunkene Glocke." Nor did " Schluck und 
 Jau." This was a thoroughly characteristic piece 
 of work ; at a time when the world thought it knew 
 what Hauptmann could do, he proceeded to do 
 something quite beyond anybody's reckoning. 
 Few, however, cared for the " Shakespearean " 
 farce, nor am I among the number. " Michael 
 Kramer," " Der rote Hahn," and " Rose Bernd " 
 were not such surprises, but they were not much 
 more successful. 
 
 As has often been remarked, Hauptmann is an 
 individualist ; he chooses any form that he sees 
 fit for self-expression, but he will not harden into 
 an everyday conventionality even of his own mak- 
 ing. You may sometimes find two of his plays 
 that seem very much alike, but rarely are there 
 three of a kind. But he gives you himself in each. 
 
 And his subject-matter, too, is likely to be indi- 
 vidualistic. John Vockerat and Anna Mahr find 
 themselves together in opposition to the world 
 about them ; if they " live their own lives " ( i. e. 
 do as they please) they will harm other people's. 
 Heinrich the Bell-founder pursues life in his own 
 way, in despite of the pressure upon him of the 
 ideas and ways of the world. They are not, as 
 a rule, powerful personalities, nor does Haupt- 
 mann generally represent them as victorious — 
 indeed the reverse is the case — but they are individ- 
 
58 HAUPTMANN 
 
 ualists. The reverse is shown in " The Weavers n 
 and, I suppose, in " Hannele." It is a very common 
 modern motive, appearing in all sorts of forms, 
 mingling often with such inconsistencies as social- 
 ism. Even where it is not pre-eminent in Haupt- 
 mann, you will commonly feel its influence. He 
 seems to hold himself aloof with the resolve to be 
 himself, letting the world take him or leave him as 
 it will. Of his fifteen plays hardly a half can be 
 said to have been successful, save with the most 
 devoted. 
 
 In such a case there is a curious, perhaps a 
 wholly unpoetic interest in " Der arme Heinrich." 
 The play is founded on the poem of Hartmann von 
 Aue; the story tells how Heinrich, lord of Aue, a 
 brilliant and splendid knight, distinguished by the 
 king and famous for his exploits in the Crusades, 
 chief paladin of the Holy Roman Empire, at the 
 very height of his glory and the vigour of his life 
 and joy in the world, was suddenly struck with 
 leprosy. Instead of being the most wonderful of 
 those remarkable combinations of imagination and 
 action which the mediaeval chivalry holds out to us, 
 he became simply an outcast, an object of loath- 
 ing, one who had to live in some squalid place by 
 himself, and who had to strike continually on a 
 wooden clapper that people might know that he 
 was near and avoid him. 
 
HAUPTMANN 59 
 
 That is a fine subject for the individualist; a 
 leper has to live his own life partly because no one 
 else wants to live any part of it for him, and partly 
 because no one else will let him share a life in com- 
 mon. In the beginning of the play Heinrich is 
 among those who are devoted to him, a liegeman 
 of the house of Aue, an old retainer, a farm ten- 
 ant and his wife. They are not only his followers, 
 but they love him, before they know his secret. 
 Then his clapper sends a shiver through them. 
 
 There is therefore an interest, perhaps unpoetic, 
 in the lord and leper. Why does Hauptmann, 
 whose heroes seemed ready to stand out for them- 
 selves against God and man, who lived their own 
 lives and died their own deaths, why does he now 
 present to us the figure of one who, in his pride, 
 is guilty of insolence to God and is struck down 
 by the powers he has scorned into a terrible irony 
 of the state to which he aspired And why, as a 
 sequel to Heinrich the Bell-founder, does he elect 
 to present a man, who, in seeking the highest, falls 
 to the lowest, and must be rescued from the most 
 awful depths by the unselfish devotion of a girl 
 who, so far from wishing to live for herself, de- 
 sires rather to die for him? 
 
 I cannot say, nor do I believe it necessary at 
 once to determine. Read and study a man's life 
 and his writings, and the eccentricities and incon- 
 
60 HAUPTMANN 
 
 sistencies are smoothed out and what was strange 
 appears sane. But does the work mean more to 
 us? It certainly does, if we misapprehended it 
 before and know it rightly now. It is well enough 
 for an experiment to think we can take a poet's 
 work in some sense and meaning other than that 
 he had for it, but in the main we lose thereby, for 
 we get ourself and not the poet. In the long run 
 we must always wish to interpret a poem by the 
 poet's whole life and work. 
 
 But that with " Der arme Heinrich " is not, I 
 believe, possible. The genius of Hauptmann is 
 constantly baffling us. So I take the poem much 
 as it stands, an old German saga, with all the 
 charm of mediasvalism in its material and great 
 simplicity and reserve in its handling, and a de- 
 voted almost mystical air that is much in the tone 
 of " Hannele." With the other great play, 
 " Die versunkene Glocke," this one stands in 
 strange contrast. They present to us two con- 
 ceptions which are consistent only as many of 
 the strange antinomies of life are consistent, in be- 
 ing both true at once, we cannot well say how. The 
 two strains of revolt and resignation; one in the 
 figure of the artist maintaining himself stiffly 
 through the darkness till daybreak, and the other 
 poor humanity (prince like beggar girl) which 
 bows the head and finds happiness in submission. 
 
HAUPTMANN 61 
 
 These three plays, I find, are almost the only 
 ones of Hauptmann that I care much to look over, 
 that abide in my mind. Perhaps it is because 
 I am growing more romantic with the added 
 years (contrary to the usual notion that youth is 
 the time for romance) and do not care so much 
 for the sanded arena of the world as in the period 
 of youth. Perhaps, also, I should not have liked 
 " Der arme Heinrich " twenty years ago as well 
 as the story of Heinrich the Bell-founder. But 
 now, having paid my money (in various ways), I 
 rather like to take my choice. 
 
SUDERMANN 
 
 There used to be, in Germany at least, quite 
 a general critical opinion which placed Sudermann 
 as a dramatist somewhere between Hauptmann 
 and Wildenbruch. Hauptmann was the delight 
 of the advanced guard and Wildenbruch was the 
 favourite of the conservatives ; Sudermann seemed 
 to be somewhere between the two. As far as one 
 could learn, however, he was not admired by ad- 
 vanced guard and conservative alike, but on the 
 other hand was condemned at least by the ultras 
 of each party. One side called him a compromiser 
 and conventionalist, and the other said that he 
 merely used old technique for exploiting sensa- 
 tional claptrap in the way of so-called ideas. The 
 more advanced said that his dialogue was written 
 for schoolgirls, the conservatives said that his 
 material was light-headed extravagance. He was, 
 I believe, in Germany the representative of " Real- 
 ismus," while Hauptmann's particular lay was 
 " Naturalismus," and Wildenbruch's I don't know 
 just what. 
 
 For myself I am inclined to like this middle po- 
 62 
 
SUDERMANN 63 
 
 sition and to think of his plays in the words ap- 
 plied to that unknown dramatist whose works were 
 caviare to the general (not that Sudermann's 
 are), namely, that it is " an excellent play, well 
 digested in the scenes, set down with as much 
 modesty as cunning." His method is, compara- 
 tively speaking, as wholesome as sweet, and by 
 very much more handsome than fine. In other 
 words, while Sudermann's plays have not the bril- 
 liancy and exhilaration of some of the dramatists 
 of our day, in form at least, and dialogue, they 
 are well put together and written. But with such 
 matters it would be impertinent for me to meddle, 
 for one would hardly expect one who did not fol- 
 low German literature pretty closely to have an 
 opinion on these things. 
 
 Nor are they much in my line, although there 
 is or may be a good deal of interest in them. If 
 one have read more or less of the literature of the 
 last twenty-five years in the various parts of the 
 world, and seen pictures, and heard music, and 
 gone to the theatre, there is fascination in these 
 considerations of schools and tendencies and influ- 
 ences, past, present, and future. There is some- 
 thing inspiring in the largeness of it. And cer- 
 tainly, too, there is a sort of lyric fervour in 
 Hauptmann which one may feel the lack of in 
 Sudermann. And in Wildenbruch there is doubt- 
 
64 SUDERMANN 
 
 less something, too (only I can never quite get at 
 it), which brings out by contrast the qualities of 
 Sudermann. And it must be inspiring to read 
 " Sturmgeselle Sokrates " and to speculate on the 
 future of the German drama. 
 
 But all that, in itself, seems to me to neglect 
 so much. Sudermann is to me so personal a writer 
 that when I see a play of his or read one (which 
 is much more often), all talk of influence or esti- 
 mates falls into the background, while my sympa- 
 thies and emotions are more wrung, I believe, than 
 by any of the others, and always have been. Not 
 that it is everything to have one's sympathies and 
 emotions wrung, — it does not necessarily mean the 
 highest art, — but it surely is something, and a 
 something that does not leave one free to con- 
 sider questions of criticism. Nor can it be to me 
 alone that the plays of Sudermann make a very 
 personal appeal. Bernard Shaw can undoubtedly 
 show us hollow places in our modern life so that we 
 recognise the truth with a quick thrill of pleasure. 
 But however things ought to be, there are some 
 things that thrill us now. And if Sudermann can- 
 not, or does not, see just what life should be, he 
 certainly can give us sudden realisations of what 
 life actually is; can touch us to the quick by his 
 poignant moments of life as we realise it, mo- 
 ments in which we cease for the time from being so- 
 
SUDERMANN 65 
 
 cial figures and relapse into individualism. M. Ros- 
 tand takes us as individuals and touches us by an 
 appreciation of select moods, of our higher and 
 better moods; he presents to us, in his curiously 
 pessimistic way, moments of personality, ideals of 
 possibility, of standing rigidly in one's own self 
 while the world melts and crumbles away below. 
 But if Sudermann cannot or does not have much 
 to say about the ideal, he certainly can give us 
 keen feelings of the way our personality comes 
 in contact with those personalities next to us, who 
 are with us day by day, enveloped, save for one 
 time and another, in the impenetrable reserve that 
 keeps us commonly each to ourself. 
 
 Sudermann's motives are always, in his most 
 characteristic plays at least, combinations of those 
 great conflicts, or at least antagonisms or discords 
 of life, that every one, here in America to some de- 
 gree, as well as in Germany, finds among the con- 
 ditions with which he must take account. Home 
 and the outside world, the old generation and the 
 new, conventionalism and individualism, personal- 
 ity and society, faith and new ideas, art and 
 everyday life — who is there to-day who has not 
 some personal experience of such things as these? 
 Strife or conflict may be too stern a name for 
 them in ordinary life; but surely they make dis- 
 harmonies, incongruities, and often worse. Do 
 
66 SUDERMANN 
 
 they make up more of our life to-day than they 
 did of the life in other times? I cannot say, but 
 certainly they make much. And it is an evidence 
 that Sudermann sees life truly, in its larger lines, 
 that, in his stronger plays, they are rarely miss- 
 ing. 
 
 Not that these motives are always dragged into 
 his dramas, but it would seem as if these ideas, be- 
 ing often in his mind, continually influenced his 
 choice of subject or the moulding of his material. 
 " Die Ehre," his first play, has much the same 
 subject as Wildenbruch's "Die Haubenlerche " : 
 each concerns the relations of a rich family to a 
 poor family among its dependents ; each shows the 
 rich offering benefits for a return in flesh and 
 blood and honour. There are strong situations 
 in each play and both were successful on the stage. 
 But Wildenbruch's play is thin and conventional 
 compared to Sudermann's, on account of the con- 
 flicting motives in " Die Ehre " to which one easily 
 finds an answer in one's own life. Robert, who 
 has been ten years in India, accustomed to a 
 larger, more modern life, comes back to a re- 
 stricted, old-fashioned, very lower middle-class 
 family; Alma, who has stayed at home, has been 
 continually escaping from the annoyances of 
 parental control to the temptations of the free, 
 half-bohemian circle to which she finds her way. 
 
SUDERMANN 67 
 
 It is all the same sort of thing that we may easily 
 see around us ; it does not take particularly strik- 
 ing forms as we see it, but it would if a dramatist 
 should deal with it. Robert comes back from the 
 freedom of his independent life to the pettiness 
 of his old father and mother; so do hundreds of 
 boys and girls come back from college, say, to 
 the farm. Alma, who chafes under the restric- 
 tions of the elder generation, wishes to seek the 
 glittering show of pleasure in her own way; and 
 we have examples of that, too, from the farm to 
 the city, or from the house to the street. It is 
 no great exhibition of genius to have noted so 
 much, but it is, I think, a piece of genius to con- 
 ceive an action that shall be a focus for half a 
 dozen such motives, to carry it on by characters 
 that shall continually represent them to us, and 
 to express them and comment on them by con- 
 tinual epigram or chance remark that strike us 
 surely and often remain in the mind. 
 
 Just what the action is seems to me of lesser 
 importance, if only it be interesting. " Die 
 Ehre " was a successful play, and the critics, as 
 a whole, paid very little attention to what I have 
 been speaking of. Thus Bulthaupt, who is rep- 
 resentative enough, criticises the play severely 
 because of Graf Trast's disquisitions on Honour. 
 Now that turns the play into what is hideously 
 
68 SUDERMANN 
 
 called a problem-play. And further, it makes the 
 play something that we, over here, cannot easily 
 get hold of, for our ideas on Honour are different 
 in many respects from those current in Germany, 
 and though we may understand their feeling well 
 enough, and Sudermann's criticisms of it, yet it 
 can hardly be a matter which we shall feel very 
 keenly. Most Americans, I fancy, would agree 
 with Graf Trast — he is meant to be a man who 
 had seen the world — in his view that Honour dif- 
 fers with different people, being one thing in one 
 nation or class and something else in another, and 
 that if conventional honour were dispensed with 
 in favour of duty, the world would be quite as 
 well off. 
 
 But is this sort of speculation the play? Is a 
 play the resolution (however good) of such a 
 problem? Hardly; here is a play of men and 
 women and the tides of life. Surely such things 
 are more interesting than questions and problems, 
 certainly more widespread. 
 
 Whether they are or not, this may be said : the 
 same discords or disharmonies of life that one 
 observes in " Die Ehre " are to be seen in 
 " Sodom's Ende." It is true that this play 
 ostensibly differs from the former; that play 
 offers us, according to the critics, a criticism of 
 current conceptions of honour, and this, they tell 
 
SUDERMANN 69 
 
 us, is a criticism of some current conceptions of 
 artistic life. 
 
 But if one do not think of such things, one finds 
 that here too we have personalities and the cur- 
 rents of life of our time. Here is the cramped 
 home of the ruined proprietor turned milk-in- 
 spector, and the phosphorescent rottenness of his 
 son Willy, a notable figure in the great (Berlin) 
 world of art and ideas. Here are the simple con- 
 ceptions of the old people and the younger but 
 decadent world of the critics, and those who catch 
 up their words. Here is the dim but deeply 
 rooted conception of duty and the half -acknow- 
 ledged sophistries of those who think their own 
 thoughts and live their own lives. Perhaps the 
 play is not so broad as " Die Ehre," but it is 
 stronger in its action, for each play of course 
 has some action which finds its course in the inter- 
 action of the forces of the world which it por- 
 trays. Its chief figure is more striking than 
 Robert in " Die Ehre." Willy Janikow is not so 
 much a character as a personality. The artist of 
 promise, son of parents whose life is now of the 
 hardest, the man who has come to success in a 
 world where he cannot keep his head, loved by 
 so many and such a hard master to himself, I 
 remember him well sitting in the fading daylight 
 in his father's house, which he is about to leave* 
 
70 SUDERMANN 
 
 murmuring " Reinheit, Reinheit." I remember 
 him well as he gathers himself together in his 
 studio, but too late, with the cry of " Arbeit ! " 
 just as the curtain falls. Somewhat conventional 
 that is, without a doubt; Sudermann uses conven- 
 tional modes of expression in a way Hauptmann 
 would never do, and that seems to take away from 
 his power with many. But I do not think that 
 it stands in the way of effect ; it does not seem to 
 stand in the way of sincerity. 
 
 But it is in " Heimat " that all these motives 
 have freest play. As it is given in English, the 
 play is always called " Magda," and that is some- 
 thing of a mistake. And the character of Magda 
 has attracted the greatest actresses of our day, — 
 Bernhardt, Duse, Mrs. Campbell, Mrs. Fiske, — 
 and that, though not a mistake, is something that 
 rather veils the true nature of the play. Each 
 of those powerful actresses was so intent on her 
 rendering of the principal woman in the play that 
 she gave no great pains to the presentation of the 
 play as a whole — perhaps, indeed, did not under- 
 stand it. 
 
 Curiously enough, a theatrical critic of great 
 ability showed not long ago how one may readily 
 see one thing so well that he sees others very ill 
 or not at all. " In the discussions the play first 
 called down upon us," he remarked on seeing Mrs. 
 
SUDERMANN 71 
 
 Fiske as Magda, " it was assumed that it dealt 
 with the question of parental authority. ... It 
 was also assumed that it dealt with the problem 
 of the new woman. ... I wish to suggest that 
 this view is very short-sighted. Beneath the 
 transitory details of the play it seems to me that 
 there is a motive which is eternal." Certainly 
 there is, and the only thing noteworthy in this 
 remark is that it is a suggestion resulting from 
 " a growing suspicion." While seeing Duse and 
 Bernhardt and Mrs. Fiske, the suspicion grew 
 upon his mind that this play was not the exploita- 
 tion of a current " problem," but that it had a 
 motive of eternal interest. At first he missed the 
 real things in the play. That may have been 
 because he was a theatrical critic, and naturally 
 most interested in the acting. But Magda is not 
 the only character in the play; she is the most 
 brilliant, but probably the pastor, Heffterdingt, 
 was the author's chief effort. And the play is 
 not specifically about the new woman and parental 
 authority. It presents to us, as " Die Ehre " 
 does, the contrast between the provincial life and 
 the big world. It shows us, as " Sodom's Ende " 
 does, the conflict between the quiet virtues of home 
 and the brilliant temptations of art. It shows us, 
 as " Es lebe das Leben " does, the difference be- 
 tween fulfilling one's own personality and follow- 
 
72 SUDERMANN 
 
 ing the normal and narrow ideas of duty. Nor 
 is that all; it does show us paternal authority, 
 but that is only the German form taken by the 
 constant difference between the older generation 
 and the newer. It does show us the new woman, 
 but that is only a current form of the difference 
 between new ideas and conservatism or conven- 
 tionalism, as you may choose to call it. In one 
 situation as a focus are all these lines of life. Nor 
 is it in the situation only — the return of the 
 brilliant prodigal daughter — that these motives 
 are implicit. They are everywhere indicated in 
 the lines of the characters. 
 
 " Modern ideas," says the old soldier, " oh, 
 pshaw! I know them. But come into the quiet 
 homes where are bred brave soldiers and virtuous 
 wives. There you'll hear no talk about heredity, 
 no arguments about individuality, no scandalous 
 gossip. There modern ideas have no foothold, for 
 it is there that the life and the strength of the 
 Fatherland abide. Look at this home! There is 
 no luxury, — hardly even what you call good taste, 
 — faded rugs, birchen chairs, old pictures; and 
 yet, when you see the beams of the western sun 
 pour through the white curtains, and lie with such 
 a loving touch on the old room, does not something 
 say to you, ' Here dwells true happiness ? ' " 
 
 And when Magda looks about her, " Every- 
 
SUDERMANN 73 
 
 thing's just the same," says she. " Not a speck of 
 dust has moved." And her mother answers, solic- 
 itously, " I hope that you won't find any specks 
 of dust." 
 
 And when Magda speaks to her sister, " Come 
 here — close — tell me the truth — has it never en- 
 tered your mind to cast this whole network of pre- 
 caution and respect away from you, and to go 
 with the man you love out and away — anywhere — 
 it doesn't matter much — and as you lie quietly on 
 his breast, to hurl back a scornful laugh at the 
 whole world which has sunk behind you ? " 
 
 " No, Magda," says Marie, " I never feel so." 
 
 One might copy out pages of quotations, so 
 remarkable is the way in which the action of char- 
 acter upon character brings out motives that are 
 vital. I will confess that I hardly know whether 
 all this is precisely what one would call dramatic. 
 But that is something that must be put aside for 
 the moment. 
 
 These things should touch people deeply. They 
 are not merely interesting problems. Few of us 
 ever consider the problem of the new woman or 
 of parental authority with the idea of finding any 
 answer to it. But here is a home with good things 
 and stupid things and silly things, doubtless, as 
 many other homes have, and to it comes this glori- 
 ous outcast who has not been feeding on swine's 
 
74 SUDERMANN 
 
 husks, but has reached fame and acquired fortune 
 and wealth and an immense retinue. In just that 
 form we shall probably never know that motive, 
 but every man whose wife and daughters are con- 
 stantly in the world of society, and every woman 
 whose husband spends his evenings at the club, and 
 whose boy goes out on the streets, will be able to 
 feel it. And so it is with the rest. As problems, 
 we have no earthly concern with them. In the 
 special forms which they take in Sudermann's 
 plays we have not much to do with them, and often 
 nothing at all, but essentially we know them and 
 can respond to them. 
 
 And that the drama can present them is evident 
 from these plays. That they are essentially dra- 
 matic material is another matter; it would seem 
 as if the novel gave a wider opportunity. Suder- 
 mann is a novelist as well as a dramatist, and an 
 exceptionally powerful one. I am not familiar 
 with all his works, but in " Frau Sorge " — the 
 best known of his novels on this side the water — 
 it certainly appears that he does not use the ad- 
 vantage that he seems to have to present largely 
 and fully the dominating currents of human life. 
 Instead of so doing he seems to narrow his grasp 
 to one powerful motive. It may be that the novel- 
 ist, who must work so much by description where 
 the dramatist can work by presentation, the 
 
SUDERMANN 75 
 
 temptation is to confine oneself. However that be 
 — and it is no present business of mine — the im- 
 pression of Sudermann's plays is certainly that of 
 a world of active impulses and of human figures 
 living and moving therein. 
 
 It has been said, however, and perhaps it seems 
 obvious, that Sudermann's dramatic theme is " in 
 all his pieces the one single conflict in which free 
 personality stands with the exactions of society," 
 and that " he never allows it to be doubtful that 
 he stands on the side of personality and that he is 
 a champion of its rights." If this were the case, 
 it would take away the chief element of his power. 
 It is true that not a few dramatists in Germany 
 as well as elsewhere, and other men of letters as 
 well as dramatists, have presented of late the 
 rights of personality as against the pretensions 
 of society or some kind of society. It has always 
 been a favourite motive, for artists are always 
 men of personality, and they are apt enough to 
 present its claims. But in the present generation 
 the idea has been more common than before. " To 
 live one's own life " has become one of the catch- 
 words of modern literature. Merely among 
 modern German dramatists we can see the motive 
 in Hauptmann and in Max Halbe, in each very 
 tellingly presented, and we can see it also in Suder- 
 mann. But I cannot think that it is his only dra- 
 
76 SUDERMANN 
 
 matic theme, even his pre-eminent interest. It 
 occurs in his plays, but always in connection with 
 other motives. In " Die Ehre " there is no doubt 
 that Robert and Leonora resolve finally to rescue 
 themselves from a world in which they cannot 
 draw moral breath. Graf Trast, too, had long 
 ago emancipated himself from the follies under 
 which he had grown up, and in the play he appears 
 as the representative of freedom of thought 
 against the conventional correctness of social eti- 
 quette. And Sudermann here is on the side of 
 those who honour duty more than the arbitrary 
 dictum of society, as poets and sane-minded people 
 have been for a good while. But poor, silly little 
 Alma in the play is also a disciple of personality: 
 she also wants to live her own life as much as any 
 girl who went into a shop instead of a family be- 
 cause she wanted freedom. She wants to do as 
 she pleases and is bored to death with the restric- 
 tions which her grave brother's ideas of decency 
 would lay upon her. And with Alma the author 
 shows no more sympathy than one would naturally 
 have for a charming and wrong-headed young 
 woman. 
 
 Nor in his next play was he particularly the 
 champion of personality. The idea, the antith- 
 esis, is more important in " Sodom's Ende " than 
 it is in some other plays, but I should not call it 
 
SUDERMANN 77 
 
 the main motive. Willy Janikow is a man of per- 
 sonality; but what is the society with which he is 
 in conflict? He is not in conflict with the society 
 which purchases his picture and prevents his paint- 
 ing any other; if he were, Sudermann might be 
 " on his side and fighting for his rights." The 
 society that he is in conflict with is the society 
 represented by the household of his father and 
 mother, and for his conflict with this society 
 Sudermann does not ask the support of our sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 In " Heimat " there need be no question that the 
 idea of personality is pre-eminent; the very fact 
 that so many great actresses have liked the part 
 of Magda shows that clearly enough. But though 
 Magda is the protagonist of personality in its 
 strife against the demands of society, yet even here 
 we cannot say that Sudermann leaves no doubt as 
 to his own opinion. So far as the drama is con- 
 cerned he has no opinion : he lets each person speak 
 as he ought and do what he naturally would do. 
 But the play throws its weight as much on the side 
 of society in the person of Pastor Heffterdingt as 
 it does on the side of personality as represented by 
 Magda. And wherever Suderman be champion he 
 allows nobility to the words of the pastor. 
 
 Magda. " And your calling — does not that 
 bring joy enough? 
 
78 SUDERMANN 
 
 Pastor. Yes, thank God, it does. But if one 
 takes it sincerely, he cannot well live his own life 
 in it. . . At least I cannot. One cannot exult 
 in the vigour of his personality — that is what 
 you mean, is it not ? And then, I look into so many 
 hearts — and one sees there too many wounds that 
 one cannot heal, ever to be very blithe." 
 
 If Sudermann hold a brief for personality, he is 
 a very honourable opponent and allows the cham- 
 pions of duty and of the rights of society a very 
 fair chance. Even in despondency the Pastor is 
 fine, as when he says to the woman who rejected him 
 long before : " Yes, I have had to deaden much 
 within my soul. My peace is as the peace of a 
 corpse." 
 
 In fact, as one reads the play undominated by 
 the power of some great actress, one may readily 
 feel that Sudermann is the spokesman for a well- 
 ordered life in common rather than for anarchy. 
 In fact, that gave the play its name. 
 
 When we come to " Es lebe das Leben " there 
 we need not deny that the main theme is the right 
 of personality and there without doubt Suder- 
 mann gives us an idea of his position in the figure 
 of Beate. And here he gives us the idea that there 
 are natures that have some excuse for transcending 
 social law. Still this is but one play : it was from 
 a criticism of it that I drew the remark quoted 
 
SUDERMANN 79 
 
 above, and I fancy that the influence of this par- 
 ticular piece was enough to colour a little the crit- 
 ic's recollection. 
 
 Sudermann does not carry a brief for individ- 
 uality as his chief stock in trade. That is one of 
 the things that I like about him. Hauptmann 
 rather does so, but Sudermann's view of life is 
 much larger than one motive merely, and it is that 
 which gives the exhilaration to the reading of his 
 plays, for it is only the self-absorbed mind that 
 views the world as a struggle between personality 
 and society. One can certainly analyse the matter 
 so that it looks as if it were. For instance, one 
 antagonism that appears often in Sudermann's 
 plays, because it appears often in life, is the oppo- 
 sition between old and young, between one genera- 
 tion and the next. It is one of the commonest 
 causes of misunderstanding. And to the young 
 man or the young woman this matter looks as if it 
 were the great case of Personality vs. Society. But 
 it rarely is. The young man only thinks that he 
 wars with society because society is represented in 
 his mind by the precepts and powers of the elder 
 generation. If the children could get the upper 
 hand, as in " Lilliput Levee," our individualist 
 would find that everybody was on his side, and that 
 he could live his own life as much as he wished, if 
 it did not interfere with anybody else. The two 
 
80 SUDERMANN 
 
 oppositions are based on quite different sets of 
 fact. The antagonism of personality to society 
 is one of the feelings absolutely necessary to the 
 preservation of individual life, namely of life itself. 
 The very fact that a man must feed himself first 
 before he can be of use to society shows that there 
 must be something of this self-assertive element. 
 In some natures it will be more powerful, in some 
 less; there will never be an agreement for it or 
 against it. But the opposition between the older 
 and the younger generation is a wholly different 
 feeling and arises, so far as the older generation 
 is concerned, from the conservatism that grows on 
 a man as he grows older, from the increase in wis- 
 dom and knowledge of results, and from a lack 
 of sympathy that comes v partly from a poor mem- 
 ory and partly from absorption in work. Given 
 these characteristics of mankind as it grows older 
 and given also progress in the world, then you must 
 have opposition of some sort between those who 
 are just coming on the stage and those who are 
 already there. In just the same way we could see 
 that the motive of personality in strife with so- 
 ciety combines easily with other motives which 
 Sudermann observes in the world and presents in 
 his plays. But they are not all one motive; they 
 are many : probably more than I have noted. 
 What can we say is the effect of such motives, 
 
SUDERMANN 81 
 
 how is it with us when we have them impressed 
 strongly upon us? Is it not exactly the effect of 
 the tragic figure? The great tragic figure affects 
 us as the tragedy of Rome affected Lord Byron. 
 " What are our woes and suff ranee ? " By com- 
 parison with great misfortunes of general appeal 
 and nobly born, our own griefs and miseries and 
 complaints against fortune calm down for a time. 
 But here is something different. Sudermann has 
 no great tragic figures — at least not in these 
 plays. Willy Janikow, it is true, expires at the 
 last moment, but we feel that it is only the neces- 
 sary result of all that we have seen, nor is he ever 
 presented in such a way as to rouse all our sym- 
 pathy. In " Heimat," Magda does not die at all : 
 she probably goes back to her brilliant life. It is 
 the old Colonel who dies, full of years, retired from 
 active work, as ready to go as any of us. Beate 
 is a tragic figure, but as such rather an excep- 
 tion. 
 
 Sudermann's power is not the power of tragedy 
 as is M. Rostand's. He makes a powerful im- 
 pression, but it is stimulating rather than calm- 
 ing, possibly intellectual rather than emotional, on 
 the whole. Here is life, we say, complex, conflict- 
 ing in its currents, unharmonious. It takes a man 
 to keep afloat and pointed in the right direction. 
 And with that we straighten up a bit (morally) 
 
82 SUDERMANN 
 
 and take a little more credit to ourselves for our 
 handling of such a matter. Then when a tight nip 
 comes we can regard the matter a little better from 
 the eye of reason. If it be one thing to perceive 
 the truth of the artist and another to be moved by 
 his power as a dramatist, Sudermann gives us 
 chiefly opportunities for the former. The latter 
 is not wanting in our experience of his work, any 
 more than it is with a good many other lesser men 
 who write plays. But it is in the former direction 
 that he is pre-eminent. 
 
PINERO 
 
 I shall never, in all probability, be one to deny 
 that Mr. Pinero is a consummate playwright. As 
 to whether he be a great dramatist, whether his 
 plays be literature, whether he can be said to offer 
 to the world a " criticism of life," whether he have 
 a message — these are points on which I can imag- 
 ine some discussion, can imagine even taking part 
 in it, but I cannot readily think of a dispute as to 
 his craftsmanship in stage technique. 
 
 One reason for this, I am willing to admit, is 
 that I have but a very hazy idea as to what stage 
 technique is. Mr. Howells — who, to be sure, will 
 not be accepted as authority by all who are learned 
 on this point — Mr. Howells, or at least one of his 
 characters, says in " The Story of a Play " that 
 there is no such thing. They talk about a know- 
 ledge of the stage," says Maxwell, " as if it were 
 a difficult science, instead of a very simple piece of 
 mechanism whose limitations and possibilities any 
 one may seize at a glance. All that their know- 
 ledge of it comes to is claptrap, pure and simple. 
 They brag of its resources, and tell you the car- 
 
84 PINERO 
 
 penter can do anything you want nowadays, but if 
 you attempt anything outside of their tradition, 
 they are frightened. They think that their exits 
 and entrances are great matters and that they 
 must come on with such a speech, and go off with 
 another ; but it is not of the least importance how 
 they come or go, if they have something interest- 
 ing to say or do." So the disappointed playwright 
 to his admiring wife. I have never been quite sure 
 whether that were Mr. Howells' own view or merely 
 the result of his observation of literary men who 
 write for the stage. I presume it may be the lat- 
 ter. I have a considerable interest in stage tech- 
 nique and would enjoy of all things having its fine 
 points exhibited to me by one who knew. But the 
 professors of that science whom I have known have 
 always seemed rather too general and glittering 
 for my academic mind to follow them. I notice of 
 stagecraft, however, that it is esteemed of great 
 importance on one side of the footlights and of 
 none at all on the other. In this respect it some- 
 what resembles the technique of painting, as Mr. 
 Henry Arthur Jones pointed out a year or so ago 
 in the Nineteenth Century, although he grounds 
 his opinion on very different reasons. 
 
 I know of no good treatise on the subject, and 
 it is, in fact, rather hard to find out just what play- 
 wrights and actors consider the really important 
 
PINERO 85 
 
 things in the plays they present. I have noticed 
 one or two little things that may serve to give 
 something of a notion. In Miss Clara Morris's 
 very interesting " Life on the Stage " are one or 
 two bits of mention of the actor's art, of which 
 the following is the most suggestive: 
 
 " Mr. Daly wanted me to get across the stage, 
 so that I should be out of hearing distance of two 
 of the gentlemen . . . [There were many ex- 
 pedients for crossing, but none pleased Mr. 
 Daly, until Miss Morris suggested a smelling- 
 bottle] . . . He brightened quickly — clouded 
 over even more quickly : ' Y-e-e-s ! N-o-o ! at least 
 if it had never appeared before. But let me see — 
 Miss Morris, you must carry that smelling-bottle 
 in the preceding scene — and, yes, I'll just put in 
 a line in your part, making you ask some one to 
 hand it to you — that will nail attention to it, you 
 see! Then in this scene, when you leave these 
 people and cross the room to get your smelling- 
 bottle from the mantel, it will be a perfectly nat- 
 ural action on your part, and will give the men a 
 chance of explanation and warning.' " 
 
 Notice that new line in her part, — that shows 
 necessities and possibilities which Shakespeare did 
 not have to consider. Not so with the following, 
 which comes from an interview granted by Mr. 
 Stephen Phillips to a newspaper man: 
 
86 PINERO 
 
 " When I read ' Herod ' to [Mr. Beerbohm] 
 Tree, he was at the outset bored, sceptical, and 
 wanted nothing so much as to get through with it. 
 Gradually he grew more and more interested and 
 excited, until I came to the passage where trum- 
 pets are heard in the distance. ' Ha ! ' he said to 
 his secretary, 6 you see the reason of that? ' Then 
 he turned to me, and said : ' Have you ever been on 
 the stage ? ' He did not know I had ever been an 
 actor, but he divined it in that one touch." So far 
 Mr. Phillips in the interview: the interviewer, 
 R. D. B., continues, " I repeat that if it had not 
 been for his intimate knowledge of stagecraft, his 
 career as a playwright might have been cut short 
 right then and there, for Beerbohm Tree vows 
 that it was just this thing that made him accept 
 the young man as a coming great poet." 
 
 The last remark, if true, throws floods of light 
 upon our question, as well as upon Mr. Tree's 
 capabilities as a critic of poetry. 
 
 Of this sort of stagecraft, I fancy Mr. Pinero 
 must be a master, of the things belonging wholly 
 to the stage and necessary to make a play go ; the 
 thousand and one little things, which, if they are 
 perfect, no one notices. Of course the smelling- 
 bottle and the trumpets are merely accidents ; they 
 may even never have existed; but they serve to 
 illustrate a kind of thing that is obviously of im- 
 
 
PINERO 87 
 
 portance in any art, even though it is rarely un- 
 derstood, quite naturally, by a majority of those 
 who enjoy that art. We need no more inquire into 
 it than into the details of an actor's make-up. 
 
 Of a more important kind of stagecraft, too, — 
 which can be dimly perceived even by one so stage- 
 blind as a literary critic, — Mr. Pinero is a master. 
 The management of incidents and events so as to 
 bring out strongly and rightly the situations and 
 the characters — of this art Pinero is master as well 
 as of the other. I have generally considered the 
 best example of his skill to be the moment in " The 
 Profligate " when Janet Preece sees Dunstan Ren- 
 shaw and Lord Dangers, but perhaps something 
 from " Letty " will be better remembered. In the 
 third act of that play Mr. Letchmere (excellent 
 name — a corruption probably of Lechmore) and 
 his sister are good representatives of a fine old 
 crusted family who are beginning to get afraid of 
 themselves as being a little too representative. 
 Each is engaged in an affair that shows signs of 
 going a bit too far. Mrs. Crosbie resolves to 
 break hers off; there is to be a good-bye dinner 
 with Coppy, the future co-respondent ; and she in- 
 vites to it her brother, who is devotedly fond of her, 
 begging him to stick to her that evening and see 
 that she does not get a chance to be run away with 
 by her emotions, and Coppy. So he does : he dines 
 
88 PINERO 
 
 with them and they have a very pleasant little 
 dinner, and then just as they are about to leave 
 the restaurant, it appears that the room is to be 
 taken by Mr. Mandeville, who is celebrating his 
 engagement to Letty. Now Letty is the young 
 lady with whom Mr. Letchmere has been carrying 
 on: it was rather supposed that he was not going 
 to see her again, now that she was about to marry 
 nicely " in her own class." He does, however, see 
 her, is asked to stay a moment for a glass of wine, 
 does so, arranges to run away with her, but for the 
 moment neglects his sister, who grasps the oppor- 
 tunity of being herself. That seems to me excel- 
 lent. The forces that move these people are inex- 
 orable. Letchmere loves his sister and wants her 
 to be better than he, an absolutely necessary ele- 
 ment in family feeling. He will do anything for 
 her to make her so, — anything except not loving 
 some one else's sister. So that situation is excel- 
 lent. So is the next. Having persuaded Letty to 
 leave her awful fiance for him, and while very hap- 
 pily planning with her a delightf ul future, he sud- 
 denly learns that the expected has happened: his 
 sister has flown or rather flitted. He loves his 
 sister, certainly, but he feels strongly that she is 
 in a manner disgraced. In the momentary softness 
 of heart, Letty recovers herself and regains terra 
 firma. She subsequently marries " in her own 
 
PINERO 89 
 
 class " and is very happy. Letchmere, I am afraid, 
 goes to the dogs. It takes time to tell these com- 
 plicated things, but they are certainly fine pieces 
 of work. 
 
 Or take the second act of " Iris " — the end of 
 it — another masterpiece in its kind. Maldonado 
 has left Iris his cheque-book, which she scorns to 
 use, though she does not give it back. But an old 
 friend in trouble appeals to her ; Iris wants money 
 to help her out and signs a cheque. She is in fact 
 drawn into the power of Maldonado by her very 
 generosity; that almost certain quality in easy, 
 pleasure-loving characters, sometimes the only re- 
 deeming quality, delivers her over to her enemy. 
 Surely that is very good because, though a pre- 
 arranged matter of detail, it is founded on human 
 nature. 
 
 But to get away from these matters of stage- 
 craft or even dramatic art, matters that I must 
 ever handle gingerly, to another subject that now 
 and then comes up, namely Mr. Pinero as a man of 
 letters. Not long ago I saw an article on the edi- 
 torial page of an influential journal, which began 
 by saying that " another literary " artist had " un- 
 dertaken to reunite literature and the stage, whose 
 divorce has been so open and so dogmatically de- 
 creed by the melodramatists." This interested me : 
 I had heard talk of the divorce, although I had 
 
90 PINERO 
 
 not known that it was the melodramatists who had 
 pronounced the decree, and I was glad to hear of 
 the reconciliation which the article went on to 
 speak of as almost if not possibly quite successful. 
 It seemed a good deal for one single work to ac- 
 complish and I became curious about it. The lit- 
 erary artist in question was Mrs. Craigie or John 
 Oliver Hobbes (I'm sure I don't know which to call 
 her — or him; it's very awkward about the pro- 
 nouns,) and the means of reconciliation was " The 
 Ambassador," which subsequently appeared in 
 print. 
 
 I thought it rather strange that John Oliver 
 Hobbes should be spoken of as a leader, as one of 
 the very few men of letters who had had to do with 
 the theatre. But I found that the article drew 
 the line pretty sharply, for it appeared later that 
 " Dumas and Pinero are almost the only men who 
 take a high grade of literary art to the theatre." 
 I think this must surely have been before " Cyrano 
 de Bergerac," and certainly before its author had 
 been elected to the Academy. Still, even then it 
 seems to leave out a good many. 
 
 But, after all, what is a " literary play " ? 
 What is meant by " taking literary art to the 
 theatre "? I don't know anything else to say, just 
 now, except that a literary play is one that can be 
 printed in a book and read with satisfaction by a 
 
PINERO 91 
 
 cultivated person ; namely, some one like oneself. I 
 do not see that much can be said beyond that. The 
 fact that a man is or is not professionally con- 
 nected with the theatre has nothing to do with it. 
 Moliere was an actor, Lessing a dramatic critic, 
 Sheridan a manager ; yet they contributed to liter- 
 ature much more, so far as the drama is concerned, 
 than Voltaire, Klopstock, and Addison, who were 
 distinctly men of letters. 
 
 It may seem foolish to say that a literary play is 
 one that is printed in a book. Still there can be 
 no doubt that there have been plays, even " liter- 
 ary plays," which never made a part of literature 
 simply because they were never printed. People 
 saw them, liked them perhaps, and forgot them: 
 and there was an end of it. But if you print your 
 play and can get the right people to read it, then 
 it becomes literature, in the sense, of course, that 
 a great deal else becomes literature. Now a good 
 many of Mr. Pinero's plays have been printed, so 
 here we have a topic that may readily be dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 Mr. Pinero has written a great many plays and 
 those of different kinds. " The Magistrate " is a 
 delightful farce ; " Sweet Lavender " is an attract- 
 ive idyll. But Mr. Pinero's claim to consideration 
 is not founded on farces or idylls : he is thought of 
 especially as having written " "the Second Mrs. 
 
92 PINERO 
 
 Tanqueray " and a number of other so-called 
 " problem-plays." Mr. Brander Matthews' se- 
 vere reprehension of M. Rostand could never be 
 made of Mr. Pinero. Whatever be the case about 
 a criticism of life, he certainly is supposed to 
 present problems ; whether he be really influenced 
 or not by Ibsen or Dumas, he has some character- 
 istics that remind us of them. What may be said 
 of him from this standpoint? 
 
 I do not care for the term " problem-play." 
 It may be a convenient expression for a play that 
 presents a problem, but certainly it is inelegant; 
 one would never speak of an adventure play, a his- 
 tory play, a manners play. But more funda- 
 mentally the term is at fault because problems as 
 such are not especially good subjects for plays. 
 Plays deal with life, and life does not consist very 
 largely of problems. The sociologist and the leg- 
 islator deal with problems, but the average man 
 or woman has not much to do with them save as 
 an interesting intellectual exercise. We are all 
 concerned with living, doubtless, but living does 
 not involve many problems, save of a very practi- 
 cal nature, as how to manage a small income or 
 how to bring up one's children or how to carry on 
 one's business or how to settle one's religion or 
 politics. Otherwise the main thing is how to carry 
 out an ideal which forms itself within us, not by 
 
PINERO 93 
 
 the resolution of problems generally, but in much 
 more subtle ways. And even if problems were a 
 current factor in life, a play would be a poor place 
 for the exploiting them. A novelist may perhaps 
 deal with problems, for he has space in which to 
 argue them pro and con, but arguments are not 
 very interesting to listen to. 
 
 Nor if problems were a fair test of the play- 
 wright, would Mr. Pinero fare very well. He does 
 not, so far as I know, present himself as a problem- 
 solver, but suppose for a moment that he did. 
 What are his problems ? " The Second Mrs. Tan- 
 queray " presents possibly the problem, " How can 
 a woman with a past become a woman without a 
 past ? " This problem clearly has the simple an- 
 swer that she cannot do it at all, to which it may 
 be added that no one else can either, by means 
 observable on the stage. " The Profligate " seems 
 to raise the novel problem, " Is it a good plan to 
 marry a rake to reform him ? " " The Notorious 
 Mrs. Ebbsmith " has what is really more of a 
 question, " Can a man and woman live together as 
 intellectual companions? " which, however, is a 
 matter that sensible people (not reformers) will 
 not spend much time upon. So I do not feel that 
 Mr. Pinero's problems would make him more 
 worthy of attention than various other dramatists. 
 
 Even if he had problems, however, they would 
 
94 PINERO 
 
 not make plays. A good play generally gives us 
 some action that in its condensed dramatic form 
 will move us somehow, be an active factor in our 
 thinking and feeling; it gives us some character 
 often typical of an idea, or of something that we 
 are thinking about. By virtue of being a play it 
 may be able to burn these things in upon our mem- 
 ories. " Macbeth " gives us the wages of sin in 
 the form of death to the finer life and finally of the 
 death of the body. " Hamlet " gives us the man 
 of thought in the world of action. Here Mr. 
 Pinero might have something to give us. If he 
 have anything to say, being a master of stage art, 
 he should be able to create some figure typical of 
 some great element in life, some action or situation 
 which gathers into a focus some great experience. 
 I fear he does not do so. His shady ladies soon 
 become very shadowy in the mind. The solutions 
 to his " problems " are like that of Alexander over 
 the Gordian knot. " When Mr. Pinero essayed to 
 write plays such as these, dealing with the deepest 
 problems of life," writes a recent critic, " he chal- 
 lenged comparison not merely with the world of 
 dramatists, but with the world of thinkers." It 
 is going rather far to call Mr. Pinero's problems 
 the deepest of life or to fancy that the world of 
 thinkers has ever been very much concerned with 
 them. Mr. Pinero does not make much of them, 
 
PINERO 95 
 
 they do not remain with us ; they hold our attention 
 while they are acting, but we soon lose them from 
 mind. This is really not so much the fault of the 
 thinker as of the artist. Sudermann, to take an 
 example not so often trotted out as Ibsen or 
 Dumas, is not a thinker, and yet " Die Ehre," 
 " Sodom's Ende," " Heimat," while they do not 
 offer us problems and their solutions, do offer us 
 presentation of some of the great contrasts and 
 contradictions of life. 
 
 Mr. Pinero's latest plays, " Iris " and " Letty," 
 will not be called problem plays by any one. " The 
 Gay Lord Quex " depicts what the marquess him- 
 self calls " a curious phase of modern life." So in 
 an extended sense do " Iris " and " Letty." 
 
 " The Gay Lord Quex " can hardly be one of 
 those plays which we enjoy from its truth to 
 nature, for few of us have had the privilege of 
 knowing a social world where a man can flirt with 
 a manicurist at noon and with a duchess at mid- 
 night. Those who can compare the play with life 
 itself will regard it as a picture of manners. But 
 more broadly the interest in the play lies in the 
 cleverness of the intrigue, and in a minor way in 
 the character of Lord Quex himself. From the 
 rather doubtful atmosphere of " establishments " 
 which serve a double purpose, and Italian gardens 
 and boudoirs which seem to be used for one only, 
 
96 PINERO 
 
 he emerges with more credit than any one would 
 imagine on his first appearance. But the real 
 thing is the extreme cleverness of the turns in the 
 third act, wherein the manicurist and the reformed 
 rake pit themselves against each other. This is 
 dramatic construction; something which I admire 
 immensely when I see it and consider it imperti- 
 nent to praise. 
 
 " Iris " and " Letty " have as much construc- 
 tion and more real body to them. The phases of 
 life which they present are more general. If we 
 do not know them, we have known others pretty 
 nearly like them. And if not even that, we can see 
 some pretty general principles of life upon which 
 they are based. The first shows us a bit of the 
 world that is dependent on pleasure. Iris and her 
 friends enjoy life while they have money (whereby 
 they can make others minister to their pleas- 
 ures), but when they lose it, they are all at sea. 
 It is true that Maldonado is a millionaire banker, 
 Kane a working solicitor, and Trenwith goes to 
 work out his destiny in Canada. But there is not 
 much doubt that Maldonado did not work for his 
 money, while Kane, of course, stole his, and as for 
 Trenwith's making a competence in British Colum- 
 bia in two years, we on this side the water are sim- 
 ply incredulous. Poor old Croker had got to 
 middle age without being useful in the world, and 
 
PINERO 97 
 
 so, when he lost the money he had inherited, he 
 couldn't think of anything but being a club sec- 
 retary, and as for Iris herself, of course that is 
 the whole play, the picture of the weak nature so 
 dependent upon its luxuries that it must follow 
 the easiest path to them. 
 
 As for " Letty," it seems to me as strong a 
 piece of work as anything Mr. Pinero has done. 
 It presents no problem but merely an element in 
 life, namely, a glimpse of a world that has run to 
 seed, particularly of an old family which has kept 
 its money but lost its power of behaving decently, 
 or rather, perhaps, has not moved on with the rest 
 of society. With this is contrasted the world in 
 which Letty lives, sordid, coarse, stupid, and yet 
 with the elements of happiness in it. In a way 
 the play challenges comparison with " Sodom's 
 Ende " and " Ghosts." It need hardly be said 
 that Mr. Pinero does not burn in his idea with the 
 atrocious firmness of Ibsen. And it should be said 
 that he is not so convinced of the real excellence of 
 good, honest, innocent life as is the German, and 
 consequently cannot make his picture of it con- 
 vincing to the audience. Still one follows Letty 
 intently : at first it all seems disagreeable, true, 
 incomprehensible, but it clears up as the play goes 
 on, until finally, in the last half of the fourth act, 
 the aim of the dramatist comes out clearly, and line 
 
98 PINERO 
 
 after line is added with perfect definiteness and 
 surety of hand. And the Epilogue, though possi- 
 bly not absolutely sincere, is really the right 
 thing. 
 
 Mr. Pinero is not a thinker, a moralist, or a 
 philosopher. Nor does he appear to think that he 
 is. Mr. Henry Arthur Jones writes articles in the 
 magazines on the function of the drama, and the 
 renascence of it, and the aims and the art and the 
 other things of it, but Mr. Pinero seems content to 
 write plays. He does not pose as other than *a 
 dramatist : his admirers may talk of his problems, 
 but his own work does not give the impression that 
 he takes himself or his work over seriously. His 
 plays are not sermons nor polemics, they have no 
 arguments and no prefaces. They are simply 
 plays, and for the moment, at the theatre, they 
 are remarkably good ones. 
 
 How good they are at the theatre every one 
 knows ; how good they are even to read is apparent 
 when we read the works of some other successful 
 playwrights, say of his predecessor Robertson. 
 Robertson's comedies are in a general way not so 
 very unlike Mr. Pinero's. They do not present 
 problems, but that is merely because problems were 
 not in fashion in the sixties. Robertson presents 
 questions, and between questions and problems, so 
 far as the dramatist is concerned, there is not 
 
PINERO 99 
 
 much difference. Neither can be settled by a play ; 
 each gives a playwright a theme which may affect 
 his audience keenly. But Robertson's " School," 
 for instance, — which happens to be the only one of 
 his that I have at hand, — Mr. Pinero is certainly 
 miles beyond that, partly because everybody is, 
 but also in part because he is really more of a man 
 of letters than Robertson. It is true that Mr. 
 Pinero is first and foremost a man of the theatre. 
 When " The Ambassador " appeared it was 
 curious to compare it with " The Princess and the 
 Butterfly," which came out about the same time. 
 The two plays were of much the same general 
 kind, comedies of character and incident, set in 
 the same world, mostly in the same place, more or 
 less alike in plot if not in motive. Mr. Pinero's 
 play is certainly the more theatrical if you come to 
 analyse it closely : everybody has something to do, 
 to be sure, but often somebody has no reason for 
 existing, save to do some special thing that the 
 play demands. The dialogue of both plays is 
 smart and showy, but Mr. Pinero's is often con- 
 ventional and artificial, while in " The Ambassa- 
 dor " there are often touches of nature that might 
 pass unperceived on the boards. There is not 
 much to choose as to the characters, but Mr. 
 Pinero's are somewhat more mechanical in that 
 they are all people who exhibit the motive of the 
 
100 PINERO 
 
 play, show the effects of middle age, in different 
 ways. One is a woman who still loves her husband, 
 one a woman who chiefly loves her dinner, and so 
 on, and they are not much more. But if Mr. 
 Pinero is the more theatrical, it must be remem- 
 bered that he is writing for the theatre. The 
 theatre has its conventions, and it would be absurd 
 to imagine that even to-day we could transfer a 
 bit of real life from the parlour to the stage, and 
 have it seem across the footlights as it seemed 
 across the room. 
 
 In the Fifth Reader, or perhaps the Fourth, 
 there used to be a tale about two sculptors who 
 made two statues to go up and be set on a very 
 high place. The reader may remember it; one 
 statue seemed coarse and rude till it got where it 
 was intended to be; the other, which was very 
 charming and delicate when examined down below, 
 lost a good deal when it was put in place. It is the 
 same thing here. Mr. Pinero knows the stage 
 better than Mrs. Craigie: he is somewhat conven- 
 tional and confined, but he must know the stage. 
 Ladies wear rouge on the stage and put lines under 
 their eyes, and do other things which would not 
 render them attractive in the parlour, and so do 
 the men. Some of these things about Mr. Pinero 
 that we do not care for are necessary for the right 
 effect across the footlights. 
 
PINERO 101 
 
 And as to the other things, — the delicacies, the 
 quiet touches, the delightful half-tones, — we must 
 be content to miss them at the theatre. Of course 
 we may mourn that these things cannot be on the 
 stage, that they can get no farther than to be 
 realised by the kindly imagination, that they seem 
 to lose character and colour when incorporate in 
 real flesh and blood. We may mourn at all this, 
 but it will be without reason. Our keenest pleas- 
 ures, our most delightful thrills or chuckles, do 
 we really wish to share them with the multitude? 
 
 The stage is still a public place. It is not out- 
 doors and boisterous as it was with the Elizabeth- 
 ans, but still it is not exactly a place for intima- 
 cies. Let us be content to have our poetry as we 
 want it, to ourselves at home, and on the stage to 
 have what the stage can give us, effective figures 
 which will live in our minds, effective situations 
 which will sum up whole developments, effective 
 actions which will typify whole experiences. These 
 things can doubtless be gained otherwise; books 
 and pictures often give them to us. But nowhere 
 do we get them with the same force of impression 
 as on the stage, for the stage has a hundred means 
 of directing, concentrating, focussing what life 
 spreads out at large, upon one spot of our atten- 
 tion. 
 
BERNARD SHAW 
 
 It is hard to take Mr. Bernard Shaw seriously, 
 for he has such a gift of wit and paradox that he 
 is apt to seem desirous of appearing frivolous. It 
 is hard also to write about him, for he has written 
 a good deal about himself much more cleverly than 
 most people have written about him. He has a 
 much better knowledge of the subject and a 
 superior gift of expression. Yet the attempt must 
 be made, for he really is serious in the main. He 
 wishes to accomplish something worth while and 
 he will do so, too, or do something in the direction. 
 If one cannot get into touch with him, then so 
 much the worse for oneself. 
 
 I was about to begin by saying that Mr. Shaw 
 was not so much a master of stagecraft as some 
 other people. Just then, however, I saw in a paper 
 that a distinguished Shawian actor affirmed him 
 to be greater in dramatic construction than 
 Shakespeare. That made me pause. It is true 
 that the remark was made at the University of 
 Chicago, an institution whence newspaper report 
 is apt to offer us matter much more highly col- 
 102 
 
BERNARD SHAW 103 
 
 oured than the original: still such may have been 
 the opinion of the actor in question. I do not, 
 however, believe that it is Mr. Shaw's. Mr. Shaw 
 himself says somewhere, with his usual candour 
 and even modesty, that he is not remarkable for 
 stage technique. His plays, he seems to think, 
 are technically like other plays. He says that he 
 is better than Shakespeare in one respect, and here 
 not a few will probably agree with him, but does 
 not claim superiority in the matter of stage con- 
 struction. There is not very much point in the 
 comparison. Shakespeare made his plays for his 
 own theatre, which was very different from ours, 
 and much of his absolute stage technique is to-day 
 impossible. Take the fifteen scenes (more or less) 
 in the third act of " Antony and Cleopatra," and 
 in the fourth; that is something out of the ques- 
 tion now, and so it is with some other matters. In 
 a large way I suppose Shakespeare had more dra- 
 matic art than Mr. Shaw; certainly he managed 
 to write more plays that did and do well on the 
 stage. 
 
 But stagecraft is not Mr. Shaw's particularly 
 strong point, although, like most literary men who 
 write plays, he seems to be well settled in the 
 opinion that he knows quite enough about the 
 matter for practical purposes. It may be 
 doubted, however, whether his work is especially 
 
104 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 well fitted for the stage. He can write, I sup- 
 pose, almost anything, and he has written a dozen 
 plays. Some of them have appeared on the stage, 
 and that with a greater or less success for the 
 time. But a determined criticism would probably 
 show that their success was due not so much to 
 their dramatic character as to something else. 
 
 Mr. Shaw's real matter of importance is not 
 his dramatic art, but his ideas or his way of think- 
 ing. He is a critic and a dramatist, it is true, 
 but at bottom he is a Radical, a Revolutionist, a 
 Socialist, I believe. His plays may be successful 
 as plays, and he is naturally pleased or displeased, 
 but the real root of the matter is in the ideas. In 
 fact, I suppose his ideas rather interfere with his 
 success as a playwright, because they prevent his 
 taking the stage seriously. He says that he did 
 not at first, and results would seem to show that 
 he did not afterwards. He generally cast his 
 plays " in the ordinary practical comedy form in 
 use in all the theatres," but we may infer that 
 he could with equal ease have cast them in any 
 other form; indeed, his later plays have been of 
 various kinds. 
 
 It seems not unnatural that when a man has 
 mainly at heart the exploitation of some idea or 
 conception, and considers the dramatic part of 
 the business of minor importance, he will not be 
 
BERNARD SHAW 105 
 
 a pre-eminent success on the stage. The actor 
 considers the acting and the stage management of 
 immense importance, and the ideas of very little 
 or none at all, and even he does not always suc- 
 ceed. 
 
 It would certainly not be worth while to at- 
 tempt to present a boiling down of Mr. Shaw's 
 ideas. For one thing his object in writing is gen- 
 erally to express them, which he does commonly 
 much better than I should be able to. But, for 
 another thing, he has so many ideas. He is, and 
 for a long time has been, a champion of a dif- 
 ferent order of society, and as such has not only 
 had many good ideas of his own, but he has ex- 
 pressed them excellently and very amusingly. Add 
 to that all the ideas that he has imputed to Wag- 
 ner, Ibsen, Nietzsche, and you have far too many 
 for a short essay. But still it will be worth 
 making a try at the general nature and character 
 of his ideas as presented in his plays, or at least 
 of his dramatic character. 
 
 Mr. Shaw has published eleven plays. Of these 
 " Widowers' Houses " deals with the position of a 
 man who lives on money used by somebody else in 
 ways he cannot approve. This is a pretty im- 
 portant matter in modern life: it brings in what 
 may really be a problem to many. So many 
 people nowadays — I suppose it was so always — 
 
106 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 live on the work of others, that it is rather im- 
 portant to know how the money is employed which 
 gets your bread and butter. " Mrs. Warren's 
 Profession " presents a girl whose mother has 
 educated her with money made in a peculiarly dis- 
 honourable manner. This is not so common a 
 case; the particular manner brings up various 
 phases of the question which are so special that 
 the general nature of the problem is largely lost. 
 " The Philanderers," which is called an " unpleas- 
 ant play," has no definite problem, but is more a 
 satire on what used to be called the " new woman." 
 These ideas we need not discuss: they are but 
 special forms taken by the general motive power 
 of Mr. Shaw's thinking. 
 
 It is with Mr. Shaw as with most men: you will 
 best get at them when they are not dead set on 
 some special object. " Arms and the Man " has 
 no special target, and for that reason, perhaps, 
 it was more successful on the stage than Mr. 
 Shaw's earlier pieces. Taking as a setting the 
 vague possibilities for romance offered by Servia 
 and Bulgaria, Mr. Shaw calmly produces a 
 strictly realistic play. He presents the world as 
 it is — not especially in Servia or Bulgaria, for I 
 suppose he has no especial knowledge of those 
 countries — but the world in general, and creates 
 a very amusing satire. It is a satire, and it is 
 
BERNARD SHAW 107 
 
 amusing, but it has enough hits at truth to be a 
 little more than that. Mr. Shaw gets everybody 
 off their high horses — the soldier, the gentleman, 
 the romantic young lady — we see and acknow- 
 ledge the various pretences and affectations of life 
 as we have often done before. Mr. Shaw wishes to 
 get at the real facts, the real springs of action, 
 but he does not get much farther than others have 
 done. That, I suppose, was the reason that 
 " Arms and the Man " was not more successful 
 on the stage than it was. Its object was satire 
 but not very vigorous satire, nor on very new 
 lines. It was more quaint, I should say, than 
 anything else. Still, beside its particular satire, 
 it has plenty of touches which show the more gen- 
 eral purpose of the man. In the first act, where 
 the Servian soldier has sought refuge in the room 
 of the Bulgarian young lady, we see constantly 
 that we are to have the real thing, tinctured with 
 epigram, it is true, but still nearer the real thing 
 than melodrama. 
 
 " Some soldiers," says Raina scornfully, " are 
 afraid of death." 
 
 " All of them, dear lady," answers the man, 
 " all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live 
 as long as we can, and kill as many of the enemy 
 as we can." 
 
 There is satire and epigram there, but there is 
 
108 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 also a certain sort of reality and great reason- 
 ableness. There is plenty of it. " Bless you, 
 dear lady," says the man, " you can always tell 
 an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and 
 cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols, 
 the old ones grub." It may or may not be so, but 
 at any rate it is a resolute doing away of conven- 
 tional romance, of the romance of pictures and 
 books and so on, for the reasonable view which is 
 willing to make an effort after the facts. It need 
 not be that Mr. Shaw knows as much of what real 
 soldiers actually are as Mr. Kipling. That par- 
 ticularity is rather beside his purpose : his especial 
 aim is to open our eyes now and then to the im- 
 possibility of carrying through half the notions 
 that have grown up in the minds of every one from 
 books and pictures and superficial talk, mingled 
 with our own childish imagination and self-centred 
 desire. That sort of thing will not stand the test 
 of experience; people are always coming to grief 
 by depending upon it; better open one's eyes and 
 interpret what one really sees by a little common 
 sense. 
 
 When you have your mind set on this sort of 
 thing it must be hard to think of doing anything 
 else. I think it is remarkable that Mr. Shaw 
 should have any dramatic construction at all. I 
 remember nothing of it in " Arms and the Man," 
 
BERNARD SHAW 109 
 
 which is, all the same, one of the cleverest and most 
 amusing plays that one reads. I am sorry to say 
 that I never saw it, but I suspect that it does not 
 make quite so much difference as with some other 
 plays. 
 
 "You Never Can Tell" is another delightful 
 play. It is on the face of it more frivolous and, 
 indeed, more impossible, if one may say so, than 
 " Arms and the Man," but it is full of the same 
 sort of eye-openers as the other, and in the pas- 
 sages between Valentine and Gloria it begins to 
 get quite close to some of Mr. Shaw's later 
 heresies. That delightful waiter, too, — I'm sure 
 he would have made an Admirable Crichton if he 
 had had half a chance. Let us get on, however, 
 to " Candida," for that is, I take it, the best of 
 Mr. Shaw's plays, and certainly it is the one that 
 most people will happen to have in mind now, 
 unless perhaps " Man and Superman " be eviscer- 
 ated and exposed on the stage some time in the 
 winter. 
 
 " Candida " carries the process of eye-opening, 
 so dear to Mr. Shaw, one step farther than " Arms 
 and the Man." First we have the Rev. James 
 Morell, a Christian Socialist, and therefore at war 
 with the many evils and falsenesses of our social 
 life, and intent in bringing in a good, strong, and 
 honest way of life among people who are too much 
 
110 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 bent on making money and enjoying themselves 
 to consider carefully the ways in which they do so. 
 Certainly the character is inimitably good, and 
 when we think chiefly of that kind of pleasure that 
 comes from seeing people and things presented in 
 a perfectly natural way and with a perfectly sure 
 touch, aside from what they happen to be, when 
 we answer with a thrill to every certainty of por- 
 trayal, and chuckle to ourselves at every small 
 point of human frailty painted for us just as it 
 is, why, the Reverend James appeals to us as few 
 figures upon the modern stage. We have him at 
 his best in the contrast with Mr. Burgess, the 
 " man of sixty, made coarse by the compulsory 
 selfishness of petty commerce " — there we have 
 him at his best, and he makes the right impression, 
 a go-ahead, clear-visioned, plain-speaking man, 
 understanding the world and taking it for what it 
 is. " Well," he says to his old scalawag of a 
 father-in-law, " that did not prevent our getting 
 on very well together. God made you what I call 
 a scoundrel as he made me what you call a fool. 
 ... It was not for me to quarrel with his handi- 
 work in the one case more than in the other. So 
 long as you come here honestly as a self-respect- 
 ing, thorough, convinced scoundrel, justifying 
 your scoundrelism, and proud of it, you are wel- 
 come. But I won't have you here snivelling about 
 
BERNARD SHAW 111 
 
 being a model employer and a converted man when 
 you're only an apostate with your coat turned for 
 the sake of a County Council contract. No; I like 
 a man to be true to himself, even in wickedness. 
 Come, now; either take your hat and go, or else 
 sit down and give me a good scoundrelly reason 
 for wanting to be friends with me." We certainly 
 have here one who sees through the shams of mod- 
 ern life, and by the very clearness of his vision, 
 somehow, has power to make all others feel all their 
 sham pretentiousness. And as he transfixes the 
 ridiculous commercialist who is trying to make 
 friends with the Mammon of righteousness, we feel 
 that he and we are of those in the front rank of 
 progress, the men who know what is right and so 
 can do it. 
 
 And then appears Candida and her poet. He 
 is, to start with, singularly and strangely frank, 
 and strange and singular in other ways. As he 
 and Candida drove from the station he was tor- 
 mented all the time with wondering what he ought 
 to give the cabman. He is not made to get along 
 well in an everyday world — that is, not as the 
 world considers getting on well. 
 
 But it soon appears that the poet is there to 
 show us a range of view above the Reverend James. 
 A poet is a man more sensitive than the rest of 
 the world, and who therefore sees more than most 
 
112 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 men, and who has more power of expression and 
 therefore says what he sees more exactly. James 
 could of course say good things. " The over- 
 paying instinct is a generous one ; better than the 
 underpaying, and not so common." " No, no," 
 says Eugene, " Cowardice, incompetence," which 
 it often is, at least in the case of feeing, which 
 was the thing they were talking about. The poet 
 opens up on Morell at once, and comes out of each 
 encounter on top. 
 
 " Eugene, my boy," says the cheerful optimist, 
 who has just learned from Eugene that he loves 
 his wife, " you are making a fool of yourself — a 
 very great fool of yourself. There's a piece of 
 wholesome, plain speaking for you." 
 
 To which Eugene answers, " Oh, do you think 
 I don't know all that? Do you think that the 
 things that people make fools of themselves for 
 are any less real and true than the things they 
 behave sensibly about? They are more true, they 
 are the only things that are true." 
 
 We cannot, perhaps, immediately understand 
 such a point of view. I will confess that when 
 " Morell grasps him powerfully by the lapel of 
 his coat, he cowers down on the sofa and screams 
 powerfully," I rather sympathised with the bigger 
 man. And when Morell called him a little snivel- 
 ling, cowardly whelp, and told him to go before he 
 
BERNARD SHAW 118 
 
 frightened himself into a fit, I had enough red 
 blood in me to agree with him. But really, of 
 course, it is not anything especially to admire in 
 a man that he is physically so much more power- 
 ful than another that he could knock him into a 
 cocked-up hat. We feel that among our own kind 
 of people (whatever kind it may be) it is nice to 
 be big and hearty and strong, and to feel that we 
 could knock the stuffing out of this or that little 
 fool of our acquaintance. But we never make the 
 comparison broader and think that a good, power- 
 ful steam-fitter, or a solid coal-handler, is any 
 better than we because he could do us up. So 
 clearly the Reverend James is not a finer fellow, 
 with all the breadth of chest ; indeed, he would be 
 the first to discredit the reign of brute force, in 
 spite of the charms of muscular Christianity. 
 
 In fact Marchbanks gives us a second eye-open- 
 ing, and we perceive that the first was, in a meas- 
 ure, deceptive. Mr. Shaw was playing with us. 
 The first was too easy. It is not so much to see 
 through the deceits and shams of society nowadays. 
 Thackeray and Carlyle are not read by every- 
 body, but their chief standpoints are pretty com- 
 mon property. Indeed it is so much the fashion 
 to look beneath the surface that it is not at all 
 hard to take the pose. But really to know what 
 is what, really to react to the facts of life, to be 
 
114 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 really genuine, that is no easier than it was in 
 the days of Teufelsdroeckh, or of Gulliver, or of 
 Piers the Ploughman. 
 
 Not that the Reverend James is absolutely a 
 pretentious gasbag any more than Marchbanks is 
 an inspired prophet. He has a definite, a positive 
 part in the world's work. You cannot reform the 
 world with a few epigrams ; most reformers are 
 impracticable persons, which means that they can- 
 not determine details, do not like to take the 
 trouble to make their ideas fit complicated cases, 
 are puzzled at any specific correct thinking, have 
 not patience and skill absolutely to know anything, 
 except a few general principles, " great laws of 
 life," as their admirers subsequently call them. 
 They are not the people to do the work of reform- 
 ing the world; the world has to reform itself. 
 But it can only be got to reform itself by mid- 
 dlemen, so that the reformers have to have fol- 
 lowers, commonly men who do not entirely under- 
 stand them, but who get full of better ideas than 
 they had before, at least, and who incite the world 
 to work itself over into something a little better 
 than it was before. The new ideas are handed 
 around in predigested tablets, and get to be rather 
 the thing. Then the original thinkers retire or 
 are retired to the background, and the reign of 
 talkers begins. The Rev. James Morell is a 
 
BERNARD SHAW 115 
 
 typical talker. The original thinker is a dreamer 
 and doesn't like to do anything. The talkers are 
 commonly men of vitality who have neither the 
 imagination to dream nor the patience to think for 
 themselves. They want to do something in this 
 world, but, having no notion of just what they 
 can do, they take it out in talking. They believe 
 absolutely in what they say, while they say it, and 
 they rouse people to a state of excited conviction 
 by the hypnotic power of their language, as Mr. 
 Morell did at the meeting of the Guild of St. 
 Matthew. It is these latter people, those that 
 listen to the talkers, who go ahead and do the 
 world's work in reforming itself; but as they are 
 creatures of the emotions rather than of the in- 
 tellect, they never follow people like Marchbanks 
 because they do not understand them nor like 
 them, but do follow people like Mr. Morell because 
 they do like them and do not have to understand 
 them. 
 
 Of course Mr. Shaw is one of the Marchbankses, 
 but he is not entirely without sympathy for the 
 Morells. Who can be entirely without sympathy 
 for them? — big, strong, hearty fellows. How 
 much better it is that they should earn a living 
 by talking than that they should have to hoe corn 
 all day on a farm or dig dirt on a railway. They 
 do more good, too. 
 
116 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 In " Candida " Mr. Shaw sometimes loses the 
 reformer in the dramatist. Yet he does not do so 
 wholly ; he certainly shows a sympathy toward the 
 end for the Reverend James which is not entirely 
 consistent. Recollect that scathing description of 
 his family home. " You should come with us, 
 Eugene, and see the pictures of the hero of that 
 household. James as a baby ! the most wonderful 
 of all babies. James holding his first school prize, 
 won at the ripe age of eight! James as the cap- 
 tain of his eleven ! James in his first frock coat ! 
 James under all sorts of glorious circumstances ! " 
 That is about as bitter in its satire as we can wish : 
 Mr. Shaw puts it in the mouth of the man's wife. 
 That was the right thing to do, and yet he also 
 allows us to feel a little sympathy for him. 
 
 " Candida "is undoubtedly an excellent piece 
 of writing, full of those flashes of reality that are 
 the great thing with Mr. Bernard Shaw. People 
 sometimes discuss it as a play with all seriousness ; 
 ask about its problem, about the character of Can- 
 dida, about the poet's secret, and such things. 
 They are all beside the point. One may talk of 
 them if one will, just as one may (indeed must) 
 admire Miss Proserpine Garland. But the real 
 thing in the play is that it gives a standpoint 
 from which to view the world. 
 
 Appreciating this, we may proceed to Mr. 
 
BERNARD SHAW 117 
 
 Shaw's latest utterance, " Man and Superman," 
 which I saw in the paper the other day is to be 
 produced in New York shortly with notable omis- 
 sions. This, perhaps, makes it unnecessary to 
 write about it at present. The play has been 
 written, and Mr. Shaw has also written a criticism 
 upon it, so that no one else need try his hand upon 
 it. There still remained the possibility of saying 
 and showing either that it would do on the stage 
 or that it would not. I was going to say the 
 latter. But there is no use saying it now if the 
 play is to be acted before this gets into print. 
 
 " Man and Superman " is far more a play of 
 idea than most of Mr. Shaw's. " Arms and the 
 Man " gave us an idea of the standpoint of Mr. 
 Bernard Shaw ; he was a realistic satirist. " Can- 
 dida " went a step farther ; it made it clear that 
 here was a realist and a satirist who was not a 
 mere promulgator of everyday realism (like Bal- 
 zac, say) nor of everyday satire (say Thackeray). 
 Mr. Shaw, it appeared, was an entirely modern 
 person, an out-and-out advocate of neo-realism. 
 Neo-realism is merely the presentation of the ulti- 
 mate facts of life in any way you like. In " Man 
 and Superman " Mr. Shaw, having pierced to the 
 secret of the ultimate development of Man from 
 protoplasm to the Superman, presents it to us in 
 a piece of extravagance, ostensibly in the garb of 
 
118 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 to-day, with automobiles and so on, but really of 
 an entirely fanciful nature. This mode of pres- 
 entation is worth remarking: it is almost a note 
 of Mr. Shaw's dramaturgy. The expedient is 
 that of a frankly impossible motive carried out in 
 a very realistic manner. " The Philanderers " 
 and " You Never Can Tell " were entirely absurd 
 and impossible in conception, but entirely realistic 
 in execution. The other plays do not have quite 
 so much of it, but there is usually some : in " Can- 
 dida " the calm discussion of which man the lady 
 is to go with seems almost as though Mr. Shaw 
 thought it a natural proceeding, but of course it 
 is not more so than having Cleopatra carried into 
 Caesar's presence in a roll of carpet (I hope that 
 is not historical) or having General Burgoyne 
 march from Boston to Albany to meet General 
 Howe. " Man and Superman " is quite as fan- 
 tastic as any romantic play: the main difference 
 is that it is not so interesting; the dashing across 
 Europe in an automobile pursued by the girl one 
 is destined to marry, and landing among a set of 
 Spanish brigands, the chief of whom has been a 
 waiter at the Savoy, serves as a vehicle for Mr. 
 Shaw's views as well as anything else, but in itself 
 it has no imaginative character, and, indeed, is 
 rather a dull sort of humour. 
 
 But the form is not a matter of great impor- 
 
BERNARD SHAW 119 
 
 tance, though I wish it were really amusing as 
 Mr. Shaw could have made it. The constant play 
 of idea is the main thing or else the great idea 
 at bottom. It is hardly necessary to say that the 
 true nature of the great truth promulgated in the 
 play is not easily grasped even in reading, would 
 be less easily understood if the whole play were 
 given on the stage, and will not be even guessed 
 at if the third act is much cut. It is to the effect 
 that the process of development of man into a 
 higher form (the Superman) is to be carried on 
 by sexual selection just as his development from 
 lower forms has been, and that in this process 
 women (do or should) wish to get married in order 
 that they may have children, and not for any 
 minor motive that fancy or romance or conven- 
 tionality or policy may try to push into promi- 
 nence, and that men, having been of use in this 
 process, have about as much place in the economy 
 of nature as a sucked orange at breakfast. That 
 seems a curious idea for a play. Mr. Shaw pre- 
 sents it to us by the spectacle of two young ladies, 
 one of whom marries secretly and persuades the 
 father of her husband not to disinherit him, and 
 the other marries openly, having persuaded her 
 own father before dying to place her in charge of 
 the person she had singled out for that purpose. 
 A slight action is given to the piece by the dash of 
 
120 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 the not-yet husband across Europe In an auto- 
 mobile in flight from the girl who intends to marry 
 him. All the other characters come after him in 
 another automobile, and all fall among comic 
 brigands. 
 
 All this circumstance appears to me to be 
 pretty poor stuff, and I shall take leave of it 
 merely by saying that, were it a hundred times 
 poorer, the play would still be worth reading for 
 the constant cleverness of the dialogue and the 
 occasional seriousness of the matter conveyed. 
 The theory of the play I suppose to be entirely 
 false, but I have no concern with it, one way or 
 the other. It gives Mr. Shaw a chance for his 
 epigram, and his epigram gives us a chance at 
 getting at a bit of truth now and then, or of 
 thinking that we do, both of which are exhilarat- 
 ing sensations. We need not swallow them all any 
 more than we swallow the ocean when we go in 
 swimming, — in fact, we could not do so if we tried, 
 — but in the constant effort to keep intellectually 
 afloat and to swim about, we find ourselves ma- 
 terially invigorated and refreshed. 
 
 This realistic brilliancy is the great thing about 
 Mr. Shaw. For the moment, I think, everything 
 else becomes dull and tawny beside this white light. 
 Pinero seems to be the merest boy, smoking cig- 
 arettes and talking of things that he knows as 
 
BERNARD SHAW 121 
 
 much about as the rabbit does of the purposes of 
 nature. Sudermann is evidently one who makes 
 not even an effort to see beneath the crust of cus- 
 tom and convention of a thousand years. Haupt- 
 mann, with all his brilliancy, is merely the bright 
 child who amuses you by telling how he gets the 
 better (or else doesn't) of oppressive elders, a 
 jam-pot rebel against meat and potatoes. Ros- 
 tand is the painter of very exquisite and charming 
 pictures to illustrate Jack-and-the-Beanstalk and 
 other such classics. This man, on the other hand, 
 has had life under his microscope and knows its 
 secrets, has put himself in touch with real scien- 
 tists who know the constitution of the universe, 
 and who now presents to us, with the sugar coat- 
 ing that we demand, a few of the ultimate facts of 
 life, that we may like or dislike, understand or 
 not, but which are facts. 
 
 Such is something like the first impression that 
 Mr. Bernard Shaw may fairly make on one who 
 reads or sees his plays. Not that one will neces- 
 sarily admire him or care about his ideas, but it 
 seems very hard to deny them entirely or to get 
 round them and him. You are on his side 
 throughout the play, even if, when it is over, you 
 are astonished to find what company you have been 
 keeping. 
 
 First impressions and second thoughts are often 
 
122 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 different. They are with Mr. Shaw. First im- 
 pressions will be more or less of the kind that I 
 have described: second thoughts are sure to be 
 anything except that. The particular change 
 that comes over one in regard to Mr. Shaw is that 
 his white light loses brilliancy, and perhaps goes 
 out. That is to say, shortly after you have been 
 decidedly under the influence of his brilliancy, his 
 cleverness, his realities, you find yourself not quite 
 sure just what those ideas were that so short a 
 time ago seemed, if not indubitable, yet at least 
 absolutely there. For this there is a twofold 
 reason. 
 
 The first is that, though he writes plays, Mr. 
 Shaw does not present his ideas dramatically. 
 They are as they happen to be stated in the dia- 
 logue, they are what they are, that is all, — and 
 enough, too, some may think. But for a drama- 
 tist it is not enough. The drama has particular 
 ways of giving impressions. They are very ef- 
 fective ways, and they result often in powerful 
 and long-continued impressions. If, however, a 
 man writes plays and does not avail himself of the 
 possibilities of the drama, then he gets all the 
 drawbacks of the drama without its attendant 
 advantages. And as a means of presenting ideas 
 the drama has one serious drawback, namely, lack 
 of space. The dramatist has the means of com- 
 
BERNARD SHAW 123 
 
 pensating for this disadvantage, he can even turn 
 it to his own purpose. He will make up for his 
 lack of opportunity in statement somehow; if he 
 is going to do anything, he will have action, sit- 
 uation, characters to carry the thing, to make it 
 stay in our mind, to serve us as tokens of the ideas. 
 If we do not have this, if we merely have the people 
 on the stage telling each other one thing or an- 
 other, even if it be in epigrammatic dialogue, we 
 shall not get any more out of it than we usually 
 do in hearing people tell of things. We cannot 
 expect to remember all that we are told; we may 
 remember or we may not, according as the ideas 
 strike us at the time. Now " Widowers' Houses " 
 and " Mrs. Warren's Profession," which are the 
 two of Mr. Shaw's plays that have the least in- 
 teresting ideas, are the two of which the idea re- 
 mains most readily in the mind, because in each 
 case, what idea there is, is expressed in a dramatic 
 way. It is embodied in a figure, Vivien returning 
 to her work at Frazer and Warren's, Trench 
 shaking hands with Mr. Sartorius; these people 
 remain in our minds in a manner sufficiently sug- 
 gestive of the idea that is necessitated by the ex- 
 istence of each. But the other plays do not leave 
 much of an idea; admirable characters some of 
 them have, and to be remembered for themselves 
 (the waiter, the Reverend James, 'Enery Straker), 
 
124 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 but not for any ideas implicit in them. So the 
 ideas have to trust to whatever statement of them 
 there may happen to be, and in a drama such 
 statement is always insufficient; sometimes in a 
 good play we have explanations of theory, like 
 Graf Trast's disquisition on honour in " Die 
 Ehre," but generally the dialogue of a play is not 
 well fitted for that purpose. We do not, then, 
 remember Mr. Shaw's ideas very well, and thus in 
 a short time he becomes, as far as any effect is 
 concerned, much like anybody else. 
 
 The second reason that his ideas do not affect 
 us much is hardly worth mentioning after the first. 
 It is that his ideas, as a rule, are not such as can 
 in any way be promulgated on the stage. Some 
 ideas can: the constant effort of the idealist, the 
 constant strife of the individual, — these ideas (it 
 is fair to call them so) can be dramatically pre- 
 sented. They may not be worth so much in the 
 practical affairs of life as a correct understand- 
 ing of the way that man is going to get married 
 in his development into future ages, o? the way 
 man should manage whatever marriage he happens 
 to be concerned in now, but they seem to be more 
 susceptible of dramatic presentation. Take a 
 thesis like that of " Man and Superman " or of 
 " Candida," if you can get at it. It will be found 
 to be a social generalisation, which, even to be 
 
BERNARD SHAW 125 
 
 considered, must be presented either on the basis 
 of reason or of authority. A play is the place 
 for neither. The Germans are apt to think that 
 Shakespeare wrote his plays to present great and 
 often complicated social ideas, but if he did he 
 was wasting his time, for that is not the kind of 
 idea the drama can present effectively. It can 
 present the conception of the disharmony of the 
 man of thought in a world of action as in " Ham- 
 let," the place of young love in an old civilisation 
 that is tired of it, as in " Romeo and Juliet," but 
 those are much simpler notions. 
 
 But of course it is of no earthly consequence 
 whether Mr. Shaw is a dramatist or not. He can 
 write most amusing plays, and, now that the 
 whirligig of time has spun a bit, we can see them 
 on the stage. And if we do not always get his 
 Ideas, — or at least do not remember them when 
 we do get them, — yet still something remains. We 
 have had a constant challenge and stimulus, a fre- 
 quent opening of the window. We shall con- 
 stantly turn to his work with the desire for reality 
 and the curiosity to know the essential under the 
 superficial, and the assurance that by holding on 
 and constantly purifying our vision, we may see 
 well enough to get a step or two nearer the truth. 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 " Suddenly, out of a clear sky, the poetic 
 drama is upon us." 
 
 Some time ago a gifted and brilliant critic 
 began an article with these extraordinary words. 
 They served him chiefly as introduction to an ac- 
 count of a particular poetic drama which had been 
 produced with " large and wholesome and prudent 
 success " at Pittsburg. But they were inspired 
 by Mr. Beerbohm Tree's acceptance of the play 
 of " Herod," by Mr. Stephen Phillips. 
 
 I quote them now, because they made such a 
 singular impression upon me that I think they 
 may appeal to others. They seem to me to repre- 
 sent a very curious critical frame of mind, I think 
 it should be called ; a sort of disposition, as it were, 
 a feeling that there is such a thing as " the poetic 
 drama," that its appearance has been earnestly 
 looked and longed for, that by one act of good- 
 natured magic on the part of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, 
 a great consummation is about to come to pass, 
 and that an epoch-making moment is at hand, — 
 or rather was. 
 
 126 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 127 
 
 I may be singular in not having ever held such a 
 view, but I confess that, though I should be glad 
 to see more good plays at the theatre, I do not 
 care a pin to have them poetic dramas. 
 
 In fact, when Mr. Phillips seeks to restore 
 poetry to the English stage, he strives against 
 wind and tide. Every great poet of the 19th cen- 
 tury tried the same thing and failed. Coleridge 
 finally succeeded in getting Sheridan to produce 
 " Remorse " at Drury Lane ; it was successful and 
 is now not even read. Shelley chose the drama 
 mainly as a means for lyric poetry, and should 
 not be counted. Keats, Mr. Phillips's forerunner, 
 — but it would be pressing the matter to say that 
 he did anything of the sort, though he did write a 
 play. So did Wordsworth, though it was never 
 presented. Scott's " Doom of Devorgoil " was 
 by no means as successful as the commonplace 
 dramatisations that followed upon the Waverley 
 novels as they appeared. Browning wrote several 
 plays for the theatre, and though they were not 
 failures, they have not kept the stage. The same 
 must be said of Tennyson. As for Swinburne, it 
 is not probable that he meant his plays for the 
 stage any more than did Byron, who, however, 
 appears occasionally in a spectacular " Sarda- 
 napalus " or a literary " Manfred." 
 
 In fact, if we compare the 19th century with 
 
128 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 the age of Elizabeth we have a curious contrast. 
 About 1600 we have a large group of dramatists 
 who as poets were at least of the second order 
 ("all but one "), producing plays that appear 
 to have pleased and delighted the play-going pub- 
 lic, while three centuries later we have a series of 
 poets of greater poetic power than the Eliza- 
 bethans, who are certainly unable to hold the 
 stage, or, as a rule, even to obtain a footing there. 
 Further we may remark that even as literature, 
 as poetry, the drama of the 19th century is not 
 comparable to that of the 16th. 
 
 Such is the verdict of history which Mr. Phil- 
 lips or any one else who attempts " the poetic 
 drama " moves to set aside. If we ask as to the 
 grounds, we have the rather vague idea that there 
 ought to be poetry on our stage, that the drama 
 is the highest form of poetry, that it is a shame 
 that we cannot have poetry at the theatre as well 
 as the French or the Germans. 
 
 Turning the matter over in our minds, we may 
 ask why any other poet should think of succeed- 
 ing in the direction where the most successful 
 poetry of Shakespeare is a failure. Mr. Bernard 
 Shaw says that Shakespeare " still holds the stage 
 so well that it is not impossible to meet old play- 
 goers who have witnessed public performances of 
 more than thirty out of his thirty-seven reputed 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 129 
 
 plays, a dozen of them fairly often, and half a 
 dozen over and over again." He adds that he 
 has himself seen more than twenty-three. I do 
 not doubt the statement, but it is beside the mark. 
 There is no doubt that perhaps a dozen of Shake- 
 speare's plays hold the stage, but certainly not by 
 virtue of their poetry. Rather, it may be well be- 
 lieved, in spite of it. Not long ago I saw, as did 
 many others who were greatly pleased by it, a 
 very beautiful performance of " Romeo and Ju- 
 liet " given with wonderful scenery and costume 
 and very good acting. It is easy to say of such 
 performances that they are very pretty but not 
 Shakespeare, but I should not have said so of this 
 one. It did not give us everything of Shakespeare, 
 but it did give us much. I do not think that ever 
 before was I so impressed with the beauty, the 
 pathos, the tragedy of the old story. But with 
 all that, the poetry of the play was not there : the 
 characters, the action, the situations, the settings 
 were strongly given, but the Shakespearean poetry 
 seemed absent in spite of the words. In the beauti- 
 ful scene beginning: 
 
 " Wilt thou begone ? It is not yet near day," 
 
 we had a strong and realistic presentation, but the 
 poetry of it seemed to me to have vanished. It may 
 be that the lines were not very well given, but I 
 
130 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 incline to think that the reason for my impression 
 was that the adequate circumstance dulled the 
 imagination, that the realism was too much for the 
 poetry. 
 
 Some of the most sympathetic critics of Shake- 
 speare have held some such notion. Lamb could 
 not bear " Lear n on the stage, nor Hazlitt " A 
 Midsummer Night's Dream," and both for the 
 same reason, that the realism destroyed the 
 poetry. So thought one at least who saw " Ulys- 
 ses " a year or so ago. 
 
 " This isle," says Ulysses, 
 " Set in the glassy ocean's azure swoon, 
 With sward of parsley and of violet, 
 And poplars shivering in a silvery dream, 
 And swell of cedar lawn, and sandal wood, 
 And these low-crying birds that haunt the 
 deep." 
 Or 
 
 " Little bewildered ghosts on this great night ! 
 They flock about me — 
 
 Wandering on their way 
 To banks of asphodel and spirit flowers. 
 Ah, a girl's face ! A boy there with bright hair ! " 
 
 Are not those exquisite passages? Surely, but 
 what have they to do with the theatre? Cer- 
 tainly the stage setting of " Ulysses " was ade- 
 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 131 
 
 quate. Many of the scenes were extremely beauti- 
 ful. I remember the gradual taking form and 
 shape of the coast of Ithaca as being particularly 
 so. But for all that the poetry did not har- 
 monise. 
 
 To revert to Shakespeare once more. I am 
 inclined (in my dry-as-dust, academic, mole-like 
 way) to account for his practical exclusion from 
 the stage. Managers who watch the public mind 
 say that Shakespeare generally lacks " heart-in- 
 terest," that he presents no problems, or some- 
 thing of the sort. But the matter lies deeper. 
 
 Shakespeare wrote his plays for a stage very 
 different from ours. It will perhaps be said that 
 ours is better, that we can give his plays much 
 more effectively than the Globe Theatre could do, 
 and also that Shakespeare would gladly have taken 
 advantage of our possibilities had he been able. 
 These things may be so and yet the important 
 thing is not, say, that we can give Shakespeare 
 better than his own theatre could, but that we do 
 give them very differently; and also, not that 
 Shakespeare would have written with pleasure for 
 a more developed stage than he had, but that he 
 did T rite especially for a stage less developed than. 
 our. own. 
 
 It is wrong to imagine Shakespeare as an in- 
 spired barbarian, his eye in fine frenzy rolling, 
 
132 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 pouring out poetry for posterity. What he 
 really thought of posterity in connection with his 
 plays may never be known, but there can be little 
 doubt that he wrote his plays with a definite con- 
 sideration of just the conditions under which they 
 were to be presented. There was undoubtedly an 
 element of the business man (surely a part of 
 Shakespeare) dealing with the business proposi- 
 tion, namely the Globe Theatre and the Lord 
 Chamberlain's men. It was not that Shakespeare 
 wrote merely to please the public. It was that he 
 knew his powers so well that he could easily please 
 the public and be a poet too. So he dealt with 
 the actual conditions in his own way. Instead of 
 grumbling at the interruptions of his comic ac- 
 tors, he used them for his own ends. Instead of 
 shrugging his shoulders, merely, at the clumsy 
 way in which his boy heroines managed their 
 skirts, he put them into doublet and hose when- 
 ever he could. Instead of being cribbed and con- 
 fined by the simple scaffold of a stage, he used 
 every opportunity given him by the stage-manage- 
 ment of his day. Instead of feeling any lack of 
 the scenery with which the masques of Ben Jon- 
 son were beautified, he took advantage of the 
 chance for descriptive poetry. 
 
 And he produced a drama very appropriate to 
 the Elizabethan stage. That stage relied almost 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 133 
 
 entirely upon the dramatist and the actor. The 
 dramatist provided a mobile and fluent dramatic 
 poem, and the actor presented it with his best abil- 
 ity in declamation and gesture. Our conception 
 of realism at the theatre was unknown. Our idea 
 of spectacle was confined to the amusements of the 
 upper classes. 
 
 So far as real conditions are concerned the 
 Shakespearean Hamlet was an actor clad in the 
 costume of his day, standing on a stage in the 
 midst of the audience, even surrounded on the 
 stage itself by a half-circle of spectators. Let 
 us think of that when next we see the melancholy 
 Dane in appropriate costume (of the 11th century 
 or the 16th, as the manager happens to choose) 
 seated on an antique chair on a stage that gives 
 with historical accuracy all the circumstance of 
 the palace of Elsinore. And if we will so think, let 
 us ask whether the poetry written for the situa- 
 tion in which there was nothing else will be likely 
 to satisfy our hearts when our eyes are glutted by 
 the brilliant actuality that has become so impor- 
 tant to us. 
 
 I think not. The poet at the present day who 
 writes for the stage deliberately puts himself into 
 competition with costume, scenery, and music. 
 Wagner alone has consciously sought harmony 
 in such competition, and with Wagner his music 
 
134 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 has certainly triumphed at the sacrifice of the 
 rest. 
 
 Mr. Phillips may succeed on the stage, but it 
 will be in spite of his poetry and not by reason of 
 it. Let me speak again of the newspaper story, 
 which is typical, if not true. When he read 
 " Herod " to Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the actor-man- 
 ager listened without remark until he came to a 
 place where there was the sound of distant trum- 
 pets. At this he began to have confidence. " He 
 had not known that I had been an actor," re- 
 marked with modest pride the poet who had seen 
 pass unnoticed the lines: 
 
 " And all behind him is 
 A sense of something coming on the world, 
 A crying of dead prophets from their tombs, 
 A singing of dead poets from their graves. 
 
 I ever dread the young." 
 
 No, I fear that poetry has no place on our stage 
 and that she will not have, at least just at pres- 
 ent. The Elizabethan drama gave poetry to 
 people who could not otherwise get it. It was 
 public poetry, recited for those who could not 
 read. Do we to-day wish to listen to poetry? It 
 may be a doubtful question, but I incline to think 
 that we read so much that we do not wish merely 
 to listen to anything. Who is there when some- 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 135 
 
 thing is read aloud from a newspaper, but wants to 
 take the paper and read for himself? Who is 
 there that having heard a poem from the lips, even 
 of a good reader, does not wish to take the book 
 in his own hand and read it. Poetry is hardly 
 a public art. It is true that Lowell read an Ode 
 on Commemoration Day and Holmes read many 
 poems to the class of '£9, and we should all be glad 
 to have heard either. But in the main we like to 
 have our poetry in the privacy of our firesides, 
 of our pensive citadels, of our hearts. I have no 
 desire to hear beautiful poetry in a crowd: I had 
 rather be by myself and have it alone. So, unless 
 I am singular in this respect, poetry will not flour- 
 ish on our stage. 
 
 The attentive and logical reader will probably 
 incline to think that this is a short-sighted view 
 in a period which has produced the poetical 
 dramas of Rostand, and various others. I can- 
 not help that. I am not going to try to explain 
 why the various nations of Europe are different. 
 The French theatre is different from ours and so 
 is French poetry. " To what shall we attribute 
 it," wrote somebody in the Quarterly Review, 
 " that the frivolous and ignorant audience of 
 Paris, content with a dark and heavy house, a 
 dirty scene, and six fiddlers, shall listen with 
 earnest attention to a lifeless translation of 
 
136 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 ' Philoctetes,' while the phlegmatic and reflecting 
 citizens of London, in a gaudy house glittering 
 with innumerable lights, demand show and song 
 and bustle and procession and supernumerary 
 murders, even in the animated plays of Shake- 
 speare? . . . But, whatever the cause, the fact 
 is undoubted, and whoever writes for the theatre 
 must submit to take it into account." That was 
 nearly a century ago; to-day the circumstances 
 are very different, but not the essential fact. I 
 follow the advice and take account of it in my 
 view that, whatever may be the tendency and 
 nature of the Latin races, the English and Ameri- 
 cans do not value poetry at the theatre or any- 
 where else in public. 
 
 Of course it does not follow that because poetry 
 is not for the stage, there can be nothing for the 
 stage but costume and scenery. There is room for 
 much else, and whatever be its name, it is some- 
 thing which will always tend to make the stage 
 finer the more of it there is. There is a passage 
 in Byron's " Manfred " that will illustrate the mat- 
 ter better than I can explain it. It comes in that 
 scene in the Hall of Arimanes where the phantom 
 of Astarte rises and stands in the midst. Manfred 
 speaks : 
 " Astarte ! My beloved ! speak to me : 
 
 I have so much endured — so much endure — 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 137 
 
 Look on me ! The grave hath not changed thee 
 
 more 
 Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me 
 Too much, as I loved thee ; we were not made 
 To torture thus each other, though it were 
 The deadliest sin to love as we have loved. 
 Say that thou loath'st me not — that I do bear 
 This punishment for both — that thou wilt be 
 One of the blessed — and that I shall die ; 
 For hitherto all hateful things conspire 
 To bind me in existence — in a life 
 Which makes me shrink from immortality — 
 A future like the past. I cannot rest. 
 I know not what I ask nor what I seek ; 
 I feel but what thou art, and what I am ; 
 And I would hear yet once before I perish 
 The voice that was my music — speak to me ! 
 For I have called on thee in the still night, 
 Startled the slumbering birds from the hushed 
 
 boughs, 
 And woke the mountain wolves, and made the 
 
 caves 
 Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name, 
 Which answered me — many things answered 
 
 me — 
 Spirits and men — but thou wert silent all. 
 Yet speak to me ! I have outwatched the stars, 
 And gazed o'er heaven in vain search of thee. 
 
138 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 Speak to me ! I have wandered o'er the earth, 
 
 And never found thy likeness — speak to me ! 
 
 Look on the fiends around — they feel for me ; 
 
 I fear them not and feel for thee alone — 
 
 Speak to me ! though it be in wrath — but say — 
 
 I reck not what — but let me hear thee once — 
 
 This once — once more! 
 
 Phantom of Astarte. Manfred. 
 
 Manfred. Say on, say on — I live but in the 
 sound — it is thy voice! 
 
 Phantom. Manfred! To-morrow ends thine 
 earthly ills. Farewell. 
 
 Manfred. Yet one word more — am I forgiven? 
 
 Phantom. Farewell ! 
 
 Manfred. Say shall we meet again? 
 
 Phantom. Farewell ! 
 
 Manfred. One word for mercy! Say thou 
 lovest me — 
 
 Phantom. Manfred ! " 
 
 (The Phantom disappears.) 
 
 I presume that the imaginative, the apprecia- 
 tive, the artistic reader of this passage is always 
 profoundly moved by it. I was never specially 
 moved until I saw the play given upon the stage. 
 Then, amid a good deal of frippery and foolish- 
 ness, the intonation alone of that last word " Man- 
 fred ! " gave the whole scene a glory that it has 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 139 
 
 never lost. In a life in which (like most) much 
 average work and play, much old commonplace and 
 new experience tends to dull the keen sense of the 
 beauty of bygone moments, there remains to me 
 always the poignant passion of that voice as from 
 the open tomb, giving an emotion so intense that 
 current reality, even, fades before it into a forgot- 
 ten dream. Some readings in Heredia, the sight of 
 the Winged Victory as she stands at the head of 
 the staircase, the Garden act of " Tristan," the 
 first thrilling delight at the pictures of Rembrandt 
 — not to mention matters that do not belong here 
 — none have a surer place in my recollection than 
 this. I could say as Hazlitt said of the Man with 
 the Glove : " What a look is there. . . that draws 
 the evil out of human life, that while we look at it 
 transfers the same sentiment to our own breasts 
 and makes us feel as if nothing mean or little 
 could disturb us again." 
 
 But this is not the poetry but the situation. And 
 it is the situation that the drama, and especially on 
 the stage, can give as nothing else can. Everybody 
 can parallel the case, from the prose drama as 
 well as the poetic — I could say myself a passage 
 in the third act of " Sodom's Ende " ( " Reinheit ! " ) 
 as well as the end of the third act of " L'Aiglon." 
 And those who go much to the theatre count on 
 such moments, for they are far more a possibility 
 
140 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 for the stage than for literature or even poetry. 
 I cannot recall a case in my seeing Shakespeare 
 save where Mr. Booth sprang up after the play 
 in " Hamlet." 
 
 But to return to Mr. Phillips. It was prob- 
 ably this electric moment that Mr. Tree noticed 
 when he heard of the trumpets in Herod. Mr. 
 Phillips, as a former actor, doubtless knows a dra- 
 matic situation. Whether he has power to create 
 one of the first order is another matter. There 
 are situations and situations ; a single melodrama 
 may have a dozen. But will they be real ones? 
 One needs the stage to judge. So far as reading 
 is concerned, I should say we had one at the very 
 end of " Herod." 
 
 Of course one hopes that Mr. Phillips will 
 create more, for if he does he is a friend to the 
 human race, immeasurably lightening its miseries 
 and adding to its joys. To have a wonderful 
 possession of that sort is a great thing. Even 
 so, however, what has it to do with poetry, unless 
 it be that poetry is smuggled in along with the 
 drama for literary respectability's sake, as some 
 earnest critics would have us believe that an idea 
 may be smuggled into poetry as a sort of ballast? 
 
 Mr. Phillips has written very charming poetry, 
 some lines of which are apropos here. They 
 occur in the words of Idas to Marpessa. 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 141 
 
 " Not for this only do I love thee, but 
 
 Because infinity upon thee broods ; 
 
 And thou art full of whispers and of shadows. 
 
 Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say 
 
 So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell; 
 
 Thou art what all the winds have uttered not, 
 
 What the still night suggesteth to the heart. 
 
 Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth, 
 
 Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea ; 
 
 Thy face remembered is from other worlds, 
 
 It has been died for, though I know not when, 
 
 It has been sung of, though I know not where. 
 
 It has the strangeness of the luring West, 
 
 And of sad sea-horizons ; beside thee 
 
 I am aware of other times and lands, 
 
 Of birth far back, of lives in many stars. 
 
 O beauty lone, and like a candle clear 
 
 In this dark country of the world ! Thou art 
 
 My woe, my early light, my music dying." 
 
 Those are very beautiful lines, but if they rightly 
 represent Mr. Phillips' power, do they not mark 
 his language at least as not dramatic? 
 
 But if a man write dramas — poetic or not — 
 for which the stage can do but little, it does not 
 follow that the dramas are without value. Of 
 course the judgment of half a dozen theatrical 
 critics or of a whole theatrical audience will never 
 
142 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 establish that. They may say, or show clearly 
 by their actions, that the play is not suited to the 
 stage, — of which the purpose is not so much, as 
 an eminent lover of the theatre is said to have 
 remarked, " to hold the mirror up to nature " as 
 it is rather to offer the public a very special and 
 delightful kind of pleasure. But a drama may 
 not be in the least suited to the stage, and yet be 
 a very good thing for all that. There are and 
 have been many stages — Greek, Elizabethan, 
 French, our own, not to mention Chinese and 
 Japanese; no play was ever written that could 
 suit them all, although each form of theatre must 
 offer some opportunity for creating the true dra- 
 matic thrill. A play cannot be good for all; 
 perhaps it may be good for none, and yet be a 
 source of very great pleasure to " those that like 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 Just what that sort of thing is, is not a very 
 difficult matter to state. There is a convenience 
 in the dramatic form that enables some men to 
 express themselves better in that way than in any 
 other. Browning was a man of that kind: he had 
 a curiosity in regard to life and a sympathy for 
 living people that made him enter into his char- 
 acters and speak for them, as it were. He did 
 so in his first poem, " Pauline," which was a mono- 
 logue ; in his second, " Paracelsus," which was a 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 143 
 
 dramatic poem with no possibilities for the stage ; 
 and he did so in " Strafford," which he made a 
 regular stage-play for Macready. Then — if I 
 may touch dangerous ground for a moment — he 
 wrote " Sordello." Tennyson, the story goes, 
 said he understood but two lines in this poem — 
 the first and last — and that neither was true. 
 Now, the lines are as follows : 
 
 " Who will may hear Sordello's story told." 
 
 " Who would has heard Sordello's story told." 
 
 It may be admitted that " Sordello " is not a very 
 simple narrative, but it certainly is a narrative. 
 The lines are quite true, for the story is told — 
 well or ill, of course — that is, it is not in dramatic 
 form. Browning explains this at the beginning 
 of the poem, in a passage which was presumably 
 beyond Tennyson's comprehension, but which now, 
 thanks to sixty years of Browning clubs, will be 
 as clear as cosmic jelly. 
 
 " Never, I should warn you first, 
 Of my own choice had this, if not the worst, 
 Yet not the best expedient, served to tell 
 A story I could body forth so well 
 By making speak, myself kept out of view, 
 The very man as he was wont to do, 
 And leaving you to say the rest for him." 
 
144 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 That puts the matter fairly enough: Browning 
 liked to let the man speak for himself, so he com- 
 monly wrote in dramatic form. When he under- 
 took to tell the tale himself the results were not 
 so good. The same desire came over Tennyson 
 as he grew older, and, though his earlier poems 
 are mostly narratives, his later volumes are full 
 of dramatic poetry. Every dramatic poem is not 
 a play, but a play is dramatic poetry of the most 
 developed and fullest kind. Browning and Ten- 
 nyson both wrote plays as well as other forms of 
 dramatic poetry, and so have various poets, often 
 without much thought of the stage, like Byron. 
 
 After all, why not? I think some of Mr. 
 Phillips' best poetry is in his plays. I have 
 quoted lines from " Ulysses " and some from 
 " Herod." Here are some from " Paolo and 
 Francesca " : 
 
 Francesca. " All ghostly grew the sun, unreal 
 the air, 
 Then when we kissed. 
 
 Paolo. And in that kiss our souls 
 Together flashed, and now they are one flame, 
 Which nothing can put out, nothing divide. 
 Francesca. Kiss me again ! I smile at what 
 
 may chance. 
 Paolo. Again and yet again ! and here and here. 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 145 
 
 Let me with kisses burn this body away, 
 That our two souls may dart together free. 
 I fret at intervention of the flesh, 
 And would clasp you — you that but inhabit 
 This lovely house. 
 
 Francesca. Break open then the door, 
 And let my spirit out." 
 
 I have not seen the play acted. But those who 
 saw it on the stage, did they not perhaps " fret at 
 interference of the flesh " ? It would seem as if 
 it might well be so, as one reads that fourth act. 
 After all, is it the actual love affair that attracts 
 us, that common intrigue so like a thousand others 
 save for the intensity of its passion? Do we want 
 to see two live, beautiful, charmingly dressed 
 young people in each other's arms? I think 
 hardly. It is the essence of the poetry, the soul 
 going out of itself, that we want, and that is in 
 the lines. There is another " Francesca " on the 
 stage, and that, I am told, has too much real blood 
 in it. I should think it likely. Real blood, like a 
 real pump or any realistic setting, distracts the 
 mind, which for the time would be conscious only 
 of its own emotion. It is like a magic-lantern 
 show going on with the curtain raised and day- 
 light coming in. 
 
 Mr. Phillips has power to stir those subtle ele- 
 
146 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 ments of our being that respond to poetry. It 
 seems that he wishes also to stir us in a different 
 way. It is to be hoped that he will not be like the 
 dog with the bone in his mouth, who lost his own 
 chop in trying to get another. Or, rather, the fig- 
 ure is wrong, for it is we who lose, if loss there be. 
 Mr. Phillips will always have the satisfaction of 
 being a poet. 
 
MAETERLINCK 
 
 It was some years before M. Rostand became 
 a familiar figure in the literature of the time that 
 M. Maeterlinck appeared, and in a very different 
 manner. Although a dramatist, he became known 
 from the printed versions of his plays. It was in 
 1893 that translations of his earlier plays were 
 published in America, and up to that time few in 
 this country had ever heard of him, fewer were 
 acquainted with his work, and none had ever seen 
 his works upon the stage. 
 
 M. Maeterlinck was introduced to the wider 
 world of letters under the cloud of comparison 
 with Shakespeare. In America and England, at 
 least, he was therefore received with a smile, as one 
 of those humorous " movements " that flutter after 
 each other like exquisite humming-birds through 
 the Parisian world of letters. He had been called, 
 by M. Octave Mirbeau in the Figaro, the Belgian 
 Shakespeare. If he had been called the Ollendorf 
 Shakespeare, the Puppetshow Shakespeare, or the 
 Nursery Shakespeare, the name would have con- 
 veyed more accurately the impression which he 
 
 147 
 
148 MAETERLINCK 
 
 made at first. Some people became very angry at 
 him: Max Nordau, a violent person of that day, 
 called him a mental cripple, an idiotic driveller, 
 an imbecile plagiarist. In general, people merely 
 could not understand him at all, though they could 
 see that some of his ways were funny. The well- 
 known dialogue — people may not remember that 
 it was quite as remarkable as the burlesques on it : 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 " Wait ! I am beginning to see. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 Do you see the city? 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 No. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 And the castle? 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 No. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 It must be on the other side. 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 And yet . . . There is the sea. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 There is the sea? 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 Yes, yes; the sea. It is green. 
 
MAETERLINCK 149 
 
 NURSE 
 
 But then you ought to see the city. Let us 
 look. 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 I see the lighthouse. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 You see the lighthouse? 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 Yes; I think it is the lighthouse. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 But, then, you ought to see the city. 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 I do not see the city. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 You do not see the city? 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 I do not see the city. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 Do you see the belfry? 
 
 MALEINE 
 
 No. 
 
 NURSE 
 
 This is extraordinary." 
 
 It was, very. There were undoubtedly things 
 to be said for such dialogue; still it was funny, 
 though not uproariously so. Then his princesses, 
 
150 MAETERLINCK 
 
 the babies with long hair: in one piece seven of 
 them, each as infantile as all the others put to- 
 gether — no one takes them seriously. There was 
 certainly a good deal that was humorous about 
 M. Maeterlinck. 
 
 Nor did those who admired his work always hit 
 upon just the right things. I will here mention 
 myself, merely as an example of one who was much 
 taken with M. Maeterlinck's first writings and yet 
 was quite unable to see what has turned out to be 
 the important thing in them. It chanced that 
 another poet published about the same time a col- 
 lection of dramatic pieces which resembled in some 
 ways M. Maeterlinck's plays. It is not important 
 whether or no they were imitations — probably not. 
 But they were very like them, and I allow myself 
 to quote a few lines written ten years ago about 
 them. 
 
 It was under the title " The Antennae of 
 Poetry," and although the article itself showed 
 little critical keenness or foresight, the title, as 
 appeared later, was not a bad one. In my then 
 view people like Maeterlinck were experimental- 
 ists, and fulfilled a useful function in poetry, or 
 any other kind of art, being always on the lookout 
 for things that were new, amusing, or edifying. 
 And in what they offered, as in these cases, the 
 interesting thing lay largely in the mode of ap- 
 
MAETERLINCK 151 
 
 preciation or presentation. " They are not con- 
 ceived," I remarked, " in any approach to the 
 classic manner, but in a manner ultra-romantic. 
 For although the main emotion is always present 
 before us, it is not presented simply, but always 
 by means of a multitude of extremely fine and deli- 
 cate nuances, indefinite hopes and fears, presenti- 
 ments, imaginings and spiritual accompaniments, 
 premonitions almost occult, faint ripples of emo- 
 tion, little wavelets that skim over the waves of 
 passion." Such to my mind was the character- 
 istic of Mr. Sharpe's work, and of M. Maeter- 
 linck's, too, except that the latter was more of a 
 true dramatist, having greater power of drawing 
 character. 
 
 It was not very clever of me to have found 
 nothing more to say on the first five plays of M. 
 Maeterlinck. That I should have entirely missed 
 the real purport of his idea and been wholly taken 
 up by the accessories, shows one of the practical 
 difficulties that any one has to meet in dealing with 
 a new effort of romanticism. What I noticed, the 
 general tone and method, the character-drawing, 
 all that amounted to nothing; M. Maeterlinck 
 would have been himself without either quality. 
 
 One thing in the article, however, was, I believe, 
 good, and that, as I have just said, was the title. 
 Not in precisely the manner in which I conceived 
 
152 MAETERLINCK 
 
 it, but still in a way near enough to mention was 
 the name significant. And this I say, not because 
 I think so myself, but because almost the same 
 phrase was afterward used by Maeterlinck in 
 " Le Tresor des Humbles," published some time 
 afterward, when he spoke of Novalis as " one of 
 those extraordinary beings who are the antennae 
 of the human soul." That was not precisely the 
 same thing, but it came rather near it. I was 
 thinking of poetry, and Maeterlinck was thinking 
 of life. As it turned out, that was the main line 
 of his interest. People who considered him only 
 as a curious experimenter in dramatic form were 
 wrong about him, as also those who bothered their 
 heads and their readers by talking about symbol- 
 ism. Symbolist he may have been to some degree, 
 and experimenter, and various other things. But 
 in the main his interest was in philosophy, and has 
 been ever since. He writes plays or studies the 
 habits of bees, not merely as diversions, but as 
 means of expression or attainment of something 
 concerning the problem of life. 
 
 Before the publication of " Le Tresor des 
 Humbles," M. Maeterlinck had been known as a 
 philosophic man of letters. Every serious author 
 is more or less philosophic ; he Kas something to 
 say of the general principles of life ; he can hardly 
 avoid having some philosophy, although he may 
 
MAETERLINCK 153 
 
 make no effort to state it systematically or even 
 directly. In this new book, however, M. Maeter- 
 linck became a literary philosopher and sketched 
 for his readers his theory of life. The remark- 
 able thing about the book was not that M. Maeter- 
 linck should have a philosophy, but that he should 
 try to express it definitely, for the main idea in 
 style of his previous work had been that his 
 thoughts were not such as could be definitely ex- 
 pressed, and indeed that idea was rather the 
 foundation of this book. Still, for all that, by 
 " Le Tresor des Humbles " M. Maeterlinck pre- 
 sented himself as a philosopher of a known school, 
 and his work was seen to have a place in a known 
 tendency of our time. 
 
 M. Maeterlinck now appeared to be a mystic. 
 The name Mystic is a vague one and comprehends 
 people as far apart as Plotinus and George Fox. 
 Mystics are perhaps not much farther known than 
 as they are known to be mystics. Still the word 
 gives us some idea of a standpoint. A mystic I 
 take to be a person who believes in the acquirement 
 of truth by intuition rather than by any process 
 of reason and argument. Thus the person who 
 sees visions is a mystic, the person who has pre- 
 sentiments, the person who has something borne in 
 upon him. Any one who believes in gaining truth 
 by some process more direct than the ordinary 
 
154 MAETERLINCK 
 
 process of rational thought is, in so far, a mystic. 
 There have been Christian mystics and mystics 
 who were not Christians; the word has been very 
 loosely used. M. Maeterlinck, like others in what 
 was called in those days the neo-Christian move- 
 ment, had been interested in Carlyle and Emerson, 
 but also by those more commonly thought of as 
 mystics — Eckhard, Ruysbroek, Boehme. 
 
 His particular view, however, as presented in 
 " Le Tresor des Humbles," was not the mysticism 
 of any of these. It was, I believe, his own. " It 
 is idle," says his book at the beginning, " to think 
 that by means of words, any real communication 
 can ever pass from one man to another." How, 
 then? By Silence: in the great silent moments 
 of life, such moments as everybody knows, experi- 
 enced in love, sport, work, religion, not necessarily 
 moments of great emotion, but moments in which 
 we seem to become aware of much. It is M. 
 Maeterlinck's idea that in such moments we may 
 become aware of much; indeed, that in such mo- 
 ments only do we get to know anything worth 
 knowing. Those who attune themselves to such 
 moments, who learn to use them, find deep mean- 
 ings in presentiments, in the strange impression 
 produced by a chance meeting or a look (the 
 words are in the main Maeterlinck's own), in the 
 secret laws of sympathy and antipathy, of elective 
 
MAETERLINCK 155 
 
 and instinctive affinities, in the overwhelming in- 
 fluence of the thing that had not been spoken. 
 
 The precise view of the universe which M. 
 Maeterlinck held to result from such moments, or 
 from such receptivity, need not be stated just here. 
 What is of interest now is to show the dramatic 
 side of it. It is obvious that such an idea has dra- 
 matic possibilities. In the matter of conveying 
 an idea without saying anything — by the secret 
 means of sympathy, instinctive affinity, strange 
 impression — Mme. Sarah Bernhardt would seem 
 to be a mystic of the first water. It was not pre- 
 cisely such powers, however, that M. Maeterlinck 
 had in mind when he thought of the drama as a 
 means for the expression of his idea. What he 
 had in mind he said in an essay on " The Tragical 
 in Daily Life," a short statement which put a 
 whole dramatic art into a nutshell. For a phi- 
 losopher of M. Maeterlinck's type the essay is sin- 
 gularly definite and logical in its arrangement. 
 
 First, as to subject: must it always be some 
 violence ? " Does the soul flower only on nights 
 of storm? Hitherto, doubtless, this idea has pre- 
 vailed." But a new idea is becoming known, and 
 he turns to painting to show that Marius triumph- 
 ing over the Cimbrians, or the assassination of the 
 Duke of Guise, is no longer the type. The painter 
 " will place on his canvas a house lost in the heart 
 
156 MAETERLINCK 
 
 of the country, an open door at the end of a 
 passage, a face and hands at rest, and by these 
 simple images will he add to our consciousness of 
 life, which is a possession that it is no more pos- 
 sible to lose." Nor will the drama deal with ex- 
 traordinary convulsions of life; why should the 
 dramatist imagine that we shall delight in witness- 
 ing the very same acts that brought joy to the 
 hearts of the barbarians, with whom murder, out- 
 rage, and treachery were matters of daily occur- 
 rence ? 
 
 So much for subject: next, M. Maeterlinck 
 spoke of action, or, rather, the lack of it — and 
 presented his view of a " static theatre," namely, 
 a drama in which there was no action at all, a 
 view which followed naturally from his conception 
 of subject, which suggests the question, Are these 
 motives suitable to the drama? It has only been 
 shown that they are possible in painting, which 
 is something very different. It is under this head 
 that one comes on the locus classicus of the static 
 dramaturgy. 
 
 " I admire Othello, but he does not appear to me 
 to live the august daily life of Hamlet, who has 
 time to live, inasmuch as he does not act. Othello 
 is admirably jealous. But is it not perhaps an 
 ancient error to imagine that it is at the moments 
 when this passion, or others of equal violence, pos- 
 
MAETERLINCK 157 
 
 sesses us, that we live our truest lives? I have 
 grown to believe that an old man, seated in his 
 armchair, waiting patiently, with his lamp beside 
 him ; giving unconscious ear to all the eternal laws 
 that reign about his house, interpreting, without 
 comprehending, the silence of doors and windows 
 and the quivering voice of the light, submitting 
 with bent head to the presence of his soul and his 
 destiny — an old man who conceives not that all 
 the powers of this world, like so many heedful 
 servants, are mingling and keeping vigil in his 
 room, who suspects not that the very sun itself is 
 supporting in space the little table against which 
 he leans, or that every star in heaven and every 
 fibre of the soul are directly concerned in the move- 
 ment of an eyelid that closes, or a thought that 
 springs to birth — I have grown to believe that he, 
 motionless as he is, does yet live in reality a deeper, 
 more human, and more universal life than the 
 lover who strangles his mistress, the captain who 
 conquers in battle, or ' the husband who avenges 
 his honour.' " 
 
 And finally as to the dialogue. It is the com- 
 mon opinion that the words of a play should be 
 directed especially to the action of the play, and, 
 theoretically, one would be likely to say that there 
 should not be any word at all that should not get 
 the action ahead. M. Maeterlinck pronounces to 
 
158 MAETERLINCK 
 
 the contrary. The only words that count in his 
 view are those that at first seem quite useless. It 
 is the words which are caused by the demands and 
 necessities of the case that are as insignificant as 
 the action itself. Who thinks that the best con- 
 versation at dinner consists in asking for the 
 salt, or saying you will have some bread? Here 
 the only words of high worth are the useless ones. 
 So in the drama, says M. Maeterlinck, who, by 
 the way, does not use so material a figure. It is 
 the super-essential meaning that we must open 
 our ears for; it is that which we must get if we 
 are to get anything at all. 
 
 All of which is very systematically reasoned out 
 on a basis not at all difficult to understand. 
 
 What, then, were the dramas made upon this 
 basis, so different from the common theory of the 
 day? A theme from the simplest daily life, an 
 action where nothing happens, a dialogue where 
 the only words of value are the meaningless ones. 
 One will readily suppose that any drama made on 
 such principles will excite all the astonishment 
 that was shown on the first appearance of the 
 plays of Maeterlinck. 
 
 It will be a surprise to those who do not remem- 
 ber, to learn that the only plays of M. Maeter- 
 linck's first publication that were received with 
 scoffing were those in which he did not carry out his 
 
MAETERLINCK 159 
 
 principles, so that people could recognise them. 
 " La Princesse Maleine " and " Les Sept Prin- 
 cesses " were the two of his first four dramas that 
 excited great derision. But " Les Aveugles " and 
 "L'Intrus " — where theme, action, and dialogue 
 follow his own ideas — were received with respect. 
 
 The first-mentioned plays do not, ostensibly at 
 least, carry out M. Maeterlinck's ideas. What is 
 the action of " La Princesse Maleine " ? Marius 
 and the Duke of Guise shrink into insignificance 
 in comparison with this little lady who goes 
 through battles and murders to sudden death. 
 How is it with the " Seven Princesses " ? If their 
 souls do not flourish in a night of storm it is cer- 
 tainly in a period of strange agitations. In these 
 two plays we have nothing simple, natural, nor- 
 mal; all is as wild as the delights of our despised 
 ancestors. 
 
 But in " L'Intrus " it is not so. It is not a 
 remarkable scene, only a family around the even- 
 ing table. Nothing remarkable occurs; indeed, 
 nothing at all occurs, that we can see. Nothing 
 is said of any importance save as we happen to 
 perceive the importance of chance words, and yet 
 what a powerful little piece it is. How it goes 
 on the stage I do not know (nor much care till I 
 may chance to see it), but one cannot read it with- 
 out feeling its power. " Les Aveugles " is not 
 
160 MAETERLINCK 
 
 quite so consistent ; it is not a matter of ordinary 
 occurrence for a priest to lead a party of the 
 blind whom he is overseeing, into a wood, and then 
 suddenly die. But the piece is almost as effective 
 as the other. 
 
 These two pieces made their impression with 
 perfect sureness, even though conceived according 
 to the curious theories we have just noted. It is 
 true that the ideas which they conveyed were not 
 hard to grasp: the approach of death, the posi- 
 tion of humanity with a dead church. There may 
 have been ideas signified in " La Princesse Ma- 
 leine " and " Les Sept Princesses," but they could 
 not be so readily imagined. Yet M. Maeterlinck's 
 theory was, in a measure, justified by these two 
 failures, for whatever ideas these plays may have 
 meant to convey was lost in the extravagance of 
 the subject and the action, even though the dia- 
 logue was as simple as in the others. 
 
 Indeed it is now apparent that, in spite of 
 theory and in spite of failure, these two were the 
 typical pieces. The others presented, curiously, 
 it is true, but by a symbolism by no means un- 
 common, ideas that could readily be expressed in 
 other ways, and have often been so expressed. 
 " There is a stillness of death," says the Father 
 in " L'Intrus," and reminds us that it is all based 
 upon a common and everyday conception, and that 
 
MAETERLINCK 161 
 
 it represents no new truth and indeed no truth at 
 all. The ideas are common and have been often 
 expressed. It was M. Maeterlinck's desire to 
 present ideas that had not been expressed, that 
 could not be expressed by common means. Let us 
 imagine that he wished to convey something in 
 " La Princesse Maleine " and in " Les Sept Prin- 
 cesses " ; it is not necessary, nor at present useful, 
 to try to determine what it was, but the very 
 nature of the plays leads us to the belief that it 
 was not anything that could be conveyed by usual 
 dramatic methods. 
 
 With this idea in mind we may turn to " Pelleas 
 et Melisande." We shall find it in form at least, 
 like the plays just mentioned, something contrary 
 to the theories of dramatic art which the author 
 had put forward not long before. But as those 
 theories were founded upon a definite and intelli- 
 gible system (however we may disagree with it), 
 we may be sure that the opposition is but super- 
 ficial. " Pelleas et Melisande " is a play of love 
 and revenge, like various others; it has a suffi- 
 ciently definite action, like an ordinary play; it 
 has a dialogue which carries that action along, 
 as the common stage dialogue does. It would 
 seem that M. Maeterlinck had persuaded himself 
 that what appeared to be characteristic in 
 " L'Intrus " and " Les Aveugles " was not essen- 
 
162 MAETERLINCK 
 
 tial, that he could gain his effects in the manner 
 of a conventional play. He therefore has ordi- 
 nary subject, action, dialogue. If we would get 
 at his idea, then, we must neglect these convention- 
 alities and see what is left. 
 
 The story of a man whose wife falls in love with 
 his brother is not essential; if it were we should 
 suppose that M. Maeterlinck had something es- 
 sential in common with Stephen Phillips, which 
 would probably lead us into neglect of the chief 
 virtues of each. The strange region of romance 
 with its castles and caverns, its midnight meetings 
 and violent murderings, that too is not essen- 
 tial ; if it were, we might imagine that we had to do 
 with a man like M. Rostand or Hauptmann, though 
 this is pre-Raphaelite romance and theirs is ro- 
 mance of very different kind. But the story, the 
 setting of " Pelleas et Melisande " have too much 
 in common with other plays for us to think that 
 they are of prime importance with M. Maeterlinck. 
 They are the very things he pronounces to be 
 useless. If we neglect these matters, what is left? 
 
 Into a dark, and old, and melancholy world, a 
 world not utterly without gleams of sunshine and 
 a flower or two, but still constrained to its gloom 
 by its own people, and by the people of ages 
 long past, into such a world comes a spirit of 
 beauty from a faraway and unknown place. Here 
 
MAETERLINCK 163 
 
 in this gloomy world are such people as we know: 
 a powerful, active man, a child, an old man whose 
 wisdom has taught him only that the riddle of the 
 universe is unsolvable, and a young man. What- 
 ever the relations of these people may have been, 
 they are disturbed by the newcomer ; the new charm 
 and beauty bring delight but also discord. It is 
 the young man that especially understands this 
 new companion; the feeling of others is but ex- 
 ternal and superficial, his understanding is vital. 
 But conditions are such that they cannot be to 
 each other what they might, and both perish ; leav- 
 ing the world much as it was before, save that there 
 is a remembrance left of the exquisite and beauti- 
 ful one, who will some day take the place now made 
 vacant. 
 
 It is not very difficult to see what there is in that, 
 — all that need be said is that M. Maeterlinck does 
 not deem it necessary to make it very obvious. He 
 is content to give us his drama — there must be 
 some action, characters, dialogue — and to suggest 
 to us continually matters of wisdom and destiny 
 that cannot be put in straightforward words with- 
 out losing some of their truth; to present to us 
 the possibility of a life of the spirit which shall be 
 fuller and more beautiful than the life to which 
 we are accustomed. Is it then beautiful to love 
 your brother's wife? we may ask. M. Maeterlinck 
 
164 MAETERLINCK 
 
 presumably believes that to love any one is beau- 
 tiful. He presents spiritual things by eommon 
 means ; he wants to convey the idea of a love which 
 overrides the barriers of the intercourse to which 
 we are accustomed. The barrier of marriage seems 
 to be the one which commonly occurs to him, but in 
 itself that is but an accident, resulting perhaps 
 from lack of imagination, perhaps from other 
 causes. He wants to present to us an intercourse 
 of the spirit and by the very nature of the case 
 he must depict it in some physical form; in just 
 what form is not important. 
 
 But let us not rush upon the notion that we 
 must seize the mystical meaning, bear it forth and 
 feast upon it alone. The symbolism has its story 
 which is necessary to it. Why does the soul have 
 a body? We may not be sure, but we know that 
 since it has, we must admit it to consideration. M. 
 Maeterlinck's play is a play even without regard 
 to any symbolism at all. " As it was presented 
 yesterday," wrote somebody when Mrs. Patrick 
 Campbell gave it in London, " at the Royalty 
 Theatre, you felt the poetry of idea, the delicacy 
 of suggestion, the rarity and remoteness of it all. 
 What does it all mean? Anything beyond what 
 lies upon the surface? Perhaps, but at a first 
 hearing, at any rate, you are content to enjoy the 
 beauty, the romance of Maeterlinck's creation." 
 
MAETERLINCK 165 
 
 We may enjoy the externals thoroughly, even 
 though the essential continually haunts us with a 
 vague sense of heightened significance. 
 
 M. Maeterlinck's following plays may be readily 
 appreciated after " Pelleas et Melisande " ; we have 
 the same externality and the same suggestion of 
 spiritual life and conversation. In " Alladine et 
 Palamides " we have the same contrast between 
 gloomy castle and bright world, the same conflict 
 of lovers with the rigidity of common life. The 
 story is not precisely the same as in " Pelleas et 
 Melisande," but there is quite as much love, jeal- 
 ousy, and death. These we need not wish away, 
 as Keats says, but we should take them for what 
 they are worth, and fix our desire upon the spiri- 
 tual content, the super-expressive element to which 
 we shall respond only by calming ourselves of 
 outward thrills and emotions. " Aglavaine et 
 Selysette " is not very different at bottom, though 
 the mise en scene is not quite the same. 
 
 In " La Mort de Tintagiles," however, we have 
 something rather different in form and in motive. 
 It is a very simple and affecting little play, al- 
 though less theoretically consistent with M. Mae- 
 terlinck's dramaturgy than others. The child in 
 the grip of the dark and powerful queen, the 
 devoted sisters, their watch and their failure, 
 Ygraine's desperation and revolt, — these are 
 
166 MAETERLINCK 
 
 almost too typical, too symbolic. To present a 
 symbol is nothing new, even when done with con- 
 summate sensitiveness and mastery of feeling; it 
 is a language not unlike the metaphors of every 
 day. What M. Maeterlinck seemed to be feeling 
 for was the suggestion of much by means of little 
 or even nothing. And in spite of the beauty of 
 this little piece, I cannot feel in it the elusiveness 
 that I have thought it M. Maeterlinck's design to 
 convey. Of the other plays " Interieur " is not 
 unlike " L'Intrus " in its general character, and 
 ** Sceur Beatrice " is rather after the fashion of 
 some other things. I will confess honestly that I 
 have quite failed, however, to get at it, except so 
 far as the obvious exoteric proceedings are con- 
 cerned. But I believe we need not pause on these 
 plays, for there are others more important. 
 
 " Ariane et Barbe Bleue " is a significant little 
 piece because it is a sort of commentary. There 
 are castles and caverns as in the other plays, but 
 at the moment that M. Maeterlinck diverges from 
 the nursery tale we see at a flash much. When 
 Ariane looks at the keys which Bluebeard has 
 given her, and at once selects the forbidden key, 
 with the calm " That is the only one of value," 
 one can see at once, not allegory, not symbolism, 
 but that M. Maeterlinck throughout is assured 
 that in prospecting for truth it is useless to go 
 
MAETERLINCK 167 
 
 where people have gone before and found nothing. 
 He searches in those very places which are for- 
 bidden by convention, or authority, or fear of ridi- 
 cule, or hope of praise, just because the things 
 which were allowed to all have been explored by all, 
 to no great effect so far as his own interests were 
 concerned. That which is permitted is of no value ; 
 it will only distract one's attention. If one regards 
 the prohibitions of the world, one will go no fur- 
 ther than the world. So Ariane at once makes 
 for the forbidden door. Her nurse opens various 
 other doors that are not forbidden and finds heaps 
 of diamonds, pearls, rubies, and other trivial 
 things. But Ariane opens the forbidden door 
 and finds — all M. Maeterlinck's heroines. She 
 finds them in a dark cavern which she makes light 
 by letting in the sun. They are dazzled at first. 
 When they can see, they long to go to the woods, 
 the fields, the ocean. They look upon each other, 
 and when they see each other as they are they 
 think it very strange. Still, when they gather in 
 the hall of the jewels and Bluebeard is delivered to 
 them, they cannot make up their minds to break 
 their bonds. They care for him till he returns 
 to consciousness. Then Ariane says that she 
 must go away. Nor will she ever come back. One 
 after another: Melisande, Selysette, Ygraine, Bel- 
 langere, Alladine refuse to accompany her, and 
 
168 MAETERLINCK 
 
 she goes forth alone, leaving them in the hall of 
 jewels. 
 
 Somehow one cannot take all that seriously, but 
 in spite of the humour that cannot be denied (in- 
 deed it should surely be appreciated) there is some- 
 thing well worth having. Ex oris infantium; 
 children have not the wisdom of us elder folks, of 
 course. But we do not deny the frequent value of 
 their clearsightedness. I confess that M. Maeter- 
 linck's long-haired ladies had appeared to me not 
 wholly in keeping with the Treasure of the Hum- 
 ble, Wisdom and Destiny, the Buried Temple. 
 When I read " Ariane et Barbe Bleue " I began 
 to see a glimmering of light on the dark river. 
 
 When you begin on " Monna Vanna " you are 
 all at sea again. Here is no symbolism, certainly, 
 whatever there be elsewhere, and no realism either. 
 " Monna Vanna " is not conceived for the static 
 theatre, nor for the romantic theatre that we have 
 become accustomed to. It is a play of the Italian 
 Renaissance, and in externals might be by anybody. 
 If it were by anybody else, one could read it easily 
 enough ; but being by M. Maeterlinck, we feel that 
 there must be more than meets the eye. 
 
 The first accustomed figure in a world of ordi- 
 nary strangers is the old man Marco. He has the 
 air of calm wisdom with which we are familiar 
 from M. Maeterlinck's philosophical writings; he 
 
MAETERLINCK 169 
 
 is representative of eternal justice; if not of com- 
 mon sense, yet of that sense wherein we " see into 
 the life of things " and which greets us so often if 
 not in M. Maeterlinck's plays, at least in his phi- 
 losophy. We recognise it and respond to it. In 
 this play, however, his wisdom is not generally 
 recognised; it is indeed intensely irritating to 
 others on the stage. Marco brings to the captain 
 of beleaguered Pisa the offer of the Florentine be- 
 sieger; let his wife, Monna Vanna, go to the tent 
 of the conqueror in mantle and sandals only, and 
 the town shall be spared. Guido is outraged; 
 Marco imperturbable. " Why do you consider if 
 you have the right to deliver a whole people to 
 death in order to delay for a few hours an evil 
 which is inevitable; for when the city is taken 
 Vanna will fall into the power of the conqueror." 
 The Maeterlinckian wisdom is not understood, 
 save by Vanna herself, who immediately accepts 
 the offer. Guido is indignant and outraged and 
 we certainly must sympathise with him, but how 
 much less wise he is than the other. 
 
 When Monna Vanna comes to the tent of Prin- 
 zivalle she learns that they have met before; he 
 met her as a child and has loved her for twenty 
 years during all the rush and change of a captain 
 of condottieri. There is something noble in such 
 devotion and Vanna receives it at its true worth. 
 
170 MAETERLINCK 
 
 It is something different from everyday sentiment 
 and feelings. They return together to Pisa. 
 
 When they get there it is not remarkable that 
 Guido does not appreciate this noble love as his 
 wife has done. Guido is of the world and cannot 
 understand that people will not do as seems most 
 natural to him. Marco alone appreciates ; for the 
 rest no effort can make a really fine piece of Quix- 
 otic idealism seem for a moment possible. Those 
 who want to live at a higher level must be satisfied 
 with very few companions. 
 
 But I believe M. Maeterlinck succeeds in put- 
 ting us on his side. Real justice appears beautiful 
 in Marco ; real morality in Vanna ; real love in 
 Prinzivalle. Such people will understand each 
 other even if everybody else holds them worse than 
 fools or knaves. 
 
 The best commentator on M. Maeterlinck, or 
 at least the keenest, is M. Maeterlinck himself. 
 " Joyzelle " is full of explanation. For the mo- 
 ment we may neglect its dramatic character and 
 take it for criticism. Merlin has gained power 
 because he has found Arielle, he has " realised his 
 interior force, the forgotten power that slumbers 
 in every soul." This is the main thing; it is not 
 the common, everyday intellect, will, emotion that 
 will give us an apprehension of a reality that 
 stands all tests; it is something that we are con- 
 
MAETERLINCK 171 
 
 scious of in silence as in " The Treasure of the 
 Humble," in ecstasy as in " Pelleas et Melisande," 
 in wisdom and justice as in " Monna Vanna." To 
 those who do not know, Merlin is a bad magician, 
 just as Marco is a heartless philosopher; but he 
 has only " done a little sooner what they will do 
 later," for the age is on the dawn of a spiritual 
 enlightenment. The world waits for clear day ; 
 a few young men now dream dreams, a few old men 
 see visions, but the time is approaching when the 
 clouds shall lift that now hang within a little of 
 the horizon. In the play Merlin waits for his son 
 who is to attain by love; who will achieve more 
 than his father just because he is to win by love 
 what the other has gained by knowledge. Joy- 
 zelle is love, unalloyed, incorruptible, perfect. 
 She denies everything that contradicts her intui- 
 tion; like Ariane she perceives that the very for- 
 bidding of anything renders it necessary; like 
 Monna Vanna she scruples at no trial. Unlike 
 most people she cannot be influenced by some- 
 thing that has no relation to her. 
 
 This is the enforcement of M. Maeterlinck's 
 fundamental idea; the laws of life are not to be 
 deduced from the apparent circumstances of life; 
 they are to be appreciated by intuition; they are 
 therefore best known, not by words, by deeds, by 
 that which can be seen and heard, but in silence, 
 
172 MAETERLINCK 
 
 not actively but passively. Such communication 
 with the absolute gives one a certain kind of dis- 
 position of which the motive power is love and the 
 directing power wisdom, but of these the latter is 
 the servant of the former. 
 
 Such is an abstract statement of the ideas which 
 are at the bottom of M. Maeterlinck's work. 
 They are fundamental conceptions, however, and 
 on them is based a dramatic art which does not 
 seem to have varied very much from the original 
 statement. In " The Double Garden " he gives 
 us a more recent view in commenting on the drama 
 of the present. The action is still unimportant. 
 He does not still insist on the principle that there 
 should be no external action, but the particular 
 acts are not of importance. Pelleas may love his 
 brother's wife, Monna Vanna may go to the tent 
 of a victorious mercenary, Joyzelle may emulate 
 Judith, — certainly all the events have the same 
 character, perhaps but a Gallic accident, — but 
 in themselves the acts are entirely indifferent and 
 might be something else. The dialogue is still 
 simple. It does not continue the effort at realism 
 which people used to think so funny, but it still 
 aims to suggest rather than to state. It carries 
 on the action, but its true purpose is to dissemi- 
 nate communication of a super-essential character. 
 In fact the whole aim is to attune the modern mind 
 
MAETERLINCK 173 
 
 to an appreciation of the mystical, to get it to be 
 direct and to disregard circumstance. 
 
 A good deal in M. Maeterlinck's dramas has 
 been held to be symbolic. I cannot attach much 
 importance to the opinion. A symbol is not an 
 effective mode of expression. Unless a symbol in 
 long process of time, or otherwise, has attached 
 itself to our emotional life it is rarely of much im- 
 portance. The hearth, the flag, the cross, these 
 doubtless are symbols, and of immense power, and 
 further they are symbols having what is practi- 
 cally accidental connection with the thing they 
 symbolise. Hearths are sadly uncommon nowa- 
 days, flags present either a fancy or a convention 
 of a forgotten heraldry, and the cross is an im- 
 mense power even when its historic character is 
 forgotten. These symbols have power over us, 
 it is true, but chiefly because their extraordinary 
 and universal acceptance has associated them in- 
 extricably with our moral nature. The symbols 
 of men of letters rarely have this power unless 
 there be some real likeness at bottom, as in the 
 conception of a progress from this world to the 
 world to come. Where there is no such reality 
 the symbol is fanciful and has little lasting power. 
 The symbols of Hawthorne, the scarlet letter, 
 Zenobia's flower, have meaning only by the moral 
 vitality which they express. 
 
174 MAETERLINCK 
 
 A symbol, if it be nothing but a symbol, merely 
 serves to mystify, to obscure. Arthur Rimbaud' > 
 idea that A symbolised blue (or whatever colour 
 it was) and the other vowels, other colours, would 
 obscure matters if any one paid any attention to 
 it, because, although people do attach conceptions 
 of colour to sounds or letters, they differ very 
 greatly about it, so that symbolism of that sort 
 is not expressive, but obscuring. M. Maeterlinck 
 has no desire to be obscure: in his essays he tries 
 to state very simply and directly his ideas on a 
 very inexpressible matter. I remember no sym- 
 bols properly so called in his philosophical writ- 
 ings, though there are figures for the moment here 
 and there. 
 
 The figures and circumstances in his plays, with 
 a few exceptions, are not symbolic; they are ex- 
 amples, types, concrete cases, which are things 
 very different from symbols. They lwe reality, 
 they have a real marvellousness, to use his quota- 
 tion from Reaumer, instead of a marvellousness 
 that is changeful and imaginary. M. Maeter- 
 linck himself says that he has long ceased to find 
 in this world any marvel more interesting or more 
 beautiful than truth, or at least than man's effort 
 to know it. And so in his book " Les Abeilles," 
 although there is the constant idea in mind that 
 in the hive we have a form of life that may give 
 
MAETERLINCK 175 
 
 us some knowledge of human life, there is nowhere 
 any fancy as we may call it, but wherever an 
 analogy is perceived it is presented very simply 
 and with abundant explanation and limitation. 
 " Let us not hasten to draw from these facts con- 
 clusions as to the life of man." Yet there is 
 throughout that singularly interesting book the 
 constant feeling of an analogy that is rarely ex- 
 pressed. The bees act under the impulsion of a 
 power external to themselves, it would seem, to 
 which we cannot give a better name than the spirit 
 of the hive. They are aware of this spirit and 
 they obey it: but it does not appear that they 
 know it intellectually or obey it consciously. M. 
 Maeterlinck's representative figures are like the 
 bees, they are unconsciously under the domination 
 of the spirit of the race, of the destiny of human- 
 ity, of the wisdom of life. The feeling leads them 
 to strange acts, it is true, but it does lead them. 
 Maeterlinck presents them to us and that in a 
 form in which we may sympathise with them. 
 That is his work as a dramatist. It is not his 
 business to preach either by symbol or sermon. 
 He is content to present the essential things of 
 life as he recognises them. He presents them in 
 forms in which, as nearly as may be, those things 
 which cannot be spoken can be made evident. 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 Some years ago Mr. Courtney delivered three 
 lectures at the Royal Institution which he pub- 
 lished under the title, "The Idea of Tragedy." 
 So far as offering any explanation of the power 
 of tragedy in this world, he was not very success- 
 ful. The essence of tragedy, thought Mr. Court- 
 ney, lay in the conflict presented. But every one 
 knows that conflict in itself is not tragic : as com- 
 monly thought of, conflict may be tragic and may 
 not. Mr. Courtney spoke of the Attic tragedy 
 as presenting the conflict of the human will against 
 fate, of Shakespearean tragedy as presenting the 
 conflict of the human will with the laws that guide 
 the universe. When he got to modern times, how- 
 ever, his courage failed him : " The Second Mrs. 
 Tanqueray " was his ideal, and he saw very clearly 
 that there was no conflict there to make tragedy. 
 So he abandoned his idea and took a new one: in- 
 spired by Ibsen, he added that in modern tragedy 
 the main idea is failure to achieve one's mission. 
 The first of these ideas was by no means new. 
 It will be found in many places in aesthetic litera- 
 176 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 177 
 
 ture. Let me quote a statement of it not so com- 
 mon as some others : it has in it some very interest- 
 ing criticism of poetry: 
 
 " Say what meant the woes 
 By Tantalus entailed upon his race, 
 And the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes? 
 Fictions in form, but in their substance truth, 
 Tremendous truths! familiar to the men 
 Of long-past times, nor obsolete in ours. 
 Exchange the shepherd's frock of native grey 
 For robes with regal purple fringed; convert 
 The crook into a sceptre; give the pomp 
 Of circumstance, and here the tragic Muse 
 Shall find apt subjects for her highest art. 
 Amid the groves, under the shadowy hills, 
 The generations are prepared; the pangs, 
 The internal pangs are ready; the dread strife 
 Of poor humanity's afflicted will 
 Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny." 
 
 In that passage Wordsworth expresses his idea 
 in almost exactly the words of Mr. Courtney, and 
 says, too, that this conflict between will and fate, 
 the subject of Greek tragedy, is still a power ready 
 to the hand of the poet of the day. 
 
 The other notion of tragedy, too, may be found 
 in the poetry of our day, notably in that of 
 
178 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 Browning, whose tragedy, when he presents us 
 with tragedy, generally consists, not so much in 
 strife, as in failure to do that which was possible, 
 that which one's best nature demanded. It is of 
 this form of tragedy he writes in the " Lost 
 Leader," where Wordsworth served him as ex- 
 ample as he has served me with precept. 
 
 But all this seems to me a little superficial. 
 Granted that tragedy consists sometimes of a con- 
 flict, a strife, whether between the human will and 
 fate, or between humanity and natural law ; some- 
 times of a failure to fulfil one's mission, to be what 
 one might be, to " live one's own life," according 
 to the phrase of the day or the day before yester- 
 day, — it is still a question why these matters 
 should affect us as tragedy does affect us. That 
 is my interest: literature or art, tragedy or any 
 other element in it is vitally important to us, only 
 as it affects, touches, moves us. And any theory 
 of tragedy, to take any real part in our thinking 
 and feeling, must make clearer to us why we are 
 moved, or how, in order that we may appreciate, 
 in the tragedies that we see, the things that are 
 really strong and true. 
 
 It may first, however, be a matter of interest 
 to some unsophisticated souls who have no theory 
 on the subject, and have often enjoyed tragedies 
 keenly without any, to know why we should wish 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 179 
 
 to discuss the idea of tragedy in the drama of our 
 day. Why the idea of tragedy rather than the 
 idea of farce or of comedy or any other idea? 
 Or even why talk of such abstractions at all? 
 
 Let me explain why nobody should be without a 
 theory of tragedy. I may add that I have already 
 presented the matter to the public, to the accept- 
 ance, unfortunately, of no one that I ever heard 
 of, and to the utter rejection of one competent 
 authority on the drama. If I do not endeavour 
 to controvert the opinions of this latter learned 
 critic, it is not because I do not respect them. It 
 is because the spectacle of two academic theorists 
 disputing on the matter of tragedy — two budge 
 doctors of the Stoic fur disputing over the fit of 
 a buskin — would be inharmoniously humorous. 
 So I must bid her farewell (ave atque vale!), my 
 fair theorist with her " tragic blame " and so 
 forth. I shall never convert her — perhaps no one 
 else — but I shall enjoy tragedy all the same in my 
 own way, more, I hope, than it is possible to do in 
 hers. 
 
 We may well enough discuss the idea of tragedy 
 in the drama of our day, or of any other, because 
 by the pretty general consent of mankind, or that 
 part of it that cares for letters, tragedy is re- 
 garded as the highest and noblest literary form. 
 A great tragedy stands higher in the estimation 
 
180 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 of the world than a great lyric or a great novel. 
 Aristotle considered tragedy the crowning achieve- 
 ment of the human intellect, though the Greeks 
 in general gave the first place to Homer. The 
 English world considers Shakespeare the greatest 
 author of all times, though Keats thought that the 
 epic was the truly great form and Poe the lyric. 
 These are differences of opinion and the question 
 is not very important : some of the world's master- 
 pieces are tragedies and some are not. In the 
 drama, however, tragedy easily holds the most im- 
 portant place. We like to laugh at a farce, to be 
 thrilled at a melodrama, to be charmed at a 
 comedy, — and we may not like a tragedy as much 
 as these things. But generally people admit that 
 it is greater. It may be too great for us at some 
 given time, — there will be plenty of evenings when 
 we had rather go to some bright comedy or some 
 exciting melodrama, or even to the vaudeville or 
 the music hall, if it comes to that, as it often does, 
 — than to any tragedy ever written. But that is 
 just as we do not always want to read the very 
 best literature, do not always want to be hearing 
 classic music, do not always want to be looking 
 at the Sistine Madonna, say ; do not always want 
 to wear our best clothes and sit in the parlour. 
 We acknowledge pretty generally that tragedy is 
 the great thing, though we may not be always in 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 181 
 
 the mood for it. Few persons of taste can experi- 
 ence profoundly the emotion of a great tragedy 
 and hold that any other dramatic form is equally 
 great. 
 
 This theoretic view we might present on the 
 basis of current facts. That is, practically all 
 the great plays of which we have been speaking are 
 tragedies. We may not feel quite sure just what 
 is conveyed by the term tragedy, but we can gen- 
 erally tell one when we see it, if only by the simple 
 fact that the chief figure dies at the end, or at 
 least comes to an end in the particular world in 
 which we know him, which is much the same thing. 
 There is nothing essentially noble in death, I sup- 
 pose, nor is death on the stage always tragic, but 
 we do have this particular ending in " Cyrano " 
 and " L'Aiglon," in " Die versunkene Glocke " 
 and " Es lebe das Leben," in " The Second Mrs. 
 Tanqueray," in " Pelleas et Melisande," though 
 not in " Candida," presumably. 
 
 And if the greatest of our modern plays have 
 the same purpose as the greatest plays of the old 
 Athenian days, of the great Elizabethan time, of 
 the French classic period ; why, it is worth our while 
 to spend a time in studying out their essential 
 characteristic, if it be only that we may be sure 
 to gain from these plays the highest form of 
 pleasure, that we do not get too much interested 
 
182 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 in minor matters, but find out in them what is 
 best. 
 
 For it is well to remark that there is no especial 
 importance in the abstract definition of the term 
 <s tragedy " or of any other term in aesthetics. 
 That is in itself a matter of slight moment for us. 
 There is, it is true, intense pleasure in speculating 
 on aesthetic subjects for those who like it (as I do), 
 just as there is intense pleasure in speculating over 
 any other point in psychology, or any other 
 science. But that is something for the lover of 
 speculation, not for the lover of literature : it has, 
 as such, no more to do with the appreciation of 
 the drama than any other kind of speculation. 
 Many people have an intuitive delight at fine 
 things on the stage, which is far more intense than 
 the reasoned pleasure of a cut-and-dried critic. 
 It is not for the importance of the definition that 
 it is worth while to go over the subject. 
 
 No, it is for a more practical reason. It is 
 that we may have a notion of the true sources of 
 pleasure, or, rather, of the sources of the truest 
 pleasure. A dozen people will go to the same play 
 and enjoy a dozen different things. One had eyes 
 for the costumes, another for the stage-settings, 
 another was carried away by the sweet smile of the 
 actress, another got " a great moral lesson " (I 
 suppose there must be such people, or the matter 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 18S 
 
 would not figure in the advertisements), another 
 was delighted at the careful dramatic construc- 
 tion, another enjoyed the fine delivery of the poet's 
 lines (that couldn't have been in America, unless 
 perhaps it was the Chorus in " Henry V."), an- 
 other was immensely impressed somehow in a way 
 he could not explain. If we are one of these and 
 talk to some of the others, and find that we have 
 really missed something worth while, — or, to put 
 it more simply, if we find, on reading a criticism 
 the next morning, that there was more than met 
 our eye, — why, then we may feel as though 
 we had not got from the play all that was there. 
 And if we go again we shall perhaps aim to get 
 the true thrill, and look out especially for it. 
 Our friend who said of " Cyrano de Bergerac " 
 that " The most popular play of the final decade 
 of the century presents no problem whatever, and 
 avoids any criticism of life," was one who looked 
 in " Cyrano " for problems and criticism of life, 
 because he thought that a great play ought to 
 have those things. A problem, in the sense in 
 which people say that Pinero deals with problems, 
 " Cyrano " has not, and a good thing, too. And 
 as for a criticism of life, it certainly does not have 
 that in potted form. Those things it does not 
 have ; what it does have is better worth while than 
 either. But the point is that such a critic does 
 
184 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 not get from " Cyrano M even that which it has, 
 because he looks for something it had not, which, 
 to his mind, was the real thing. 
 
 Now with tragedy it is commonly supposed that 
 there is something especial about it which influ- 
 ences all men ; that human nature is such as to be 
 susceptible to this something, which appears in all 
 sorts of forms, always different, but always hav- 
 ing upon the souls of men the same moving effect. 
 Just what this something is, the critics have found 
 it hard to say. Just what is the moving effect 
 that it has, has been occasion of various explana- 
 tion. But it is the pretty general opinion that in 
 all tragedy there is a single something, and that 
 people are and have been affected by it in much 
 the same way. It is not necessary that this 
 should be the case. The Athenians were very dif- 
 ferent from us. It might be that there were 
 things about their tragedies that have no especial 
 effect upon us, and that we enjoy things to which 
 they paid small attention. With the Elizabethan 
 drama there is no doubt of the matter; Shake- 
 speare's audiences cared greatly for things which 
 are even distasteful to us, and we enjoy things 
 which they hardly noticed. But these things are 
 minor matters ; the real tragedy is the same to-day 
 that it was in Shakespeare's day, that it was in 
 the time of the Greeks. If, then, we see some 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 185 
 
 great and common quality in all great tragedy, 
 if we see some great and common quality in human 
 nature now and two thousand years ago, and if 
 the common quality of great tragedy seems to 
 bear some relation to the quality of human nature, 
 far more if it seem to be a natural cause of it, — 
 why, then we may well believe that the success of 
 a great tragedy, the existence in it of a lasting 
 appeal to mankind, comes not from accident nor 
 from art, but from the presence of the truly 
 tragic quality which moved the Athenians in the 
 days when JEschylus presented " Prometheus 
 Bound," which was felt when " Hamlet " was just 
 put on the stage, just as it is felt to-day in not 
 a few pieces which for minor reasons we cannot 
 compare with those masterpieces of the human 
 mind. 
 
 To talk over this question is to attune ourselves 
 to it. It is not a matter of definition which one 
 may read in a book and learn by heart. It is a 
 matter of looking into one thing or another and 
 trying to feel keenly what is there. It is doubt- 
 less the case that some people feel artistic beauty 
 keenly with no sense of why or wherefore, and it 
 is probably the case also that other people feel 
 artistic beauty, just as keenly but in a somewhat 
 different way, with more consciousness of causes 
 and reasons. Both kinds of enjoyment are good 
 
186 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 if both be intense and genuine. A person who 
 enjoys keenly, with no idea of why, has usually 
 more artistic appreciation than the person who 
 thinks much or reasons. But both may enjoy 
 more keenly by training, or, in this case, by talk- 
 ing or thinking over the matters in question and 
 discussing the characteristics that are of interest. 
 
 The first and simplest idea of tragedy is of a 
 play with an unhappy ending. That is not very 
 abstruse, but it is characteristic of all tragedies — 
 Greek, Elizabethan, French, modern — what more 
 would you have? 
 
 Why, this much more, a knowledge of why an 
 unhappy ending should be pleasing to us, why we 
 should think it delightful to see an unhappy end- 
 ing, — in fact, whether every unhappy ending is 
 pleasing to us, — why any one should call the writ- 
 ing of a play with an unhappy ending the top 
 achievement of the human intellect? In other 
 words, is not this unhappy ending something 
 necessary to tragedy, perhaps, but not the essen- 
 tial characteristic? In logic a quality always to 
 be found, and yet not essential, is called an insep- 
 arable accident. For instance, it is in England 
 an inseparable accident with a clergyman that he 
 wears a white tie, and yet this costume has no es- 
 sential connection with his holy calling. Perhaps 
 the true and essential tragic quality necessitates 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 187 
 
 an unhappy ending as far as the chief character 
 is concerned, and yet that unhappy ending is not 
 itself the essentially tragic thing. In fact this 
 is almost necessarily the case, for in a tragedy 
 we feel the tragic quality long before the end, and 
 therefore it cannot be the end only that has the 
 tragic quality. 
 
 And, even if it could rationally be the case, the 
 unhappiness of the end would hardly be a sufficient 
 explanation, for we should still want to know why 
 the end seemed to us unhappy. A tragic ending 
 is often the death of the hero. But death is not 
 necessarily unhappy — in a large way, that is. To 
 those immediately concerned it is always a cause 
 of unhappiness, it is true. But death is a neces- 
 sity, and we would not, even if we could, avoid it ; 
 even M. MetchnikofF agrees to that. . It is the 
 natural, the appropriate end of our life here. It 
 is often not tragic at all, but triumphant, glo- 
 rious. Why is such and such a death unhappy? 
 The word merely begs the question and puts us on 
 a new inquiry no easier than the old. 
 
 So those who like to speculate on such matters 
 have thought of other reasons, and a good many 
 other definitions and descriptions of the idea of 
 tragedy have been put forward. I shall not deal 
 with them for many reasons, one of which is that 
 it would take a whole book instead of the tail-end 
 
188 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 of one, and another, that it is more amusing to 
 hear a man talk of what he thinks himself, than of 
 what other people think. 
 
 It is the general opinion — and a very natural 
 one — that, in trying to determine the nature of 
 the tragic quality, we must find something which 
 does not belong to the drama alone. We use the 
 word " tragic " far too widely to confine ourselves 
 to anything to be found onry in dramatic form. 
 If it were for no other reason than that the drama 
 represents life, we might say that whatever is 
 effective in a large way in the drama will be an 
 element effective in life as well. But then, also, 
 we use the word, half figuratively perhaps, but 
 still broadly. In all forms of literature we have 
 what we may call tragedy, and in life as well. 
 Indeed, if we were going into a general theoretical 
 consideration, we ought to go far beyond the 
 narrow limits of the drama; all literature, all art 
 we ought to examine, history, lif e we ought to con- 
 sider to find the essential of the tragic quality. 
 
 Looking on the matter, without confining our- 
 selves necessarily to literature, tragedy seems to 
 depend largely upon a sense on our part of in- 
 soluble mystery or strangeness, in some action or 
 bit of life that we are viewing. Such a sense 
 everybody must have very often had in viewing 
 life, art, literature. Let us consider a case or 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 189 
 
 two ; take the example of Heinrich the Bell-caster, 
 he whose love of art led him away from his home 
 to a mountain-top; led him to desert his wife for 
 a mountain-spirit; led him finally to that point 
 where his wife sought refuge beneath the waters 
 of the mountain tarn, while his mountain-spirit 
 vanished away to the home of the Nickelmann. 
 Here would be a tragedy entirely aside from Hein- 
 rich's dying. It would be a tragedy surely, even 
 if he were left alive, because we can see how life 
 would continue with him. And why a tragedy? 
 Can we analyse it? For one thing, we may note 
 that we have here a pretty general motive, the 
 contest between the life of art and the everyday 
 life of home, the contest that finds expression now- 
 adays in all sorts of forms, notably in d'Annun- 
 zio's " Giaconda " and Sudermann's " Heimat," 
 or in the figure of Marchbanks in " Candida.'* 
 The thing is this: here is Art, the pursuit of the 
 Beautiful, the care-charmer, the teacher, the great 
 amuser of mankind, the recuperator of the weary 
 by ever-changing delight — art is all that, is it 
 not? a very necessary factor in life, I am sure. 
 And yet how often does this very necessary factor 
 jar and collide with and crush that other very 
 necessary factor, namely, the simple, plain, good 
 life of the home, of morality, of every day. And 
 vice versa. Is there not an instinctive contrast 
 
190 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 between the idea of the artist and the idea of the 
 father, the citizen, the respectable everyday man? 
 There certainly is, although we may get over it by 
 thinking we ought to, and that there should be 
 any such contrast, that there should be a conflict, 
 as it were, between these two important elements 
 in life, that they should seem inharmonious, is 
 surely, to me at least, a very strange thing, a 
 matter not yet solved and made plain to us. Hence 
 pictures of this strife, if they be broad and gen- 
 eral, give us the tragic element. If they be well 
 done they impress us powerfully, because they 
 thrust us into a region where we are afraid, where 
 we cannot reckon upon results, where we cannot 
 answer the pressing questions which come, but 
 have simply to acknowledge that we do not know. 
 Not that everything that we do not understand 
 is tragic. There are many things that we do not 
 understand at all, although we always behave as 
 though we did, namely, those things that are a 
 great joy to us. The nature of love, for instance, 
 is very imperfectly understood by us, yet happy 
 love is not tragic, because, though we do not pene- 
 trate to its depths, it seems all right and precisely 
 what it should be. It does not seem to us a mys- 
 tery, it seems very natural and necessary, and, in- 
 deed, when we get used to it, an everyday affair. 
 The normal course of love is like the normal course 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 191 
 
 of many other things : the question of comprehen- 
 sion, of understanding, simply never comes up in 
 regard to them, we do not try to understand them, 
 we see that they work to the advantage of man- 
 kind, that they are in harmony with life as we look 
 at it, that we could not make them better in any 
 detail, and so, whether we grasp them intellectu- 
 ally or not, we do not trouble ourselves about 
 them. And yet sometimes even happy love, since 
 we have spoken of it, has its tragic element. I 
 spoke a few pages back of Mr. Sothern's presenta- 
 tion of " Romeo and Juliet." One of the most 
 beautiful moments in the play, and yet the most 
 pitiful and the most tragic, was that scene at the 
 Capulet feast, where these two who loved at first 
 sight first are conscious that they love. It is not 
 that we know what is about to happen to them 
 that gives us a thrill. No, it is simply the strange 
 sight of these two, their souls in their eyes, mov- 
 ing mechanically in the world of masquers, Juliet 
 in the dance, Romeo by the wall, with life to them 
 a totally different thing from what it was a mo- 
 ment before. Certainly a very strange concep- 
 tion, and well calculated to stagger any one with- 
 out great indifference or great confidence in the 
 order of Nature and in her always proceeding in 
 the very best way. Still, as a rule, such situations 
 are not conceived of as tragic. 
 
192 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 Another great mass of circumstances is not 
 tragic, even though it presents us with most note- 
 worthy inconsistencies or incongruities. This is 
 where the circumstances are trivial or superficial. 
 Matters of this sort are not tragic, but comic. 
 The foundation of the Ludicrous is often said to 
 be the incongruous, and the incongruous is that 
 which for the moment is inconsistent. And the 
 inconsistent is something that we cannot for the 
 moment harmonise in our thoughts or render com- 
 prehensible. The ludicrous often, indeed always, 
 depends upon the point of view. Thus a dignified 
 gentleman walking on the street steps on the ice 
 or upon a piece of orange-peel and falls down. It 
 is very funny to some people, but the man himself 
 rarely perceives the humour of it. It is incon- 
 gruous, the contrast between his dignity and his 
 lack of dignity. For the moment the mind of the 
 spectator refuses to correlate the ideas. But in 
 a minute the situation becomes perfectly natural; 
 pitiable, but not tragic. Experience steps in and 
 tells us that there is nothing incongrous or incon- 
 sistent. And the matter ceases to be ludicrous. 
 If you come home and tell some one that you saw 
 a dignified man fall down upon the ice, you can- 
 not, probably, make it seem funny to anybody else 
 because, although it is incongruous to them as it 
 was to you, so far as the minor aspects of the 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 193 
 
 matter are concerned, the mind is not taken by 
 surprise, and regards the matter as one of the 
 necessary and normal results of winter. 
 
 Other cases, however, present more difficulty in 
 discrimination. There are not a few cases where 
 the same thing may seem tragic or humorous. 
 The classic example, as we may say, is that of 
 Mr. Shandy and My Uncle Toby. Here were two 
 brothers who loved each other devotedly, and yet 
 were totally unable to understand each other. As 
 Sterne handles the situation, fixing attention on 
 minor points, veiling any deeper feelings that 
 might have been aroused, it is very purely hu- 
 morous. But after all, it is not a humorous sit- 
 uation if dealt with seriously. Two beings bound 
 together by close ties, loving each other but never 
 able to understand each other, something like that 
 is the situation on which Ibsen built " The Doll's 
 House." The same thing may often be comic and 
 tragic to different people. The nose of Cyrano 
 de Bergerac was intensely humorous to many 
 about him: it was so incongruous that it was 
 enough to make anybody laugh who could keep 
 out of the way of the owner. But to Cyrano him- 
 self it was far from humorous, and it shows the 
 power of the dramatist that he makes us forget 
 the ridiculous possibilities, so that the figure of 
 Cyrano is really a noble one. 
 
194 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 Incongruity is merely inconsistency, merely 
 that we cannot comprehend two things in one 
 thought. Incomprehensibleness is at the bottom 
 of tragedy. We must have something great, 
 something of importance, and then, if the incon- 
 gruity, the inconsistency, be brought out strongly 
 and poignantly, the thing is done. 
 
 One reason for disagreement as to tragic qual- 
 ity is that it often happens that a thing is im- 
 portant to one set of people, but not to another. 
 Then there will be difference of opinion. For ex- 
 ample, the so-called problem-plays of Mr. Pinero. 
 These plays are not great tragedies because they 
 (and their problems) do not make a very wide 
 appeal. For example, " Iris " : the motive of 
 " Iris " is that of the weak woman who wants to be 
 good but wants more to have an easy, delightful, 
 luxurious, lazy time. That motive may be capable 
 of tragic force. Such women may have much 
 charm and beauty of character, so that in easy 
 circumstances they add to the true joy of the 
 world. Iris was such a one. She was even more: 
 she was — in ways that did not trouble her — good 
 and generous. Now, why should such good char- 
 acteristics all be overbalanced by this one evil? 
 Further, Iris was practically betrayed by her own 
 generosity. Why should one's doing a good thing 
 lead one inexorably to the doing such wrong 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 195 
 
 things that one's life is wrecked and other people's 
 too? There seems to be, then, the possibility of 
 tragedy there, because that is one of the mysteries 
 of the human heart and of divine law. But even 
 were the motive more strongly worked out, the 
 tragedy would not be a great one because, in the 
 form in which it comes to us, it is not of wide 
 application. I suppose I do not know a single 
 Iris myself, and I question whether the average 
 man does. I may be able to imagine them readily, 
 I may be able to judge that there are not a few 
 of them in certain spheres of life. But the ques- 
 tion does not come near enough home to me, or 
 to most people, for us to call it really tragic. So 
 of Mrs. Tanqueray, Mrs. Ebbsmith, and the rest 
 of Mr. Pinero's problematic ladies. They are im- 
 mensely interesting to themselves and their friends, 
 no doubt, but only by great art could they be 
 made so vivid to the world at large as to become 
 great figures. Alexandre Dumas achieved the 
 difficult feat when he created Marguerite Gau- 
 tier, La Dame aux Camelias, commonly called by 
 us Camille. When I saw the play I was a boy 
 in college; it is a season when such motives seem 
 more real than in after years. I remember per- 
 fectly well standing up in the back of the theatre 
 with the tears rolling down my cheeks. In fact 
 I remember myself much better than I remember 
 
196 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 Marguerite Gautier, though I occasionally stimu- 
 late my memory by reading the play over. The 
 fact is that she does not have a universal appeal. 
 
 The more important the case, the wider the 
 appeal, the more certain of success, — other things 
 being equal, — is the tragedy. It is in this way 
 that I explain the success of M. Rostand. The 
 motive of all his plays is the same. It is not very 
 clearly presented. It is usually conceived in a 
 spirit that impresses the audience as pessimistic, 
 but it is always there and always the same and 
 always the strongest motive in the world. It is 
 that of the failure of the idealist to attain the 
 height of his aspiration. 
 
 In the " Princesse Lointaine " the imaginative 
 Rudel loves the ideal princess of Tripoli. He dies 
 before attaining his ideal, but also before he knows 
 what his ideal was worth, save as an ideal. In 
 " Cyrano de Bergerac " we have a man who has, 
 and who knows that he has, — and we know it too, 
 — tremendous powers, but who is never able to 
 realise them, who is never able to appear to the 
 world as he knows he is. There is that fatal im- 
 pediment. Purely typical that is, but every one 
 has something of the sort, for it is inherent in 
 human nature that the flesh should hold back the 
 spirit. In his case the spirit of the man is so 
 fine, he is so brilliant, so vigorous, so courageous, 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 197 
 
 that he carries it all off with a vitality that make* 
 us almost forget the tragedy. But it is there all 
 the same. In " L'Aiglon " we have the idealist 
 once more, the man who has the greatest ideal of 
 his time, the finest, noblest, most splendid possi- 
 bility, at least, waiting for him, calling insistently, 
 beckoning, but he cannot ever reach it, chiefly be- 
 cause he cannot even understand what it is. To 
 the Due de Reichstadt Napoleon was a man of 
 victories and processions and uniforms. He real- 
 ises as the play goes on that he cannot even in 
 thought rise to the ideal before him, much less 
 realise it in fact. He is noble because he even 
 then clings to his ideal because it is an ideal. A 
 tragic figure he is on the field of Wagram, re- 
 lapsing into the pathetic when in the last act he 
 becomes, as one might say, more of a child than 
 ever. And this constant defeat of the idealist 
 in this world I take to be a matter not thoroughly 
 understood by us. It is true that the poets offer 
 their explanations, Tennyson with his 
 
 " O me ! for why is all around us here 
 As if some lesser god had made the world, 
 But had not force to shape it as he would, 
 Till the High God behold it from beyond, 
 And enter it and make it beautiful ! " 
 
 and Browning with his constant optimism: 
 
198 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 " Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
 Or what's a heaven for ? " 
 
 But I cannot say that the explanations make it 
 very clear to me. Still it is the incomprehensible 
 nature of the thing that makes it striking. It 
 masters us ; if we understood it, we should master 
 it. If we understood it thoroughly, and saw that 
 it was just as we should imagine it, or as we 
 might ourselves have arranged it, or even as we 
 acknowledge just, then we should not think it any- 
 thing very much out of the common run. It 
 would make us cynical, perhaps, or hopeless, but 
 it would not be the medicina mentis that trag- 
 edy is. 
 
 Such — at any rate let me assume it, for the 
 time, in spite of conflicts, missions, tragic blames, 
 and anything else — such is tragedy always, a pur- 
 suing of some of the strange and unexplainable 
 courses of life. The finer and nobler the actors, 
 the greater and more general the evil that they 
 do not escape, the greater the tragedy. We see 
 it in the Greek drama, and we see it in the Eliza- 
 bethan. In the " Prometheus " we have the friend 
 of man, and therefore one who must endure a life 
 of torture, as so many friends of man have endured 
 since his day. In " Hamlet " we have the man in 
 whom the godlike reason was stronger than in any 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 199 
 
 other man of his time, and who therefore fell a vic- 
 tim to an unscrupulous politician. And the same 
 thing is in modern plays, as we have seen, whether 
 presented in the beautiful and glittering forms of 
 romance or in the more immediate forms of every- 
 day life. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the element is 
 there, — may be found, I believe, in every great 
 tragedy in the drama, literature, in life. But 
 even if so the real question is : Is it this that thrills 
 and holds us, when we read the drama or see the 
 play? Is it this that impresses us with what we 
 call the Tragic ? 
 
 To give a sort of answer to this question I must 
 be a little pedantic. We all know the position of 
 Aristotle in the intellectual world, how he domi- 
 nated the thought of man for centuries and is to- 
 day as wise as ever, though not so dictatorial. He 
 thought about almost everything in his day and he 
 did not disdain the drama. He viewed the Athe- 
 nian drama of his time just as he viewed the 
 science, the oratory, the politics, the constitutional 
 principles, and everything else. He analysed its 
 power and stated it in words that have given the 
 theorists great opportunities. 
 
 " Tragedy," he says, " is an imitation of an 
 action that is serious, complete, and of a certain 
 magnitude; in language embellished with every 
 
200 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being 
 found in separate parts of the play; in the form 
 of action not of narrative, through pity and awe 
 effecting the proper Katharsis of these emotions." 
 
 This word Katharsis, it seems generally agreed, 
 was a medical term, meaning much the same thing 
 as our word purgative. Tragedy is a purge to the 
 moral nature, it would appear, is the idea of Aris- 
 totle. It is an influence upon our moral nature, 
 a purifying, strengthening, reviving influence. It 
 does away with certain evils that annoy our daily 
 life. Its very bitterness — like the purge in " Pil- 
 grim's Progress " — has this effect upon us, and 
 we listen to a tragedy with the same acrid sense of 
 tonic improvement that we feel when we are get- 
 ting over a cold, say, or an illness. That seems 
 to be Aristotle's view : I take it to be pretty sound. 
 It shows that two thousands years ago he noticed 
 what we may notice to-day. 
 
 Certain things in human life have this effect 
 upon us, though they commonly work in rather 
 a drawn-out way, and in art, in so far as art 
 represents life. In tragedy we appreciate Man 
 as Pope thought of him, that much-neglected poet 
 who said so many things so much better than any 
 one else could ever say them. Pope saw the fact, 
 though he had not the artistic feeling to put it in 
 any but an intellectual way: 
 
OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 201 
 
 " Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, 
 A being darkly wise and rudely great; 
 With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, 
 With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, 
 He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest, 
 In doubt to deem himself a god or beast, 
 In doubt his mind or body to prefer, 
 Born but to die, and reasoning but to err ; 
 Alike in ignorance, his reason such, 
 Whether he thinks too little or too much; 
 Chaos of thought and passion all confused, 
 Still by himself abused and disabused ; 
 Created half to rise and half to fall, 
 Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all. 
 Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, 
 The glory, jest, and riddle of the world 1 " 
 
 The glory to the eye of faith, but the jest to 
 the comedian and the riddle to those in whom the 
 spirit is tuned to the note of tragedy. 
 
 Or in other words, when we have put before us 
 one of those poignant scenes, or situations, or mo- 
 ments, or figures of human life, where good and 
 evil, strength and weakness are so inextricably 
 mixed, where all that might, that should turn out 
 so well, does turn out so ill, then we cannot com- 
 prehend intellectually, do not try to, we can sim- 
 ply receive the impression emotionally or spiritu- 
 
202 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 
 
 ally, we cannot but be seized by a mixture of pity 
 and awe, as Aristotle says. And that feeling is 
 our feeling for the Tragic. 
 
 It leaves us calmed and quieted. Things seem 
 a little different. Everyday matters at which we 
 were so hot, for the moment are small and petty. 
 We feel in a confused way that life is something 
 fine, big, and noble, and that we ourselves are not 
 the only people of importance. It does not last, 
 of course; we shall again be angered, ridiculous, 
 blunderers, but for the time we are satisfied. We 
 are willing to continue our lives in their silly indi- 
 viduality, feeling that we may confidently trust 
 in a power whose detailed purposes have not been 
 explained to us. 
 
 Such in its result is the general effect of the 
 greatest art. It is of great art that that figure 
 of the beautiful youth that Emerson mentions is 
 typical, Phosphorus, whose aspect is such that all 
 persons who look upon it become silent. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 PERFORMANCE OR PUBLICATION 
 
 In the following lists are the dates of the first 
 performance or publication of the plays of our 
 dramatists. They do not pretend to do more than 
 to show £he place of each play in the author's 
 career, and to give a general idea of his activity 
 and of public interest in his work. Many matters 
 of curious interest are therefore omitted. This 
 is especially the case with Bernard Shaw and 
 M. Maeterlinck, whose plays have been performed 
 at all sorts of times and places, but not, as a rule, 
 immediately on writing. Performances in coun- 
 tries or languages other than the author's have 
 been noted, but without idea of completeness, to 
 give an idea of the way the author has come before 
 the public. The facts come wherever possible 
 from the published texts of the authors, but in 
 other cases from periodicals, newspapers, dramatic 
 lists, etc. 
 
 203 
 
EDMOND ROSTAND 
 
 (Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc- 
 tion was Paris) 
 
 1894. May 21. Theatre Francais. Les Ro- 
 manesques : Comedie en trois actes en vers. 
 Given at the Empire Theatre, New York, 
 February 24, 1901, by the American 
 Academy of Dramatic Arts, under the 
 name of " The Fantastics." It has also 
 been given of late in German at the Irving 
 Place Theatre. 
 
 1895. April 5. Theatre de la Renaissance. La 
 Princesse Lointaine: Piece en quatre 
 actes en vers. The part of Melissande 
 was created by Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. 
 
 1897. April 14. Theatre de la Renaissance. 
 La Samaritaine: Evangile en trois ta- 
 bleaux. The part of Photine by Mme. 
 Bernhardt. The piece is said to have been 
 very successful, and, I understand, has 
 several times been revived during Holy 
 Week. 
 
 1897. December 28. Theatre de la Porte Saint- 
 Martin. Cyrano de Bergerac: Comedie 
 Heroique en cinq actes en vers. The most 
 205 
 
206 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 1900. 
 
 brilliant theatrical success of the dec- 
 ade. In the United States it was given 
 by Mr. Richard Mansfield at the Garden 
 Theatre, New York, October 3, 1898. In 
 London, at Wyndham's Theatre, with Mr. 
 Wyndham as Cyrano, April 19, 1900, it 
 did not seem to hit the public taste. It 
 has been given, in a translation by Ludwig 
 Fulda, in many cities of Germany and 
 Austria, and in New York also. Given in 
 French at the Garden Theatre, New York, 
 December 10, 1900, by Mme. Bernhardt 
 and M. Coquelin. 
 
 March 15. Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. 
 L'Aiglon: Drame en six actes en vers. 
 First given in the United States at the 
 Academy of Music, Baltimore, October 15, 
 1900. At Her Majesty's Theatre, Lon- 
 don, June 1, 1901. In French at the 
 Garden Theatre, New York, November £6, 
 1900, by Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelin. 
 
GERHARDT HAUPTMANN 
 
 (Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc- 
 tion was Berlin) 
 
 1889. October 20. Lessing-Theater, under the 
 auspices of the society Die freie Biihne. 
 Voe Sonnenaufgang : Soziales Drama. 
 The production of this play was an im- 
 mensely exciting event, being regarded as 
 a battle between the new school and the 
 old. Like most of the plays following, it 
 has been given at the Irving Place Theatre, 
 New York. 
 
 1890. June 1. Lessing-Theater. Das Friedens- 
 fest: Ein Familienkatastrophe. This play 
 had already appeared in the newspaper 
 Die freie Biihne. 
 
 1891. January 11. Deutsches Theater. Ein- 
 same Menschen : Drama. This had been 
 presented shortly before by the Freie 
 Biihne. It has been given in German in 
 New York, by Mr. Conried, of course, and 
 in English as " Lonely Lives " at the Em- 
 pire Theatre December 11, 1902, by the 
 American Academy of Dramatic Arts. 
 
 207 
 
208 APPENDIX 
 
 1892. January 16. Deutsches Theater. Col- 
 lege Crampton: Komodie in funf akten. 
 
 1893. February 26. Die freie Biihne. Die 
 Weber: Schauspiel aus den vierziger 
 Jahren. The play was to have been given 
 at the Deutsches Theater, but was forbid- 
 den, and so not presented there till Septem- 
 ber 25, 1894. It has been given in Paris 
 as " Les Tisserands " at M. Antoine's 
 Theatre Libre. 
 
 1893. September 21. Deutsches Theater. Das 
 Biberpelz : Eine Diebskomodie. 
 
 1893. November 14. Konigliches Schauspiel- 
 haus. Hanneles Himmelfahrt; Traum- 
 dichtung in zwei Theilen. There were diffi- 
 culties in regard to the presentation of this 
 play also. It appeared the next year at 
 the Theatre Libre, Paris, and also at the 
 Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York. 
 
 1896. January 4. Deutsches Theater. Florian 
 Geyer. As first presented this play was a 
 failure, to the great chagrin of the author, 
 who had put his best work into it. He 
 revised it subsequently, and it was given 
 at the Lessing-Theater, October 22, 1904, 
 but I have not been able to get a satisfac- 
 tory account of the nature of the revision 
 or of its success. 
 
 1896. December 2. Deutsches Theater. Die 
 versunkene Glocke. This play has been 
 Hauptmann's great public success; it at 
 
APPENDIX 209 
 
 once stirred up criticism and controversy 
 in Germany, and became more widely 
 known than anything he had yet done. It 
 was given to crowded houses by Frau 
 Agnes Sorma at the Irving Place Theatre, 
 New York, April 29, 1897, and afterward. 
 It did not appear in English, however, 
 until December 81, 1899, at the Hollis 
 Street Theatre, Boston, where it was pre- 
 sented by Mr. Sothern. 
 
 1898. November 5. Deutsches Theater. Fuhr- 
 mann Henschel: Schauspiel in funf 
 Akten. 
 
 1900. February 3. Deutsches Theater. Schluck 
 und Jatj : Spiel zu Scherz und Schimpf . 
 
 1900. December 21. Deutsches Theater. Michael 
 Kramer. 
 
 1901. November 27. Deutsches Theater. Der 
 rote Hahn : Tragikomodie in vier Akten. 
 
 1902. November 29. Hof Burgtheater, Wien. 
 Der arme Heinrich : Eine deutsche Sage. 
 
 1903. October 31. Deutsches Theater. Rose 
 Bernd : Schauspiel in f iinf Auf zugen. 
 
HERMANN SUDERMANN 
 
 (Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc- 
 tion was Berlin) 
 
 1889. November 27. Lessing-Theater. Die 
 Ehre: Schauspiel in vier Akten. Often 
 given in German. In English ( " Honour " ) 
 at the Criterion Theatre, New York, Jan- 
 uary 26, 1905, by the American Academy 
 of Dramatic Art. 
 
 1891. November 5. Lessing-Theater. Sodom's 
 Ende: Drama in fiinf Akten. This play 
 also has been widely given in German. The 
 first performance that I have noted in 
 English is " The Man and His Picture," 
 Great Queen Street, London, March 8, 
 1903. 
 
 1893. January 7. Lessing-Theater. Heimat: 
 Schauspiel in vier Akten. This is the most 
 successful play that has been written of 
 late. It holds the stage better than any- 
 thing even of Rostand or Hauptmann. 
 The character of Magda has attracted 
 the greatest actresses of the day — Mme. 
 Bernhardt, Signora Duse, Mrs. Patrick 
 Campbell, Mrs. Fiske, Mme. Mojeska, as 
 well as the chief German actresses. It has 
 210 
 
APPENDIX 211 
 
 been given almost everywhere, often under 
 the name of " Magda." 
 
 1894. October 6. Lessing-Theater. Die Schmet- 
 terlingsscheacht. Eine Komodie in vier 
 Akten. 
 
 1895. November 11. Hof Burgtheater, Wien. 
 Das Glttck im Winkel : Schauspiel in drei 
 Akten. 
 
 IftQfi Oth <* i Lessing-Theater, Berlin; ) 
 | Hof Burgtheater, Wien. j 
 Morituri: Drei Einakter; Teja; Fritz- 
 chen ; Das Ewig Mannijche. 
 
 1898. January 15. Deutsches Theater. Jo- 
 hannes: Tragodie in fiinf Akten und 
 einem Vorspiel. 
 
 1899. January 21. Deutsches Theater. Die 
 drei Reihefeder: Ein dramatisches Ge- 
 dicht in fiinf Akten. 
 
 1900. October 5. Deutsches Theater. Johannes- 
 feuer. Given in EngHsh as " St. John's 
 Fire " at the Empire Theatre, New York, 
 by the American Academy of Dramatic 
 Arts, December 1, 1904. 
 
 1902. February 10. Deutsches Theater. Es 
 lebe das Leben: Drama in fiinf Akten. 
 Given at the Garden Theatre, New York, 
 October 23, 1902. At the New Theatre, 
 London, June 24, 1903. 
 
 1903. October 3. Lessing-Theater. Der 
 Sturmgeselee Sokrates: Komodie in 
 vier Akten. 
 
ARTHUR WING PINERO 
 
 (Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc- 
 tion was London) 
 
 1877. October 6. Globe Theatre. Two Hun- 
 dred a Year : A Comedietta in One Act. 
 
 1879. September 20. Lyceum Theatre. Daisy's 
 Escape. 
 
 1880. June 5. Folly Theatre. Hester's Mys- 
 tery: A Comedietta in One Act. 
 
 1880. September 18. Lyceum Theatre. By- 
 gones : A Comedy in One Act. 
 
 1880. November 5. Theatre Royal, Manchester. 
 The Money Spinner: A Drama in Two 
 Acts. This was the first play of Mr. 
 Pinero's to attract much attention. The 
 production at Manchester was praised, 
 and the play was brought to London, where 
 it was given, January 8, 1881, by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Kendal, Mr. John Hare, and others. 
 It was considered worthy of note at the 
 time by an accomplished critic that " Mr 
 Pinero invents his own plots and writes his 
 own dialogue," a remark very significant 
 as to the English stage in 1880, a year 
 212 
 
APPENDIX 213 
 
 in which "Forbidden Fruit" and "The 
 Guv'nor " were the popular successes. 
 1881. October 27. Folly Theatre. Imprudence. 
 
 1881. December 29. St. James Theatre. The 
 Squire : Given the next year, October 10, 
 at Daly's, New York. 
 
 1882. March 24. Court Theatre. The Rector: 
 A Play in Four Acts. 
 
 1882. October 31. Toole's Theatre. Boys and 
 Girls. Mr. Pinero was still on the stage 
 and took a part in this play. 
 
 1883. July 30. Prince of Wales' Theatre, Liver- 
 pool. The Rocket: A Comedy in Three 
 Acts. Given December 10, 1883, at the 
 Gaiety Theatre, London. 
 
 1883. November 24. Haymarket Theatre. Lords 
 and Commons : A Comedy in Four Acts. 
 
 1884. January 12. Globe Theatre. Low 
 Water: A Comedy in Three Acts. 
 
 1884. Written at this time, but not presented. 
 The Weaker Sex. It was to have been 
 given at the Court Theatre, but was sup- 
 planted by the following more noteworthy 
 piece. 
 
 1885. March 21. Court Theatre. The Magis- 
 trate: A Farce in Three Acts. This is 
 a capital piece, though how good one can 
 hardly appreciate without comparing it 
 with some adaptations from the French of 
 the same time. It was remarkably suc- 
 cessful (ran for more than a year), so 
 
214 APPENDIX 
 
 that it determined the general line of the 
 Court Theatre for some time. It was 
 given at Daly's Theatre, New York, and 
 has since been presented all over Europe 
 and the English colonies. 
 1886. March 27. Court Theatre. The School- 
 mistress : A Farce in Three Acts. 
 
 1886. October 23. Saint James' Theatre. The 
 Hobby Horse : A Comedy in Four Acts. 
 
 1887. January 27. Court Theatre. Dandy 
 Dick: A Farce in Three Acts. Given at 
 Daly's Theatre, New York, October 5, of 
 the same year. 
 
 1888. March 21. Terry's Theatre. Sweet 
 Lavender. With the exception of " The 
 Magistrate," this is the most popular of 
 Mr. Pinero's earlier plays. Indeed, Mr. 
 Winter holds it to be " a thousand times 
 better than all his noxious analyses of 
 social sores." It was given at Daly's 
 Theatre, November 12, 1888, and has been 
 seen of late in New York given by Mr. 
 Terry, for whom it was originally written. 
 
 1888. September 28. Theatre Royal, Man- 
 chester. The Weaker Sex : A Comedy in 
 Three Acts. Written some years before, 
 but put aside in favour of " The Magis- 
 trate." Given at the Court Theatre, 
 March 19, 1889. 
 
 1889. April 24. Garrick Theatre. The Prof- 
 ligate: A Drama in Four Acts. This 
 
APPENDIX 215 
 
 play, which was the first strong piece of 
 work in the kind wherein Mr. Pinero is 
 now most distinguished, did not excite 
 especial attention. It was not produced 
 in this country until 1894, when people 
 had become interested in the author 
 through " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray." 
 
 1890. April 23. Court Theatre. The Cabinet 
 Minister: A Farce in Four Acts. 
 
 1891. March 7. Garrick Theatre. Lady Boun- 
 tiful: A Play in Four Acts. Not en- 
 tirely successful, but given in the fall 
 (November 16) simultaneously at the 
 Lyceum Theatre, New York, and the Bos- 
 ton Museum. 
 
 1891. October 24. Terry's Theatre. The 
 Times : A Comedy in Four Acts. Of this 
 play Mr. Pinero himself writes that " It 
 lays bare no horrid social wound, it 
 wrangles over no vital problem of inex- 
 tricable perplexity." 
 
 1893. March 7. Court Theatre. The Am- 
 azons: A Farcical Romance in Three 
 Acts. Given at the Lyceum, New York, 
 the next year. 
 
 1893. May 27. Saint James' Theatre. The 
 Second Mrs. Tanqueray: A Play in 
 Four Acts. Given by the Kendals at the 
 Star Theatre, New York, October 9, 1893. 
 With this play Mr. Pinero begins to be 
 considered seriously ; it has been much dis- 
 
216 APPENDIX 
 
 cussed, and good critics have held it to be 
 a great tragedy; a view which, I hope, 
 (pp. 93, 94, 176, 195) is quite erroneous. 
 Mrs. Patrick Campbell created the part 
 of Mrs. Tanqueray, and the part did 
 something of the sort in return. There 
 have been French and Italian versions 
 given in many places, but I do not hear of 
 it in Germany. 
 
 1895. March 13. Garrick Theatre. The No- 
 torious Mrs. Ebbsmith. A very good 
 play. Done by Mr. John Hare, at Ab- 
 bey's Theatre, New York, December 23, 
 1895. Given September 22, 1899, at the 
 Lessing-Theater, Berlin, under the name 
 " Die Genossin." 
 
 1895. October 16. Comedy Theatre. The 
 Benefit of the Doubt. Given at the 
 Lyceum, New York, January 6, 1896. 
 
 1897. March 29. St. James' Theatre. The 
 Princess and the Butterfly; or, The 
 Fantastics: A Comedy in Five Acts. 
 Given at the Lyceum, New York, Novem- 
 ber 23, 1897. 
 
 1898. January 30. Court Theatre. Trelawney 
 of the Wells: A Comedietta in Four 
 Acts. Given at the Lyceum, New York, 
 November 22, 1898. 
 
 1899. April 8. Globe Theatre. The Gay Lord 
 Quex: A Comedy in Four Acts. Given 
 in New York by Mr. Hare a year or so 
 
APPENDIX 217 
 
 later. Also at the Lessing-Theater, Ber- 
 lin, January 13, 1900, where it was pro- 
 nounced by the only critic I have noted, 
 " reichlich langweilig und . . . ein be- 
 dauerliches Zeichen fur das Tiefstand des 
 englischen Geschmack." The remark is in 
 itself an interesting sign of German taste. 
 1901. September 21. Garrick Theatre. Iris: 
 A Drama in Five Acts. Given at the 
 Criterion Theatre, New York, September 
 23, 1902. 
 
 1903. October 8. Duke of York's Theatre. 
 Letty: A Drama in Four Acts and an 
 Epilogue. Given at the Hudson Theatre, 
 New York, September 12, 1904. 
 
 1904. October 9. Wyndham's Theatre. A Wife 
 without a Smile: A Comedy in Dis- 
 guise. Given at the Criterion Theatre, 
 New York, December 19, 1904. 
 
 Some translations or adaptations have 
 been omitted. 
 
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 
 
 (Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc- 
 tion was London) 
 
 1892. Independent Theatre. Widowers' Houses. 
 
 iftcw J Written for the Independent ) ,— 
 t Theatre, but not performed, f 
 Philanderers; Mrs. Warren's Profes- 
 sion. This last was given by the Stage 
 Society at the New Lyric Theatre, Jan- 
 uary 4, 1902. 
 
 1894. April 21. Avenue Theatre. Arms and 
 the Man. Was also given by Mr. Mans- 
 field at the Herald Square Theatre, New 
 York, September 17, 1894. A few months 
 ago, December 8, 1904, given at the 
 Deutsches Theater, Berlin, under the name 
 of " Helden." 
 
 1894. Written for Mr. Mansfield, but not acted 
 at the time. Candida. Given at Car- 
 negie Hall, New York, December 9, 1903, 
 and at the Court Theatre, on April 26, 
 1904. Given at the Konigliches Schau- 
 spielhaus, Dresden, November 19, 1903. 
 
 1895. Written but not publicly given. The Man 
 of Destiny. Given by the American 
 
 218 
 
APPENDIX 219 
 
 Academy of Dramatic Arts at the Empire 
 Theatre, New York, February 16, 1899, 
 and at the Neues Theater, Berlin, Feb- 
 ruary 10, 1904, under the name " Der 
 Schlachtenlenker." 
 
 1896. Written but not publicly given. You 
 Never Can Tell. Given January 9, 
 1905, at the Garrick Theatre, New York. 
 
 These seven plays were published in 1898 
 as " Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant." 
 
 1897. October 1. Harmanus Bleecker Hall, Al- 
 bany. The Devil's Disciple. Also Sep- 
 tember 26, 1899, at the Princess of Wales' 
 Theatre, and at the Berliner Theater, 
 December 1, 1904, under the name " Ein 
 Teufelskerl." 
 
 - ~ . Al ( Cjssar and Cleopatra. 
 
 1898. Apparently 1 ~ _» , 
 innA f • S Captain Brassbound s 
 
 1899. not given, j ^ 
 
 ° { Conversion. 
 
 These three plays were published in 1900 
 as " Three Plays for Puritans." 
 
 1903. Published. Man and Superman. 
 
 1904. September 26. Berkeley Lyceum, New 
 York. How He Lied to Her Husband. 
 
 1904. October. Court Theatre. John Bull's 
 Other Island. 
 
 There have usually, I believe, been semi- 
 private performances of Mr. Shaw's plays, 
 for the sake of securing stage rights, but 
 the dates are not readily obtainable, nor 
 would they signify much if obtained. 
 
STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 1899. Published. Paolo and Feancesca: A 
 Tragedy in Pour Acts. 
 
 1900. October 31. Her Majesty's Theatre, Lon- 
 don. Heeod : A Tragedy. 
 
 1902. February 1. Her Majesty's Theatre, Lon- 
 don. Ulysses: A Drama in a Prologue 
 and Three Acts. Also given at the Gar- 
 den Theatre, New York, September 14, 
 1902. 
 
 1904. Published. The Sin of David. 
 
 1905. Published. Nero. 
 
MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
 
 The dates given, except the last two, are those 
 of publication. As the plays were not imme- 
 diately performed, I have added a few dates of 
 first performances in various countries, but the 
 list is very incomplete. 
 
 f L'Intrus. ^ The first two given by 
 
 - RQ J Les Aveugles. I the American Acad- 
 ] Les Sept f emy of Dramatic Arts 
 
 Princesses. J at the Berkeley Ly- 
 ceum, New York, Feb- 
 ruary 21, 1893, and 
 January 18, 1894, 
 respectively. 
 1893. Pelleas et Meusande. 
 
 Interieur. Given at the Carnegie 
 Aeladine et Palamides. 
 
 Lyceum by the American Academy, 
 1894 February 18, 1896. 
 
 La Mort de Tintagiles. Given on the 
 Sezessionsbuhne, Berlin, November 12, 
 1900. 
 
 1896. Aglavaine et Selysette. v 
 221 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 1901. Ariane et Barbe Bleue; ou, La Deli- 
 vrance Inutile. Conte en trois actes. 
 
 1901. S(eur Beatrice. Miracle en trois actes. 
 
 1902. May 17. Nouveau Theatre, Paris. Monna 
 Vanna. Piece en trois actes. Given at 
 the Konigliches Schauspielhaus, Munich, 
 September 27, 1902. It was forbidden in 
 London, and in America has been seen only 
 in German at the Irving Place Theatre, 
 New York. 
 
 1903. May 20. Theatre du Gymnase. Joy- 
 zelle : Piece en cinq actes. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 "Abeilles, Les," 174, 175 Arielle in "Joyzelle," 170 
 
 Academy of Dramatic Arts, Arimanes in " Manfred," 136 
 
 American, 205, 207, 210, Aristotle, 180, 199, 200, 202 
 
 219,221 "Arme Heinrich, Der," 58, 
 Academy, The French, re- 209 
 
 ception of M. Rostand in- " Arms and the Man," 106- 
 
 to, 12, 14, 90 109, 117, 218 
 
 Addison, 91 Artagnan, D', 22, 23, 24, 26 
 
 JEschylus, 185 Arthur, King, 36 
 
 "Aglavaine et Selysette," Astarte in "Manfred," 136, 
 
 165, 221 138 
 
 "Aiglon, L'," 15, 36, 139, "Aveugles, Les," 159, 162, 
 
 181, 197, 206; its hero, 31, 221 
 
 32, 35, 51, 197 
 
 " Alladine et Palamides," Balzac, 23, 117 
 
 165, 221 Beate in " Es lebe das Le- 
 Alladine, 168 ben," 78, 81 
 
 Alma in " Die Ehre," 66, 67, Belasco, Mr. David, 15 
 
 76 Bellangere in "La Mort de 
 
 " Amazons, The," 215 Tintagiles," 168 
 
 " Ambassador, The," 90, 99 " Benefit of the Doubt, The," 
 
 Annunzio, D\ 7, 189 216 
 
 Anna Mahr, in " Einsame Bernard Shaw, see Shaw, 
 Menschen," 39, 57 George Bernard 
 
 Antoine, M., 208 Bernhardt, Mme. Sarah, 10, 
 
 "Antony and Cleopatra," 35, 155, 206; in " Magda," 
 103 70, 71; as Melissande, 205; 
 
 " Ariane et Barbe Bleue," as Photine, 205 
 
 166, 168, 222 Bertrand in " La Princesse 
 Ariane, 166, 167, 171 Lointaine," 19 
 
 225 
 
226 
 
 INDEX 
 
 "Biberpelz, Das," 40, 208 
 
 Blake, symbolism of, 55 
 
 Boehme, 154 
 
 Booth, Edwin, 140 
 
 Boswell, 13 
 
 " Boys and Girls," 213 
 
 Brand, 55 
 
 Browning, Robert, 36, 127, 
 
 142, 143, 144, 197 
 Bulthaupt on Graf Trast, 67 
 Burgess, Mr., in "Candida," 
 
 110 
 Burgoyne, Gen., in "The 
 
 Devil's Disciple," 118 
 Byron, 23, 144; and Rome, 
 
 81 ; his plays, 127 
 
 " Cabinet Minister, The," 215 
 
 "Caesar and Cleopatra," 219 
 
 Caesar, 118 
 
 Camille, 195 
 
 Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, as 
 Magda, 70; in " Pelleas et 
 M61isande," 164; in "The 
 Second Mrs. Tanqueray," 
 216 
 
 "Candida," 9, 109-116, 118, 
 124, 181, 189, 218 
 
 Candida, 111, 117 
 
 "Captain Brassbound's Con- 
 version," 219 
 
 Carlyle, 113, 154 
 
 Chateaubriand, 2 
 
 Cleopatra in "Caesar and 
 Cleopatra," 118 
 
 " Comedie Humaine," 23 
 
 Coleridge, 127 
 
 " College Crampton," 41, 208 
 
 " Coriolanus," 43 
 
 Courtney, Mr. W. L., 176, 177 
 
 Craigie, Mrs., 90; and Pi- 
 
 nero, 99, 100 
 Criticism, standards of, 1-3; 
 
 theatrical, 6, 8; current, 7; 
 
 dramatic, 8 
 Croker, in " Iris," 96 
 Crosbie, Mrs., in " Letty," 87 
 "Cyrano de Bergerac," 15, 
 
 21, 22, 26, 30, 36, 56, 181, 
 
 183, 196, 205 
 Cyrano de Bergerac, 26, 35, 
 
 51, 193, 265; significance, 
 
 22-29 
 
 "Daisy's Escape," 212 
 
 Daly, Augustin, 85 
 
 Daly, Arnold, alluded to, 103 
 
 " Dandy Dick," 214 
 
 Dangers, Lord, in "The 
 Profligate," 87 
 
 " Dawn, The," 46 
 
 Deaconess in " Hanneles 
 Himmelfahrt," 46 
 
 "Devil's Disciple, The," 219 
 
 Dickens, 23; in "A Tale of 
 Two Cities," 47 
 
 " Doll's House, A," 193 
 
 Don Quixote, 33 
 
 "Doom of Devorgoil, The," 
 127 
 
 " Double Garden, The," 172 
 
 Drama, personal character of 
 the, 3; effects of, 9, 10; 
 power to present ideas, 122, 
 123; poetic, 126; Eliza- 
 bethan, 127, 142, 181; of 
 
INDEX 227 
 
 the 19th century, 127; ex- " Florian Geyer," 46, 47, 208 
 
 tempore, 14; classic, 142, Fiske, Mrs., in " Magda," 70, 
 
 181; French, 142, 181; 71 
 
 Chinese, 142; Japanese, Fitch, Mr. Clyde, 7, 15 
 
 142 " Forbidden Fruit," 213 
 
 Dramatic figures, 10, 33, 39, Fox, George, 153 
 
 43, 44, 51, 175 France, Anatole, 3, 4 
 
 Dramatic moments, 35, 13S, Francesca, 145 
 
 139, 140 " Frau Sorge," 74 
 
 Dramatic poetry, 142-144 Freie Biihne, Die, 207, 208 
 
 " Drei Reihefeder, Die," 211 " Friedensfest, Das," 39, 207 
 
 Dumas, Alexandre, 22 " Fritzchen," 211 
 
 Dumas, Alexandre, fils, 23, " Fuhrmann Henschel," 56, 
 
 90, 195 57, 209 
 
 Duse, Signora, in " Magda," Fulda, Ludwig, 206 
 
 70, 71 
 
 "Gay Lord Quex, The," 95, 
 
 Ebbsmith, Mrs., 195 216 
 
 Eckhard, 154 " Genossin, Die," 216 
 
 ■ Ehre, Die," 66, 71, 76, 95, George Eliot, 23 
 210 George Sand, 22 
 
 "Einakter, Drei," 211 '' Ghosts," 97 
 
 " Einsame Menschen," 39, 207 ■ Giaconda," 189 
 
 Eliot, George, 23 Globe Theatre, 132 
 
 ■ Elizabethan drama," 127, Gloria in " You Never Can 
 
 142. 1S1 Tell," 109 
 
 Emerson, 154, 202 ■ Gliick im WinkeL, Das," 210 
 
 " Es lebe das Leben," 78, Gottwald in ■ Hanneles Him- 
 
 181, 211 melfahrt," 46 
 
 " Ewigmannliche, Das," 211 Guido in " Monna Vanna," 
 
 169, 170 
 
 Falstaff, 35 Guise, Duke of, 156, 159 
 
 " Fantastics, The," 205 Gulliver. 114 
 
 Farce, 14 K Guvnor, The," 213 
 Faust, 33 
 
 Ferdinand in ■ The Tern- Halbe, Max, 39, 75 
 
 pest," 35 ■ Hamlet," 63, 94, 125, 140, 
 
 Flaubert, 23 185, 198 
 
INDEX 
 
 Hamlet, 31, 33, 133, 156 
 
 Hannele, 44 
 
 "Hanneles Himmelf ahrt," 
 
 44-47, 60, 208 
 Hare, Mr. John, 212, 216 
 Hartmann von Aue, 58 
 " Haubenlerche, Die," 66 
 Hatjptmann, Gerhabdt. 
 His becoming known, 37; 
 earlier influences, 39, 40; 
 a realist, 39, 43; Protean 
 character, 41; an individu- 
 alist, 57, 58, 75, 79; sym- 
 bolism in, 55 ; " Vor Son- 
 nenaufgang," 38, 39, 207; 
 " Das Friedensfest," 39, 
 207; "Einsame Menschen," 
 39, 207; "Die Weber," 40, 
 208; "Das Biberpelz," 40, 
 208; "College Crampton," 
 41, 208; "Hanneles Him- 
 melf ahrt," 44-47, 60, 208; 
 "Florian Geyer," 46, 47, 
 208 ; " Die versunkene 
 Glocke," 47-55, 188, 189, 
 208; "Furhmann Hen- 
 schel," 56, 209; " Schluck 
 und Jau," 56, 209; "Mi- 
 chael Kramer," 57, 209; 
 "Der rote Hahn," 57, 209; 
 " Der arme Heinrich," 58, 
 59, 209;"RoseBernd,"57, 
 209; and Rostand, 43; and 
 Sudermann, 39, 62, 63, 70, 
 75; and Bernard Shaw, 
 121; and Maeterlinck, 162; 
 plays, 207-209 
 Hawthorne, 32, 173 
 
 Hazlitt, 3, 130, 139 
 Heffterdingt, Pastor, in 
 
 "Heimat," 71, 77 
 "Heimat," 70, 71, 77, 189, 
 
 210 
 Heinrich in " Die versunkene 
 
 Glocke," 50-52, 53, 60, 61, 
 
 188 
 Heinrich von Aue in "Der 
 
 arme Heinrich," 58, 59 
 " Helden," 218 
 " Henry V.," 183 
 Herder, 2 
 Heredia, 139 
 " Hernani," Q2 f 26 
 "Herod," 86, 126, 134, 140, 
 
 144, 220 
 " Hester's Mystery," 212 
 " Hobby Horse, The," 214 
 Holmes, 135 
 Homer, 180 
 " Honour," 210 
 Hosea, 4 
 
 " How He Lied to Her Hus- 
 band," 219 
 Howells, extract from " The 
 
 Story of a Play," 83 
 
 Ibsen, 7, 39, 44, 92, 95, 105, 
 
 176, 193 
 Idas in "Marpessa," 140 
 " Imprudence," 213 
 Individualism, 79 
 "Interieur," 166, 221 
 "Intrus, L'," 159, 161, 162, 
 
 166, 221 
 " Iris," 89, 95, 96, 194, 217 
 Iris, 89, 97, 194 
 
INDEX 
 
 Irving Place Theatre, 48, 
 
 205, 207, 209 
 Isaiah, 4 
 Ivanhoe, 26 
 
 Job, 33 
 
 " Johannes," 211 
 " Johannisfeuer," 211 
 ."John Bull's Other Island," 
 
 219 
 John Oliver Hobbes, 90 
 Jones, H. A., 84, 98 
 " Joyzelle," 170-172, 222 
 Joyzelle, 171, 172 
 Judith, 172 
 Juliet 17, 34, 191 
 
 Kahn, M. Gustave, 14, 15 
 Kane, Archibald, in " Iris," 
 
 96 
 Katharsis, 200 
 Keats, quoted, 34, 165; 
 
 opinions, 50, 180; drama, 
 
 127 
 Kendal, Mr. and Mrs., 212, 
 
 215 
 " King Lear," 130 
 Kipling, 108 
 Klopstock, 91 
 
 "Lady Bountiful," 215 
 
 Lamb, 130 
 
 Landscape, 5 
 
 Lear, 34 
 
 Leonora in " Die Ehre," 76 
 
 Lessing, 91 
 
 "Letty," 87, 95, 96, 97, 217 
 
 Letty, 88 
 
 Letchmere in "Letty," 87-89 
 
 Literary plays, 90 
 
 "Lonely Lives," 207 
 
 Lord Chamberlain's Men, 132 
 
 Lord Quex, 95 
 
 " Lords and Commons," 213 
 
 " Low Water," 213 
 
 Lowell, 135 
 
 Ludicrous, the, 192 
 
 Macaulay, 13 
 
 " Macbeth," 94 
 
 Macready, 143 
 
 " Madame Bovary," 23 
 
 Maeterlinck, Maurice. In- 
 troduction to the world of 
 letters, 147; early dialogue, 
 148; early manner, 150, 
 151; philosophy, 152-155; 
 earlier dramatic theory, 
 155-158; application in 
 earlier plays, 159, 160; 
 symbolism, 165, 173, 174; 
 fundamental idea, 171 ; 
 " La Princesse Maleine," 
 159, 160, 161, 221; quoted, 
 148, 149; "L'Intrus," 159, 
 161, 166, 221 ; " Les Aveu- 
 gles," 159, 160, 221; "Les 
 Sept Princesses," 159, 160, 
 161, 221; " Pelleas et Meli- 
 sande," 161-165, 221 ; " Al- 
 ladine et Palamides," 165, 
 221; "Aglavaine et Sely- 
 sette," 165, 221; " In- 
 terieur," 166, 221; "La 
 Mort de Tintagiles," 47, 
 165, 221; "Sceur Bea- 
 
230 INDEX 
 
 trice," 166, 222; " Ariane et Marie in " Heimat," 73 
 Barbe Bleue," 166-168, 222; Marius, 155, 159 
 " Monna Vanna," 168-170, " Marpessa," quoted, 141 
 224; "Joyzelle," 170, 171, Marpessa, 140 
 222; "Le Tr6sor des Matthews, Brander, quota- 
 Humbles," 152, 153, 154; tion from, 35, 92, 183 
 " Les Abeilles," 174; " The " Mauprat," 23 
 Double Garden," 172; and Melisande, 168 
 Rostand, 162; and Haupt- Melissande in "La Princesse 
 mann, 162; and Stephen Lointaine," 19, 20, 205 
 Phillips, 162; plays, 221, Melodrama, 14 
 222 Merlin in "Joyzelle," 170, 
 
 "Magda," 70, 210. See 171 
 
 " Heimat " Metchnikoff, 187 
 
 Magda in "Heimat," 70-73, Metternich in "L'Aiglon," 
 
 210; and Anna Mahr, 39 32 
 
 « Magistrate, The," 91, 213, "Michael Kramer," 57, 209 
 
 214 " Midsummer Night's Dream, 
 
 Maldonado in " Iris," 89, 96 A," 130 
 
 "Man and Superman," 109, Miranda in "The Tempest," 
 
 117-120, 124, 219 35 
 
 " Man and His Picture, The," Mirbeau, M. Octave, 147 
 
 210 "Monna Vanna," 168-170, 
 
 " Man of Destiny, The," 218 222 
 
 " Man with the Glove, The," " Monte Cristo," 23 
 
 139 "Money Spinner," 212 
 
 " Manfred," 55, 136-138 Moliere, 41, 44, 91 
 
 Mandeville, Mr., in " Letty," Morell, Rev. James in " Can- 
 
 88 dida," 109-111, 114, 116, 
 
 Mansfield, Mr. Richard, 206, 123 
 
 218 Morelli, 2 
 
 Marchbanks in " Candida," " Morituri," 211 
 
 111-113, 114, 115, 189 Morris, Miss Clara, quoted, 
 
 Marco in " Monna Vanna," 85 
 
 168-170 " Mort de Tintagiles, La," 47, 
 
 Marguerite Gautier in " La 165, 221 
 
 Dame aux Camelias," 23, "Mrs. Warren's Profession," 
 
 195 106, 123, 218 
 
INDEX 
 
 231 
 
 " Mutter Erde," 39 
 Mystics, 153-155 
 
 Naturalists, 19 
 
 Naturalismus, 62 
 
 Newcome, Colonel, 33 
 
 Neo-realism, 117 
 
 " Nero," 220 
 
 Nickelmann, The, in "Die 
 
 versunkene Glocke," 48, 
 
 189 
 Nietzsche, 105 
 Nordau, Max, 148 
 " Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, 
 
 The," 93, 216 
 Novalis, 152 
 
 Othello, 156 
 
 "Paolo and Francesca," 144, 
 145, 220 
 
 Pantomime, 14 
 
 " Paracelsus," 142 
 
 Pastor in " Die versunkene 
 Glocke," 52 
 
 Pater, Walter, 3 
 
 "Pauline," 142 
 
 " Pelleas et Melisande," 161- 
 164, 165, 171, 181, 221 
 
 Pelleas, 172 
 
 Percinet in "Les Roman- 
 esques," 17-19 
 
 " Philanderers, The," 105, 
 118, 218 
 
 Phillips, Stephen, 126, 
 127, 134, 145; and the 
 poetic drama, 126-128, 
 134-136; his language, 141; 
 " Herod," 86, 126, 134, 140, 
 
 220; "Ulysses," 130, 220; 
 " Paolo and Francesca," 
 144, 145, 220; "The Sin 
 of David," 220; "Nero," 
 220; "Marpessa," 141; 
 plays, 220 
 
 " Philoctetes," 136 
 
 Phosphorus, 202 
 
 Photine in "La Samari- 
 taine," 205 
 
 Piers the Ploughman, 114 
 
 "Pilgrim's Progress, The," 
 200 
 
 Pinero, Arthur Wing. 
 Stagecraft, 83-87; dra- 
 matic art, 87-89; literary 
 character, 89-91 ; specific 
 genre, 91 ; so-called " prob- 
 lem plays," 92-95, 183, 
 194; a dramatist, 98; an 
 actor, 213; "Two Hun- 
 dred a Year," 212; 
 "Daisy's Escape," 212; 
 "Hester's Mystery," 212; 
 "Bygones," 212; "The 
 Money Spinner," 212; 
 "Imprudence," 213; "The 
 Squire," 213; "The Rec- 
 tor," 213; "Boys and 
 Girls," 213; "The Rocket," 
 213; "Lords and Com- 
 mons," 213; "Low Water," 
 213; "The Weaker Sex," 
 213, 214 ; " The Magistrate," 
 91, 213; "The Schoolmis- 
 tress," 214; "The Hobby 
 Horse," 214; "Dandy 
 Dick," 214: " Sweet Laven- 
 
INDEX 
 
 der," 91,214; " The Profli- 
 gate," 87, 93, 214; "The 
 Cabinet Minister," 215 ; 
 "Lady Bountiful," 215; 
 "The Times," 215; "The 
 Amazons," 215 ; " The Sec- 
 ond Mrs. Tanqueray," 91, 
 93, 215; "The Notorious 
 Mrs. Ebbsmith," 93, 216; 
 " The Benefit of the Doubt," 
 216; "The Princess and the 
 Butterfly," 99, 216; " Tre- 
 lawney of the Wells," 216; 
 " The Gay Lord Quex," 95, 
 216; "Iris," 89, 95, 96, 97, 
 194, 217; "Letty," 87, 95, 
 96, 97, 217; " A Wife with- 
 out a Smile," 217; and 
 Robertson, 98, 99; and 
 Mrs. Craigie, 99; and 
 Bernard Shaw, 120; plays, 
 212-217 
 
 Playgoing, effects of, 3, 4, 9 
 
 " Plays, Pleasant and Un- 
 pleasant," 219 
 
 " Plays for Puritans, Three," 
 219 
 
 Plotinus, 153 
 
 Poe, 180 
 
 Poetry, in public, 135 ; on the 
 stage, 133, 134 
 
 Pope, 10, 200 
 
 Preese, Janet, in " The Prof- 
 ligate," 87 
 
 " Princess and the Butter- 
 fly, The," 99, 216 
 
 *' Princesse Lointaine, La," 
 19, 196, 205 
 
 " Princesse Maleine, La," 148, 
 
 159, 160, 161, 221 
 Problem plays, 92-95, 194, 
 
 195 
 "Profligate, The," 87, 99, 
 
 214 
 " Prometheus Bound," 185, 
 
 198 
 Prossy, Miss, in "Candida," 
 
 9, 116 
 
 Raina in "Arms and the 
 
 Man," 107 
 Rautendelein in " Die ver- 
 
 sunkene Glocke," 49, 50, 53 
 Ravenswood, Master of, 26 
 Realism, 25 
 Realismus, 62 
 
 Realists, 19; mode of pres- 
 entation, 42 
 Reaumer, 174 
 " Rector, The," 213 
 Reichstadt, Due de, 32, 197 
 Rembrandt, 139 
 " Remorse," 127 
 Renshaw, Dunstan, in " The 
 
 Profligate," 87 
 Robert in "Die Ehre," 66, 
 
 67, 69, 76 
 Robertson and Pinero, 98, 
 
 99 
 " Rocket, The," 213 
 Rougon-Macquart Family, 23 
 Romance, 18, 26 
 " Romanesques, Les," 16, 17 
 Romanticists, 32; mode of 
 
 presentation, 43 
 Romeo, 17, 191 
 
INDEX 
 
 "Romeo and Juliet," 125, 
 129, 191 
 
 " Rose Bernd," 57, 209 
 
 Rostand, Edmond. Re- 
 ception into the Academy, 
 12; position in literature, 
 13; mode of presenting 
 truth, 19; success in ro- 
 manticism, 25 ; so-called 
 pessimism, 29, 33; kind of 
 romanticism, 32 ; content 
 with dramatic effect, 35; 
 no problems, 35, 92, 183; 
 no criticism of life, 35, 92, 
 183; idea of tragedy, 196, 
 197; "Les Romanesques," 
 16-18, 205; "La Princesse 
 Lointaine," 19-21, 196, 205; 
 " La Samaritaine," 21, 205; 
 " Cyrano de Bergerac," 22- 
 30, 196, 205; " L'Aiglon," 
 30-32, 197, 206; and Haupt- 
 mann, 37, 43, 51; and 
 Sudermann, 65, 81; and 
 Bernard Shaw, 121; and 
 Maeterlinck, 47, 162; plays, 
 205, 206 
 
 " Rote Hahn, Der," 209 
 
 Roxane in " Cyrano de Ber- 
 gerac," 29 
 
 Rudel in " La Princesse 
 Lointaine," 19, 35, 51, 196 
 
 Ruskin, 3, 4 
 
 Ruysbroeck, 154 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, 2 
 
 " Samaritaine, La," 21, 205 
 
 Sand, George, 22 
 
 Sardanapalus, 127 
 
 Sartorius, M., in "Wid- 
 owers' Houses," 123 
 
 " Schlachtenlenker, Der," 219 
 
 "Schluck und Jau," 57, 209 
 
 "Schmetterl ingsschlacht, 
 Die," 211 
 
 " School," 99 
 
 " Schoolmistress, The," 214 
 
 Schwartze, Lieutenant Col- 
 onel, in "Heimat," 72, 81 
 
 Scott, 18, 23, 127 
 
 " Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 
 The," 91, 93, 176, 181, 215, 
 216 
 
 Selysette, 168 
 
 " Sept Princesses, Les," 159, 
 160, 161, 221 
 
 Shakespeare, 2, 4, 29, 31, 44, 
 85, 102, 103, 128, 131, 132, 
 136, 147, 180, 184 
 
 Shandy, Mr., 193 
 
 Sharpe, Mr. William, 151 
 
 Shaw, George Bernard. 
 Stagecraft, 102 ; ideas, 
 104; how presented, 122, 
 124; realism, 108; neo- 
 realism, 117; realistic bril- 
 liancy, 120, 121; "Wid- 
 owers' Houses," 105, 123, 
 218; "The Philanderers," 
 106, 118, 218; "Mrs. War- 
 ren's Profession," 106, 123, 
 218; " Arms and the Man," 
 106, 108, 218; "You 
 Never Can Tell," 109, 118, 
 229; "Candida," 109-116, 
 218; "The Man of Des- 
 
234 
 
 INDEX 
 
 tiny," 218; "The Devil's 
 Disciple," 219; "Caesar and 
 Cleopatra," 219 ; " Captain 
 Brassbound's Conversion," 
 219 ; " Man and Superman," 
 109, 117-120, 124, 219; 
 "How He Lied to Her 
 Husband," 219; "John 
 Bull's Other Island," 219; 
 and Rostand, 121; and 
 Hauptmann, 121 ; and 
 Sudermann, 121; and Pi- 
 nero, 120; and Shake- 
 speare, 102; plays, 218, 
 219 
 
 Shelley, 127 
 
 Sheridan, 91, 127 
 
 " Sin of David, The," 220 
 
 "Sistine Madonna," 180 
 
 " Sodom's Ende," 68, 71, 76, 
 95, 97, 139, 210 
 
 " Soeur Beatrice," 166, 222 
 
 Sophocles, 2 
 
 " Sordello," 143 
 
 Sorismonde in " La Princesse 
 Lointaine," 19, 20 
 
 Sothern, Mr. Edward, 48, 
 191, 209 
 
 Spielhagen, 38 
 
 Squarciafico in " La Princesse 
 Lointaine," 20 
 
 "Squire, The," 213 
 
 Stage, The, a public place, 
 100; of Shakespeare, 103 
 
 Stagecraft, 83-86, 102, 103 
 
 Stage Society, The, 218 
 
 Stael, Mme. de, 2 
 
 Stevenson, 23, 26, 42 
 
 "Strafford," 143 
 
 Straker, 'Enery, in "Man 
 and Superman," 123 
 
 Strindberg, 7 
 
 "Story of a Play, The," 
 quoted, 83 
 
 " Sturmgeselle Sokrates, 
 
 Der," 211 
 
 Sudermann, Heinrich. 
 General critical opinion on, 
 62; general character, 63; 
 a personal writer, 64; his 
 motives, 65 ; his " dramatic 
 theme," 75; no especial in- 
 dividualist, 79; impression 
 of his power, 80, 81 ; " Die 
 Ehre," 66-68, 71, 76, 95, 
 210; "Sodom's Ende," 
 68-70, 71, 76, 95, 97, 210; 
 "Heimat," 70, 73, 77, 95, 
 210; "Die Schmetterlings- 
 schlacht, 211; "Das Gliick 
 im Winkel," 211; " Mori- 
 turi," 211; "Teja," 211; 
 "Fritzchen," 211; "Das 
 Ewig Mannliche," 211 ; 
 " Johannes," 211 ; " Die 
 Drei Reihefeder," 211; 
 " Johannisfeuer," 211 ; " Es 
 lebe das Leben," 71, 78, 
 211 ; " Der Sturmgeselle 
 Sokrates," 64, 211; "Frau 
 Sorge," 74; and Haupt- 
 mann, 39, 62, 63, 70, 75; 
 and Wildenbruch, 62; and 
 Bernard Shaw, 121; plays, 
 210, 211 
 
 "Sweet Lavender," 91, 214 
 
INDEX 235 
 
 Swinburne, 127 Tragic figures, 34, 81 
 
 Sylvette in " Les Roman- Trast, Graf, in " Die Ehre," 
 
 esques," 17-19 67, 76, 124 
 
 Symbolism, nature of, 55; in Tree, Mr. Beerbohm, 86, 126, 
 
 "Die versunkene Glocke," 134, 140 
 
 50, 56; of Blake, 55; of " Trelawney of the Wells," 
 
 Maeterlinck, 152, 173, 174 216 
 
 Trench, in "Widowers* 
 Taine, 2 Houses," 123 
 
 " Tale of Two Cities, The," Trenwith in " Iris," 95 
 
 47 " Tristan und Isolde," 139 
 
 Tanqueray, Mrs., 9, 195 Trollope, Anthony, 26 
 
 Tate, Nahum, 35 " Two Hundred a Year," 
 " Teja," 211 212 
 
 Tennyson, 36, 143, 144, 197; 
 
 his plays, 127 "Ulysses," 130, 144, 220 
 
 Teufelsdroeckh, 29, 114 Uncle Toby, My, 193 
 *' Teufelskerl, Ein," 219 
 
 Thackeray, 23, 113, 117 Valentine* in " You Never 
 Theatre, French, 135 Can Tell," 109 
 
 Theatrical criticism, 6, 8 Vanna, Monna, 169, 170, 171, 
 Tolstoi, 38, 39, 41 172 
 
 "Three Musketeers, The," Verhaeren, 46 
 
 23 "Versunkene Glocke, Die," 
 " Times, The," 215 9, 46, 47, 56, 181, 208 
 
 " Tisserands, Les," 208 Vivien in " Mrs. Warren's 
 Tragedy. The great thing in Profession," 123 
 
 literature, 33-35, 180; Mr. Voltaire, 91 
 
 Courtney on, 176; Words- "Vor Sonnenaufgang," 38, 
 
 worth on, 177; Aristotle on, 207 
 
 199; simplest notion of, 
 
 186; range of, 188; its true Wagner, 105 
 
 character, 188-190, 198; ef- "Weaker Sex, The," 213, 
 
 feet of, 200-202; in love, 214 
 
 191; of Browning, 178; of Weber and Fields burlesque, 
 
 Rostand, 196; of Pinero, 14 
 
 194; in "Die versunkene "Weber, Die," 40, 58, 208 
 
 Glocke," 188 Weyman, Stanley, 25 
 
236 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Whistler, 42 
 
 " Widowers* Houses," 105, 
 
 123, 218 
 Wildenbruch, 62, 63, 66 
 Willy Janikow in " Sodom's 
 
 Ende," 69, 77, 81 
 Winter, Mr. William, 214 
 Wittich in "Die versunkene 
 
 Glocke," 49 
 Wordsworth, 127, 177 
 « Wife without a Smile, A," 
 
 217 
 
 Wyndham, Mr. (now Sir 
 Charles), 206 
 
 Yeats, Mr. W. B., 7 
 Ygraine in " La Mort de 
 
 Tintagiles," 166, 168 
 "You Never Can Tell," 109, 
 
 118, 219 
 
 Zenobia, 174 
 Zimmermann, Dr., 40 
 Zola, 20 t 23, 38, 39, 41 
 
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