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lighthearted flirtation, the mock and almest
passionless intrigue of the Hapsburgs’ capi¬
tal—che longer plays, such as Dr. Bern¬
hardi,? which showed Schnitzler both as
octor—his original profession—and as se¬
rious protester against what he conceived
to be political jobbery—these no longer
sparkle so brightly, fer they Have ceased
tobe a mirror and have become an his¬
torical picture, and at that a picture to
which the youngest anlong us may well
require a key.
But if the Vienna of before 1914 no
longer serves Schnitzler as subject for effect¬
ive drane, human beings reinain, also the
artist’s amazing technique, more and more
directed, in the last ten years, to the art in
which, in our opinion, he will go down
to posterity, the art of prose-fiction."Fräu¬
lein Elsc'’ is the latest example of this side
of his genius, a short story which you may
put side by side with“Un Coeur Simple'
and not regret the comparison, after mak¬
ing allowance for the difference in the
genint of the two languages. This apart,
the technicel mastery, the superb economy
of words, the perfect unitv of form, the
illusim of vitality of boch works stand
practically on an equality. Fräulein Else
is a young girl, staying at a fashionable
hotel in the Tyrol. In a hundred or so
pages of monologue—the sustaining of
which shows Schnitzler, the constructor, at
his best—she tells us all about herself, her
family, her emotions, her outlock on life,
her criticism of her environment. Her
parents are wealthy, but she has scen through
them, through the inctability of her father,
the indulgent weakness of her mother. And
when she hears that her father will be
faced with imprisonment—he is a lawyer
and has used his client’s money—unless a
large cum is secured in a few days, it is
nothing less than we expected. Her mother
asks her to obtain it from Herr von Dors¬
day, a friend of the family who is staying
in the same hotel. Vielding to an access
of generosity toward her parents, crushing
out her love for her cousin, which she feels
this step will compromise, she asks Herr
von Dorsday for the money. He will give
t, but only at a price—she mutt come,
Monna Vanna-like, to his room or to che
forest, where he will feast his lustful eyes
upon her. She promises, but in desperation
for this is the end of her vouthful dreams
of happy lovemaking—prepares a dose of
veronal. She comes down in search of
Dorsday; the orchestra- is playing Schu¬
mann’s“Carneval''; slie faints, and falls as
dead, a sensational scandal. She is brought
to her room by friends, but manages to
secure the veronal. And so this intense
little drama ends, carried throngh practical¬
ly entirely in the words of its chief figure.
Vet what a world of viciousness, weakness,
futility, and pitiful sacrifize of youth we
are allowed #to see, through her eyes.
Schnitzler has never written anything to
surpass this, and there are very few short
stories in the world’s literature we should
care to place above it.
Foreign Notes
Two plays that have recently made their
appearance are interesting not alone as
dramas but as obiter dicka, as it were, on
the recent history of the Central Empires.
rung' (Berlin: Fischer), a comedy in its
author’s accustomed vein, is also a portrayal
of Vienna in the weeks immediately pre¬
ceding the war, after the issuance of the
ultimatum to Serbia, and as such acquires
significance as a reflection of the mood of
the Austrian nation in the fatal days before
the onset of the world struggle. Ludwig
Fulda's Die Gegenkandidaten' (Stutt¬
gart: Cotta'sche Buchandlung Nachfolger),
Under the editorship of Guido Adler the
Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt has just issued
a stout volume, entitled“ Handbuch der
Musikgeschichte,? which should prove of
great value to all students of music. The
book is a history of its subject, dealing
not with personalities but with develop¬
ments, and its various chapters have been
contributed by authorities in their different
Gelds. It covers the annals of music from
the carliest times to the present day.
* *
A book that should command the attention
of workers in the mediaval field has just
made its appearance in R. Menendez Pidal’s
Pocsia Juglaresta y Juglares' (Madrid:
Revista de Filologia Espafiola). The book
deals entirely with the Spanish juglar, the
singer and musician. It is characterized by
broad and understanding scholarship, sub¬
tlety, and humor.
*
*
In the second number of Commerce, the
new periodical, Léon-Paul Fargue protests
vith some vehemence against the literary
exoticism of his frien Morand, Giraudonx,
and Valery Larbaud, in whose novels and
short stories the sleeping-car and the big
caravanserai too often serve not only as a
background, but as the actual raison d’èire
of the whole work. The Ritz and Majes¬
tic hotels, he says, have becomedes bouil¬
lons de littérature diplomatique.Beware
of too many quotations in English, Italian
Vou make me
or Spanish,? he adds:
think of a hotel-porter pasting labels on
luggage. If the port de la Villette or
the Canal St. Martin were located in Venice
or Amsterdam, you would think them ad¬
mirable; hut von do not even know them.
) Fargue aptly recalls that when he
*
wrote his Bateau Ivre,? Rimbaud, the boy¬
poct, had never scen the sea.
* *
In his“Hans Holbein d. J.: Zeichnungen?
(Basel: Schwabe) Curt Glaser has furnished
a study of the artist which is deserving of
high praise. Confining itself to the dis¬
cussion of Holbein’s drawings, it traces the
development of the artist’s genius, present¬
ing brilliant commentary on individual
works but never losing sight of the larger
aspects of its thesis.
Just Out—Nei
One of the best of livir
By the author of““
4 Seinging Tale
of piracy, smuggli
Tar
Packed with adventure, dre
tale sweeps the reader back n
tells the further adventures
chivalrous Ortho Penhale, wh
involve fierce sca battles in the
off the Cornish Coast, slave-rt
and lovemaking.
HIGH
Two Large Printings Be
Each, 82.00 at all
FR)
Publishers