Liebelei
5. „ box 11/2
ee e ien en 1e 1n . en eee ee seee en enenseene eesece
tue, and guarded his sister down the joyless
of those of the life beneath it. The idea
pathof her life to a dreary age and death.
that gives form to the play and color to its
The experience saddened him and made
atmosphere is not the narrow creed of a
him tender. He doubts the sterner morali¬
propagandist, but the large, the all embrac¬
ties. Youth comes but once. Why should
ing vision of a poet.
not Catherine taste of the natural joysofthe
One of the scenes, that of the third of the
senses, indulge the natural promptings of
four acts, has a breadth and intensity of
her heart? When temptation comes he
effect which must have escaped those who
knows it, but pretends not to know. She
found the piece undramatic. The fishing
falls in love with a young student and gives
fleet is at sea, and a tempest has sprung up
berself up to him.
more terrible than any in living memory.
But to him love is a pastime, and he takes
The woren folk gather about the hearth
up with Catherine only as a means of escape
of old Kniertie, and with the wind howling
about the rude hut and shaking its roof
from an amour that threatened to prove
they beguile their fears with tales of ancient
dangerous. It does, in fact, become most
fatalities. At first these are grotesquely
dangerous. The husband of his former mis¬
humorous—mad efforts to exorcise present
tress finds a package of letters, and kills
terrors with rude laughter at past perils.
him in the inevitable duel. After he is dead
Then they become grimly matter of fact
Christina learns the truth. She cannot go
and awful.
to his funeral, though the privilege is given
Old Kniertje, who long ago lost her hus¬
to mere friends. She cannot even go to his
band and two sons, has sent her remaining
grave without risk of there confronting the
two sons to sea. One is a mere lad, with a
dishonored wife. Chance seems to play a
congenital horror of the ocean sprung from
part here, but sooner or later the affair must
the fatalities among which he was born.
have come to just about this—the love of a
Kniertie, heroic of spirit, but dully unre¬
woman’s lifetime sacrificed to a man's ca¬
sponsive to the pity of the lad’s plight, has
price. With fine irony the author called this
with her #wn hands given him over to the
play Caresses.? To our more rigid moral¬
officers to be forced on board. The other
ity it is The Reckoning.“
son is the socialist and jailbird, who has
For two acts it seems rather familiar and
made it a test of his mother’s forgiveness
slight. The time is long past when sym¬
that she come to the dock to say good-by.
pathy can be aroused in the theatre over
She has not done so, having been prevented
Continental amours and duels. It is, I
by the effort to force the younger to what
think, a mistake in dramaturgy that the
she regarded as his duty. She has now
story is told from the point of view of the
come to suspect, what the audience has
man, who is a very ordinary fellow at best.
all along known, thatthe ship in which they
It is only with the disclosure of the soul of
are laboring through this storm is rotten
the old musician that the tragedy becomes
in every plank and timber, and has been
authentic and poignant. There are cases, 1
sent out by the smack owner in the hppe
he makes us feel, in which virtue is
of collecting the insurance on her, Still
its only reward—a Barmecide feast that
the stories go on, mounting by insensible
brings starvation of the body and the soul.
gradations from fearto a horror that ourdlee
But the alternative? Would you choose to
the blood. At last a young girl cries oht
grow lean and gray in purity, or to perish in
against it all in agony. The room is
the flames of passion? It is a sentimental,
cleared, and it transpires that she is with
if you will, an unmoral question, but Vienna
child by the elder son, who has delayed
is the town of sentimental unmorals.
their marriage until his return.
The quality of drama, it has been said
Not all of novelty in the drama is to be
is to present character in action to the
found in the püblictheatres. Last Thurs¬
eye. But the measure of the greatness of
day evening before the Barnard Club Miss
a scene is rather what it suggests to the
Florence Farr gave a lecture on Greek
vision of heart and mind. Throughout
choruses, in reality a recital inwhat is sup¬
that scene ono sees out beyond the miser¬
posed to be the manner of the Greeks; and
able hut and the tortured women the form
next Wednesday afternoon before the same
of the rotten smack Good Hope—the pious
club she will take up lyric poetry in the
English translator has apparently thought
same manner.
it unmeet to give it the full irony of its
Miss Farr is already recognized in Eng¬
Dutch name, The Hopeof Salration—break¬
land astheexponent of anew art in reading
ing up under the impactof wind and waves,
verse. She calls it lilting.“ It is neither
the one son drowning with a heart full of
singing nor what the Germans call melo¬
his mother’s unforgiving severity and of
drame'—a system of "speaking through
his swectheart’s ruin and disgrace, and
music,“ but consists in reciting poetic num¬
the other crushed by the actual horrors
bers with an irregular, sometimes inter¬
which all his life he has suffered in imagina¬
mittent, cadencethat is at once musical and
tion. If the piece that makes all this live
quite natural to the speaking voice. W. B.
for us is not a play let us be thankful that
Teats is the begetter of the idea of lilting,
it is not.
and Arnold Dolmetch has furnished forth#
It is customary to say that the play de¬
with the musicianly skill Mr. Yeats lacks.
rives from lbsen, in whose Pillars of
The experiment, which is already much
Society' there is an incident closely re¬
more than an experiment, deserves the
sembling that of the smack owner and the
attention of all who are interested in the
death ship. But realist though Ibsen is
subtler phrases of dramatio art.
he has never given us a picture of life as
Atthe end of the month Miss Farr leaves
detailed or as redolent of actuality as this.
us to goto Boston, but promises to return
The direct ancestor of The Hope of Salva¬
for further illustrative talks and confé¬
tion' is Gerhart Hauptmann. What the
rences.
JoHN CoRBIN.
Silesian realist has done for his weavere
the Dutchman has done for his fisher folk.
Poacher Outwitted Keeper.
Die Weber“ is the stage epicof starvation,
From the London Standard.
Die Hoffnung auf Segen' that of death in
A French provincial paper has a story of a
thesea. And with their morethan Ibsenian
gamekeeper who, going his rounds one night,
power of creating the form and pressure
saw a poacher and pursued him, but lost
him on the highway in the darkness.
of the life of a people they have a wealth
Soon a motor car came up, and the keep¬
of tenderness, afeeling for the blind heroism,
er accepted an offer from the occupants
the mute endurance of humanity, denied
to get in for the purpose of following the#
poacher. But nothing could be seen of the
to the grim old Norwegian.
culprit, and when the keeper asked to be
Nothing could be further removed than
put down there was a burst of laughter, and
auch a piece from the traditions of English
an intimation he would find himself in Paris
before morning.
nthe twilight the motor
acting, the powers of English actors.
stopped in the Place de la Concorde, the
Hans Landsberg has drawn this distinction
keeper was thrown out, and the party—
Which of course included the poscher—
between North German and Parisian acting
drove away. The unlucky keeper had to
that one is a darstellung, the other a vor¬
pawn his gun in order to pay his train fare
stellung—words only inadequately trans-] back.