—
box 36/3
Pamphlets, offprints
ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
597
formed. His women are ladies of the world or gemt-mon¬
darer, seldom women with work to do; for the most part
“ frailty' is their name, and the charm with which Viennese
ladies are generously credited is nearly always theirs; to
love and be loved—or to miss that—their whole occupation.
In later life their charm ripens rather than the reverse.
His mothers are excellent. Betty, for example, in Dar
Vermächtni, with her calm absorption in Hugo, and
quiet disregard of her husband’s obtuse verbosity, recalls
many a patient wife wedded to a pretentious fool. Frau
Theren, who makes no pretence of understanding, but cares
for the creature comforts of her daughters, and has more
penetration, perhaps, than she is credited with, is another
admirable type. Frau Nardi, the mother of“ Beatrice
with the Veil,? has driven her husband crazy by past
misconduct, but she loves and defends her daughter in her
own fashion; she remains a vulgar, but a very human, soul.
If the discussion upon the relative valuc of Character
and Plot in drama, which, after all, reduces itself to an
absurdity, were raised in Schnitzler’s case, Character would
have it. His art is to set living beings before us by
means of polished, witty, often subtle, dialogue, and to
present pictures of interacting groups. His situations are
limited in range, and invariably concerned with personal
relations. If he has not reached the highest pitch in
tragedy, of how few modern playwrights can we say
otherwise? Below the tragic, his treatment of emotions
is varied and true. He can be pathetic, whimsical, ironical,
grotesque, playful at will. His style is gracefu' and literary,
and therefore (I maintain) essentially actable. He never
lapses into solemn, but unimportant, episodes and digressions,
in which such belauded writers as Frenssen or Beyerlein
indulge. His greatest distinction is that, pre-eminently
among modern German writers, he has wooed the Muse
of Comedy—and not in vain.
FANNy JOHNsON