2. Guttings
box 37/7
Akrnuk SchNirzzek's Daauaric Wonk 297
so it is that Schnitzler’s work has also its scientific side. His
dramas are, in the last analysis, little more than free studies
in the psychology of sex, but let us remember that this field
may ultimately be broadened to take in the whole of man's
endeavor. We know not how much of maternal love, and
paternal pride,—how much of our Art and Religion,—how
much of our appreciation of a summer sunset or the joy in
spring—may be possible only through the existence of this
element in our make-up. Let us not then, minify the field of
Schnitzler's endeavor until we are sure Lilliput will
not become Brobdingnag when the microscope of our own
ignorance is removed.
Arthur Schnitzler was born in Vienna on May 15, 1862, the
son of a renowned Jewish physician. He studied medieine
at the University of Vienna and obtained the degree of
Doctor of Medicine in 1885. After graduation, he was en¬
hospitals. He
gaged for two years in one of the large
began early to contribute poems and p. sketches to the
literary journals of the day. It was as this early period of
his life, also, that he became interested in psychic phenomena,
especially hypnotism and suggestion, to which we find refer¬
ences in his Anatol and Paracelsus. After a short trip to
England, he settled down in Vienna as a practicing physician.
It is probable that Schnitzler's application to his literary
labors was not altogether pleasing to his father, and we find
many instances in his works of that“conflict of the genera¬
tions' '—that incompatibility of youth and age—which usually
takes the form of a protest against interference on the part
of a parent in the son'’s choice of a profession.
The case of a creative genius in the realm of letters who,
at the same time, is an active and successful medical practi¬
tioner and to whom literature is only a side-line at best, is
so extraordinary that we are justified in expecting to find
a casual relation between the peculiar nature of his vocation
and his manner of living, on the one hand, and the turn which
his artistic labors has taken, on the other. This relation can
be plainly established, I think, in the case of Schnitzler. It
box 37/7
Akrnuk SchNirzzek's Daauaric Wonk 297
so it is that Schnitzler’s work has also its scientific side. His
dramas are, in the last analysis, little more than free studies
in the psychology of sex, but let us remember that this field
may ultimately be broadened to take in the whole of man's
endeavor. We know not how much of maternal love, and
paternal pride,—how much of our Art and Religion,—how
much of our appreciation of a summer sunset or the joy in
spring—may be possible only through the existence of this
element in our make-up. Let us not then, minify the field of
Schnitzler's endeavor until we are sure Lilliput will
not become Brobdingnag when the microscope of our own
ignorance is removed.
Arthur Schnitzler was born in Vienna on May 15, 1862, the
son of a renowned Jewish physician. He studied medieine
at the University of Vienna and obtained the degree of
Doctor of Medicine in 1885. After graduation, he was en¬
hospitals. He
gaged for two years in one of the large
began early to contribute poems and p. sketches to the
literary journals of the day. It was as this early period of
his life, also, that he became interested in psychic phenomena,
especially hypnotism and suggestion, to which we find refer¬
ences in his Anatol and Paracelsus. After a short trip to
England, he settled down in Vienna as a practicing physician.
It is probable that Schnitzler's application to his literary
labors was not altogether pleasing to his father, and we find
many instances in his works of that“conflict of the genera¬
tions' '—that incompatibility of youth and age—which usually
takes the form of a protest against interference on the part
of a parent in the son'’s choice of a profession.
The case of a creative genius in the realm of letters who,
at the same time, is an active and successful medical practi¬
tioner and to whom literature is only a side-line at best, is
so extraordinary that we are justified in expecting to find
a casual relation between the peculiar nature of his vocation
and his manner of living, on the one hand, and the turn which
his artistic labors has taken, on the other. This relation can
be plainly established, I think, in the case of Schnitzler. It