to provoko discussion puts him in a somewhat different
rank fromthat in which we should otherwise be inclined to
place him. For it is not likely that transiated Wedekind
will ever be popular, at any rate in England. At first
sight he is undoubtedly repellent—and worse. Wedekind
has been compared to a person whio by some freak or fault
of nature paints with his toes or his lips instead of with
his hands. Thus Wedekind aims at being a prophet and
a preacher of lofty“ moral?’ by writings that on the face
of them suggest rather than discourage wickedness. We
are fain to accept this explanation the more readily that in
his latest trilogy there is no dressing up of vice to look like
virtue. All the characters are equally detestable, and
equally (let us hope) inhuman. They are human animals,
but very little more. Leonore in In allen Sätteln gerecht
consents to marry the murderer of her first husband, chiefly
(we gather) out of admiration for his colossal impudence,
Rudolf has planned an intrigue between Graf Gystrow and
his own wife, by means of anonymous letters, in order to
have tho excuse of a duel in which the Count is certain to
be killed. Thien ho offers Leonore to share tho guilty
secret as his wife or to give him up to justice:—
LEONORE.—Und auf dieses Geständnis hin soll ich Ihnen
angehören?
RünidEn.—Sie sollen nicht mir gehören! Sie gehören sich
selbit ! Die Ehe ist für den Menschon da, nicht dor Mensch für
die Ehe!
Ihr Glück, Ihre freie Entwicklung, das sind
die heiligsten Ziele unseres Zusammenlebens.
And further .—
LzoNonz.—Glaubst du denn wirklich, dass die Frau ebensoviel
Recht zur Untreue hat, wie der Mann?
RüDlGER.—
Selbstverstündlich hat der Mann ein
unvergleichlich grösseres Recht auf Untreue als die Frau. Auf
—
Smith, Eder & Co. SList
NEW 6/- FICTION.
Brazenhead the Great.
By MAURICE HEWLETT.
DTLF NENS.—“ The result of Mr. Hewlett's artifices is a book of
excellent humour and fant.sy.
Those who are not too impatient of
the author’s mannerisins will flnd it much the best book he has written in
recent Fears.“
DILF CHRONICLE.—“ He could win the fight with tongue, wits,
and sword. and, on occaslon, needed all those weapons of defensive offenee.
Brazenhead the Great is great indeed. We shall mneet him again.
he is, as are so many heroes of like powers and humour, incapable of merely
one burial in a book.“
SCOTSMN.— This magniflcent medisval swashbuekler. IIis
new and old adventures will greatly delight and entertain.“
DAILP GRAPH10.—“ By St. Deuis, ay! by the face, he telleth it
well, doth Messire Maurice Hewlett, this story of the Captain Brazenhead.“
The Story of Cecilia.
By KATHIAARINE TTNAN.
MORNING POS7.—“
There is an old-world grace and delicateness about
The Story of Cecilia.' The, story is a quiet and calln one, well expressed
u che form of a prose idyll.
THE TIMES.—“ A gentle, kindly tale of Irish country society.“
The“ Wine-Drinker,
and other Storics. By W. J. BATCHELDER.
With a Frontispiece.
SHEFFIELD DAILF TELEGRAPH.—“ They make very delighttnl
reading, especially those which, deal with some of the fantastic supersti¬
tions characteristic of seamen.“
The Case of Letitia.
By ALEXANDRA WATSON.
The Major’s Niece.
By GEORGE A. BIRMINGILAM, Author of“ Spanish
77
Gold," The Seething Pot, &c.
Crown 8vo, 68.
The Belmont Book.
VADOS.“ With a Preface by ARNOLD
BENNETT.
Life in Normandy, and arnonk Norman peasants, as seen through
a pair of kindly and penetrating English eyes.
Large Post Svo, 38. 6d. net.
The Religious Aspects of
Disestablishment and
Disendowment.
By the Right Rev. BISHOP WELLDON, Dean
Manchester, Author of“ The Gospel in a Great City,
Ec.
SOUTH W.ALES DAILY NENS.—“ Should be read by all Interested
in the present struggle between Nonconformity and the Church in Wales.“
LUNDe
N
e
works. Ho is a force to be reckoned with, thongli it 1.
perhaps fortunate that, so far, he las no direct imitators.
Two yotnger dramatists—Schmidtbonn and Hermann
Essig—are, among others, noticcably influeneed by his
diction. But Essig at least sccmns likely to develop on
his own lines, since so far he has kept well within the compass
of actual experience. The German peasant is as familiar
a figure and as much a stock subject of comedy or tragedy
as the farmer with us is unfamiliar. Essig’s peasants do
not diverge from the usual type, but they aro vigorously
and strongly individualized. The lucky cow (Gückskuh) is
stolen by a maiden whio hopes by a show of wealthto obtain
a lover, otherwise an impossibility in the mercenary com¬
munity. The whole township knows all about the theft
and is aware of her guilt, but by skilful legerde¬
main she is acquitted by tho Rechstanwalt, and
leads both cow and lover triumphantly home. Thus, not
virtue but cunning is rewarded, the moral being
that of a folk-lore tale rather than of a tract, and the
whole atmosphere being skilfully rendered in the same sense.
We llave called attcntion before to the excellent sincerity
and workmanlike qualities of this writer. He is gaining,
too, in the technique of his art, and if he can only have
patience and self-restraint enough to work at subjects
that appeal to himself, without consideration of his
possible public, he may attain to a place among first-rate
dramatists. Schmidtbonn has already fallen from his
first estate. In Hilje the baneful effect of the new#
morality is again apparent. Rebellious daughters of one
kind or another are plentiful everywhere nowadays. But
it is difficult to believe that the daughter of wealthy, though
rigid and narrow, parents like the father and mother of!
Vogelsang should be ready to cast in her lot with and accept
as a husband the man whio entered her father’s house as
a literal thief and stole her honour. There is much good
writing and much true painding of emotion in this play.
Maria’s mother-love to the unwished-for babe and the##
grief and disiliusion of Vogelsang are beautifully expressed.
Bischof, the burgfer, is becoming a favourite type with
novelists and playwrights, though we much doubt Whether
these gentry would heartily welcomo such a personago to
their own fireside.
A new“ Seimitzler' is a dramatic event that will soon
perhaps be eagerly looked for in London as well as in
Vienna. In Der junge Medardus an attempt, not altogether
successful, is made at combining novel with history and!
drama. Like all dramatists to the manner born, Sehnitzler
is haunted by the idea of a world-drama. His picture is
on the scale of Clive Newcome’s grand battle-piece. Citizens,
sokliers, burghers, princes, lovers are all crowded into the
scene. No living dramatist, perhaps no dramatist, has
ever so successfully as Selmitzler rendered that emotion
that every lover of his kind must feel when he witnesses#
the stream of passing humanity that flows along ever##
street of every big town, the crowd of strangers, at whose
destiny and at whose thoughts and desires he can only dimly
guess. The young Medardus, who is fulfilling his own destiny
amid the world-shaking events of the Napoleonie wars
(1809 is the date), is no heroie figure. His sister cast away
her life for love of the titular Prince de Valois, the heir¬
presumptive to the Crown of France. Medardus thinks
to revenge her by obtaining the love of the Prince’s proud
sister Helene, and thien proclaiming her disgrace. It is
asort of plot that is bound to defeat its own ends. Helene
is the stronger character of tlie two. She delies Medardus
at the moment wlien he is about to denounce her before her
family. She offers him love as the priee for the murder of
Napoleon, and thus makes the deed'’ on which he is
already determined a shameful instead of an heroic act.
Finally he stabs her to the heart, just as she herself is
prepared to assassinate the tyrant, and thus inadvertently
saves the life he intended to aim at. Medardus confesses
his guilty intention, refuses the pardon that Napoleon
offers, and thus at length, by a sort of accident, dies for his
country. It is not a satisfactory story, unless one takes
it merely as a piece of Selmitzlerian irony. Medardus is
a wavering Hamlet, but he is drawn aside from his purpose
by ignoble temptation. There is little that is generous or
attractive in him from first to last. Only the very greatest
writers can create protagonists of absorbing vitality. In.
the lesse. details and in minor characters Schnitzler’s art
is transcendent.
—
1. cof the pollectod #
1—
—
rank fromthat in which we should otherwise be inclined to
place him. For it is not likely that transiated Wedekind
will ever be popular, at any rate in England. At first
sight he is undoubtedly repellent—and worse. Wedekind
has been compared to a person whio by some freak or fault
of nature paints with his toes or his lips instead of with
his hands. Thus Wedekind aims at being a prophet and
a preacher of lofty“ moral?’ by writings that on the face
of them suggest rather than discourage wickedness. We
are fain to accept this explanation the more readily that in
his latest trilogy there is no dressing up of vice to look like
virtue. All the characters are equally detestable, and
equally (let us hope) inhuman. They are human animals,
but very little more. Leonore in In allen Sätteln gerecht
consents to marry the murderer of her first husband, chiefly
(we gather) out of admiration for his colossal impudence,
Rudolf has planned an intrigue between Graf Gystrow and
his own wife, by means of anonymous letters, in order to
have tho excuse of a duel in which the Count is certain to
be killed. Thien ho offers Leonore to share tho guilty
secret as his wife or to give him up to justice:—
LEONORE.—Und auf dieses Geständnis hin soll ich Ihnen
angehören?
RünidEn.—Sie sollen nicht mir gehören! Sie gehören sich
selbit ! Die Ehe ist für den Menschon da, nicht dor Mensch für
die Ehe!
Ihr Glück, Ihre freie Entwicklung, das sind
die heiligsten Ziele unseres Zusammenlebens.
And further .—
LzoNonz.—Glaubst du denn wirklich, dass die Frau ebensoviel
Recht zur Untreue hat, wie der Mann?
RüDlGER.—
Selbstverstündlich hat der Mann ein
unvergleichlich grösseres Recht auf Untreue als die Frau. Auf
—
Smith, Eder & Co. SList
NEW 6/- FICTION.
Brazenhead the Great.
By MAURICE HEWLETT.
DTLF NENS.—“ The result of Mr. Hewlett's artifices is a book of
excellent humour and fant.sy.
Those who are not too impatient of
the author’s mannerisins will flnd it much the best book he has written in
recent Fears.“
DILF CHRONICLE.—“ He could win the fight with tongue, wits,
and sword. and, on occaslon, needed all those weapons of defensive offenee.
Brazenhead the Great is great indeed. We shall mneet him again.
he is, as are so many heroes of like powers and humour, incapable of merely
one burial in a book.“
SCOTSMN.— This magniflcent medisval swashbuekler. IIis
new and old adventures will greatly delight and entertain.“
DAILP GRAPH10.—“ By St. Deuis, ay! by the face, he telleth it
well, doth Messire Maurice Hewlett, this story of the Captain Brazenhead.“
The Story of Cecilia.
By KATHIAARINE TTNAN.
MORNING POS7.—“
There is an old-world grace and delicateness about
The Story of Cecilia.' The, story is a quiet and calln one, well expressed
u che form of a prose idyll.
THE TIMES.—“ A gentle, kindly tale of Irish country society.“
The“ Wine-Drinker,
and other Storics. By W. J. BATCHELDER.
With a Frontispiece.
SHEFFIELD DAILF TELEGRAPH.—“ They make very delighttnl
reading, especially those which, deal with some of the fantastic supersti¬
tions characteristic of seamen.“
The Case of Letitia.
By ALEXANDRA WATSON.
The Major’s Niece.
By GEORGE A. BIRMINGILAM, Author of“ Spanish
77
Gold," The Seething Pot, &c.
Crown 8vo, 68.
The Belmont Book.
VADOS.“ With a Preface by ARNOLD
BENNETT.
Life in Normandy, and arnonk Norman peasants, as seen through
a pair of kindly and penetrating English eyes.
Large Post Svo, 38. 6d. net.
The Religious Aspects of
Disestablishment and
Disendowment.
By the Right Rev. BISHOP WELLDON, Dean
Manchester, Author of“ The Gospel in a Great City,
Ec.
SOUTH W.ALES DAILY NENS.—“ Should be read by all Interested
in the present struggle between Nonconformity and the Church in Wales.“
LUNDe
N
e
works. Ho is a force to be reckoned with, thongli it 1.
perhaps fortunate that, so far, he las no direct imitators.
Two yotnger dramatists—Schmidtbonn and Hermann
Essig—are, among others, noticcably influeneed by his
diction. But Essig at least sccmns likely to develop on
his own lines, since so far he has kept well within the compass
of actual experience. The German peasant is as familiar
a figure and as much a stock subject of comedy or tragedy
as the farmer with us is unfamiliar. Essig’s peasants do
not diverge from the usual type, but they aro vigorously
and strongly individualized. The lucky cow (Gückskuh) is
stolen by a maiden whio hopes by a show of wealthto obtain
a lover, otherwise an impossibility in the mercenary com¬
munity. The whole township knows all about the theft
and is aware of her guilt, but by skilful legerde¬
main she is acquitted by tho Rechstanwalt, and
leads both cow and lover triumphantly home. Thus, not
virtue but cunning is rewarded, the moral being
that of a folk-lore tale rather than of a tract, and the
whole atmosphere being skilfully rendered in the same sense.
We llave called attcntion before to the excellent sincerity
and workmanlike qualities of this writer. He is gaining,
too, in the technique of his art, and if he can only have
patience and self-restraint enough to work at subjects
that appeal to himself, without consideration of his
possible public, he may attain to a place among first-rate
dramatists. Schmidtbonn has already fallen from his
first estate. In Hilje the baneful effect of the new#
morality is again apparent. Rebellious daughters of one
kind or another are plentiful everywhere nowadays. But
it is difficult to believe that the daughter of wealthy, though
rigid and narrow, parents like the father and mother of!
Vogelsang should be ready to cast in her lot with and accept
as a husband the man whio entered her father’s house as
a literal thief and stole her honour. There is much good
writing and much true painding of emotion in this play.
Maria’s mother-love to the unwished-for babe and the##
grief and disiliusion of Vogelsang are beautifully expressed.
Bischof, the burgfer, is becoming a favourite type with
novelists and playwrights, though we much doubt Whether
these gentry would heartily welcomo such a personago to
their own fireside.
A new“ Seimitzler' is a dramatic event that will soon
perhaps be eagerly looked for in London as well as in
Vienna. In Der junge Medardus an attempt, not altogether
successful, is made at combining novel with history and!
drama. Like all dramatists to the manner born, Sehnitzler
is haunted by the idea of a world-drama. His picture is
on the scale of Clive Newcome’s grand battle-piece. Citizens,
sokliers, burghers, princes, lovers are all crowded into the
scene. No living dramatist, perhaps no dramatist, has
ever so successfully as Selmitzler rendered that emotion
that every lover of his kind must feel when he witnesses#
the stream of passing humanity that flows along ever##
street of every big town, the crowd of strangers, at whose
destiny and at whose thoughts and desires he can only dimly
guess. The young Medardus, who is fulfilling his own destiny
amid the world-shaking events of the Napoleonie wars
(1809 is the date), is no heroie figure. His sister cast away
her life for love of the titular Prince de Valois, the heir¬
presumptive to the Crown of France. Medardus thinks
to revenge her by obtaining the love of the Prince’s proud
sister Helene, and thien proclaiming her disgrace. It is
asort of plot that is bound to defeat its own ends. Helene
is the stronger character of tlie two. She delies Medardus
at the moment wlien he is about to denounce her before her
family. She offers him love as the priee for the murder of
Napoleon, and thus makes the deed'’ on which he is
already determined a shameful instead of an heroic act.
Finally he stabs her to the heart, just as she herself is
prepared to assassinate the tyrant, and thus inadvertently
saves the life he intended to aim at. Medardus confesses
his guilty intention, refuses the pardon that Napoleon
offers, and thus at length, by a sort of accident, dies for his
country. It is not a satisfactory story, unless one takes
it merely as a piece of Selmitzlerian irony. Medardus is
a wavering Hamlet, but he is drawn aside from his purpose
by ignoble temptation. There is little that is generous or
attractive in him from first to last. Only the very greatest
writers can create protagonists of absorbing vitality. In.
the lesse. details and in minor characters Schnitzler’s art
is transcendent.
—
1. cof the pollectod #
1—
—